Fact Check: Is Long Beach's Fifth Dist. Crime "Down" Or "Up"? LBREPORT.com Displays Neighborhood-Level LBPD Crime Data Here

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Prior to publishing this story, LBREPORT.com invited response and comment from City Councilwoman Stacy Mungo on May 27 and May 28 via email and alerted her via a Facebook message. As of 4:15 p.m. May 29, we received no response. LBREPORT.com will report response/comment by Councilwoman Mungo if/when received.

(May 29, 2018, 4:20 p.m.) -- In her official candidate ballot statement, re-election candidate/incumbent Councilwoman Stacy Mungo told voters "we have...decreased neighborhood crime by 18.4% and citywide crime by 11.4%." She recently reiterated part of that statement in at least two mailers in her runoff campaign: ("brought neighborhood crime down 18%" and [in a statement her campaign attributes to Mayor Garcia] "lowered our crime rate by 18%," a quoted attributed to Mayor Garcia.)

At the same time, her 5th district runoff election challenger, Rich Dines, said in a recent campaign mailer, "violent crime has skyrocketed 37% under Mungo's watch."

It's clearly newsworthy when two runoff candidates cite such conflicting figures for voters. In the public interest, LBREPORT.com provides below detailed LBPD crime statistics showing reported crime increases and deceases in the 5th Council district with associated neighborhood maps.

Mayor Garcia (who has said he's "data-driven") recently blamed social networks in part for creating a perception that neighborhood impacting crime is up. Pertinent data are below. They speak for themselves.

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Terminology / maps

LBPD reports crime statistics in two categories: "Part 1" crimes and "Part 2" crimes. These are bureaucratic classifications that all U.S. law enforcement agencies follow in reporting crime data to the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Part 1 crimes against persons are murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault. Part 1 crimes against property include residential and commercial burglary, auto burglary, grand theft, petty theft, bicycle theft, auto theft and arson.

Part 2 crimes include all crimes not included in Part 1 crimes. Part 2 crimes include non-aggravated assaults (fights where no weapon was used or no serious or aggravated injury resulted to the victim); stalking, intimidation, forgery; buying, receiving or possessing stolen property, vandalism, weapons violations, prostitution; drug abuse violations; indecent exposure, statutory rape, DUI, liquor laws, disorderly conduct (incl. disturbing the peace), vagrancy and all other offenses not specifically classified as Part 1 and Part 2 offenses except traffic violations.

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There is no official LBPD or nationally recognized definition for the term "neighborhood" crime as used by Councilwoman Mungo in her candidate statement. All crimes, whether Part 1 or Part 2, are obviously committed in some neighborhood. Whether residents believe "neighborhood crimes" should include the multiple Part 2 crimes we listed above (that Councilwoman Mungo's figure didn't include and mainly increased in the 5th district) is up to residents to decide.

LBREPORT.com provides a detailed geographic breakdown with neighborhood level maps, showing the number of 5th district reported Part 1 crimes against persons plus Part 1 crimes against property as well as Part 2 crimes. The maps display LBPD's "neighborhood reporting districts," relatively small areas to designate where crimes occur for recording purposes. For organizational clarity, we listed LBPD's neighborhood size reporting districts within recognizable (but unofficial) geographic areas.

The data cited below come from LBPD's publicly available crime statistics. They show increases/decreases in Part 1 and Part 2 crimes for 2017 compared to 2016, and for the first four months of 2018 compared to the first four months of 2017.

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Campaign claims

Regarding Council incumbent Mungo's official candidate statement that "we have decreased...neighborhood crime by 18.4%," this figure appears to have been lifted from Part 1 crimes against property in LBPD's East Division. Readers can see this by clicking on the LBPD East Division 2017 year end summary here. As a result, her figure excluded all Part 2 neighborhood-impacting crimes and was based on areas not within the 5th Council district but within Council districts 3 and 4 (because East Division extends one block west of Cherry Ave., SE to the Seal Beach city limit, and to the Lakewood and eastern LB city limits.) This also applies to the Mungo campaign's mailers claiming she "brought neighborhood crime down 18%" and [in a statement her campaign attributes to Mayor Garcia] "lowered our crime rate by 18%."

Regarding Mungo's official candidate statement that "we have reduced...citywide crime by 11.4%," we presume this figure was also lifted from Part 1 crimes against property citywide (although listed in LBPD's summary as 11.3%.) Readers can see this by clicking on the LBPD Citywide East Division year end summary here. For the record, LB's total number of crimes citywide (Part 1 + Part 2) in 2017 decreased 3.6% compared to 2016. Readers can see this by clicking on LBPD Jan 1-Dec. 31 2017 Reporting District report, p. 9.

Regarding Candidate Dines' campaign mailer statement that "violent crime has skyrocketed 37% under Mungo's watch," LBPD crime stats show that citywide violent crimes totaled 3,104 in 2017 compared to 2,269 in 2,014, a difference of 835, amounting to an increase of 36.8%. This can be seen in violent crime totals here (2014 and 2015) and here. These figures are for full calendar years 2014 through 2017. Numerical caveat: Councilwoman Mungo took office in mid-July 2014. The 2017 violent crime total doesn't reflect crime increases year to date recorded in every month of the first four months of 2018.

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LAKEWOOD VILLAGE AREA

PART 2 CRIMES

District	Jan-Apr 2017	Jan-Apr 2018	Change #	Change %
671	5	12	+7	+140.0%
672	13	16	+3	+23.0%
673	5	7	+2	+40.0%
674	4	8	+4	+100.0%
676	8	14	+6	+75.0%

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
671	19	23	+4	+21.0%
672	26	31	+5	+19.2%
673	14	27	+13	+92.8%
674	16	15	-1	-6.25%
676	16	24	+8	+50.0%

PART 1 CRIMES

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
671	52	41	-11	-21.15%
672	56	48	-8	-14.28%
673	31	23	-8	-25.8%
674	26	17	-9	-34.6%
676	35	37	+2	+5.7%

LBCC TO WARDLOW RD AREA

PART 2 CRIMES

District	Jan-Apr 2017	Jan-Apr 2018	Change #	Change %
682	00	5	+5	percentage undefined, five more than zero previously
683	6	9	+3	+50.0%
688	2	5	+3	+150.0%
689	2	3	+1	+50%

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
682	07	12	+5	+71.4%
683	10	13	+3	+30.0%
688	11	10	-1	-09.0%
689	14	11	-3	-21.4%

PART 1 CRIMES

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
682	19	9	-10	-52.6%
683	22	21	-1	-4.5%
688	17	16	-1	-5.8%
689	15	13	-2	-13.3%

WARDLOW RD TO EL DORADO PARK

PART 2 CRIMES

District	Jan-Apr 2017	Jan-April 2018	Change #	Change %
684	3	1	-2	+20%
685	4	7	+3	+15.3%
686	2	4	+2	+1,000%
687	4	4	0	+0%

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
684	10	12	+2	+20%
685	26	30	+4	+15.3%
686	01	11	+10	+1,000%
687	10	21	+11	+110%

PART 1 CRIMES

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
684	22	13	-9	-40.9%
685	26	33	+7	+26.9%
686	19	16	-3	-15.8%
687	31	22	-9	-29.0%

EL DORADO PARK EAST

PART 2 CRIMES

District	Jan-Apr 2017	Jan-Apr 2018	Change #	Change %
685	4	7	+3	+75.0%
665	5	5	0	+0%
692	14	9	-5	-35.7%
693	0	6	+6	percentage undefined, six more than zero previously
695	20	22	+2	+10.0%

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
685	26	30	+4	+15.3%
665	10	17	+7	+70%
692	26	41	+15	+57.7%
693	0	3	+3	percentage undefined, three more than previously
695	40	57	+17	+42.5%

PART 1 CRIMES

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
685	26	33	+7	+26.9%
665	35	26	-9	-25.7%
692	112	77	-35	-31.25%
693	10	2	-8	-80.0%
695	126	129	+3	+2.38%

5th DISTRICT CENTRAL-SOUTH (includes Bellflower/Spring & Plaza areas)

PART 2 CRIMES

District	Jan-Apr 2017	Jan-Apr 2018	Change #	Change %
661	5	7	+2	+40.0%
662	5	15	10	+200%
663	9	6	-3	-33.3%
664	6	15	+9	+150.0%
665	5	5	0	+0.0%
641	11	6	-5	-45.4%
642	11	6	-5	-45.4%
651	6	12	+5	+83.3%
652	1	4	+3	+300.0%
653	21	14	-7	-33.3%
654	16	15	-1	-6.25%

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
661	8	23	+15	+187.0%
662	28	21	-7	-25.0%
663	25	19	-6	-24.0%
664	27	37	+10	+37.0%
665	10	17	+7	+70.0%
641	19	28	+9	+47.3%
642	25	42	+17	+68.0%
651	22	27	+5	+22.7%
652	10	15	+5	+50.0%
653	40	63	+23	+57.5%
654	37	59	+22	+59.4%

PART 1 CRIMES

District	Jan-Dec 2016	Jan-Dec 2017	Change #	Change %
661	33	20	-13	-39.39%
662	111	73	-38	-34.2%
663	36	28	-6	-16.6%
664	27	36	+9	+33.3%
665	35	26	-9	-25.7%
641	50	27	-23	+46.0%
642	28	15	-13	-46.4%
651	38	39	+1	+2.6%
652	30	35	+5	+16.6%
653	113	86	-27	-23.89%
654	112	85	-27	-24.1%