FBI Stats Show Property Crime Is Up Throughout The Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — The FBI statistics released on Monday show violent crime and especially property crime up all over the Bay Area last year and trending into 2013.
San Francisco saw violent crime go up 7.5 percent last year, but property crime was up over 18 percent.
Local police departments talked about what's working and what still needs attention.
FBI Stats Show Property Crime Is Up Throughout The Bay Area
"Gun seizures this year are three times what they were last year, so our officers are in the right place talking to the right people for the right reasons and we're having an impact on violent crime," said San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr.
Oakland saw crime go up nearly 20 percent, while property crime went up 26 percent.
"It tends to be a small group of people committing a large percentage of those crimes. It's all really identifying who those people are and making good arrests on them for that," said Oakland interim Police Chief Sean Whent.
Some of those suspects are arrested in adjacent Berkeley, where property crime is up 18 percent.
Sgt. Chris Stines, President of the Berkeley Police Officers Association, said with fewer cops on the street, he's lobbying for Tasers as a way to give the rank and file the tools they need to keep up.
"We don't have canines. We don't have Tasers. There are a lot of modern policing tools that we don't have access to in this city," Stines said.
San Jose, which has been struggling with a recent spike in violence, saw robberies, burglaries and auto thefts up 29.5 percent
"We had eight detectives at one point. Now we're down to two detectives, and they're basically just handling in-custody cases, meaning people that were arrested as a result of committing some sort of a burglary," San Jose Police Spokesman Albert Morales said.
Most blame the crime increase on realignment, the struggling economy, as well as the preponderance of cell phone thieves.
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