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In A Few Days, City Hall Will Release LB's 2019 Crime Stat Totals. Here's What The Stats Won't Show You And LB's Mayor/Council May Not Tell You


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(Jan. 5, 2020, 10:30 a.m.) -- In the coming days, the City of Long Beach will release an initial version of LB's 2019 crime stats. If it follows the pattern of previous years, it will show "citywide" crimes (a metric that which combines high crime and low crime areas) and may include data from LBPD's geographic Divisions (including North, South, East and West). Data for LBPD Divisions don't show crimes per Council districts because each LBPD Division spans more than one Council district. LBPD previously provided crime stats (for all major ("Part 1") crimes for each Council district but this ended without Council dissent under Mayor Beverly O'Neill and hasn't been restored by Councils under Mayors Foster or Garcia.

The citywide data will acknowledge that in 2019, LB had [depending on how tallied] 32-34 murders. This total is higher than the five year average (a metric LBPD has used) and is the highest annual murder total in the past nine years [2018 (30), 2017 (22), 2016 (32), 2015 (31), 2014 (21).2013 (33), 2012 (30), 2011 (26), 2010 (31), 2009 (44); Source: most recent LBPD online data through 2012 plus LBREPORT.com and other media archival accounts.] (Note: LB's 2019 murders include two crime scenes with more than one deceased; one had three victims; another had two; LB's 2018 murder total included two crime scenes with two deceased; federal crime reporting rules count each victim as a separate murder.)

However murders don't tell the full story. Assuming they follow the pattern of previous years, here's what LB's publicly released crime stats won't show.

[Scroll down for further.]






  • The number of murders by Council districts This protects Council incumbents in districts with the most murders and conceals the inequity experienced by residents of LB's mainly working class neighborhoods. LB's City Council could vote to direct LBPD to make murder data per Council district routinely available but it hasn't.

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  • The number of shootings in Long Beach LB's crime stats don't reveal the number of shootings either citywide or by Council district, and regardless of whether they're fatal, non-fatal, with no-persons hit or struck residences or vehicles.). Like most police agencies, LBPD includes shootings among "aggravated assaults" (a category that can include bar fights with a beer bottle.) In Los Angeles, LAPD crime stats display shootings; in L.A. County's second largest city, Long Beach crime stats doesn't display shootings. (LBREPORT.com inquires about shootings daily allowing us to report them as they occur and unofficially cumulate them.) The Council could direct LBPD to make LB's shooting crime stats routinely available including by Council districts, but it hasn't.

    The number of shootings is also likely under-reported, since LBPD currently depends on reports of gunfire phoned-in by residents or heard by patrol officers, who may or may not be able to confirm whether it was fireworks or if it was gunfire exactly where it occurred. LBPD management hasn't supported acquisition of digital gunfire location technology (such as "ShotSpotter" used by a number of other jurisdictions) that within seconds can identify the location of gunfire and distinguish between fireworks and gunfire. LBPD management's stance has given LB's Mayor and Council political cover for not budgeting its acquisition and deployment here.

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  • Neighborhood impacting "quality of life" crimes These include crimes commonly (though not exclusively) associated with a portion of LB's vagrant/homeless population. LBPD doesn't separately itemize specific misdemeanor "quality of life" crimes; it simply includes them among "Part II" crimes making it impossible for residents (and the press) to know whether offenses commonly associated with vagrancy/homelessness/addictions are up, down, or unchanged, and if so in what parts of the city. This has been exacerbated by CA's voter-enacted Prop 47, which turned thefts of items valued at less than $950 into misdemeanors, which downgraded some crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, including thefts/robberies under $950. These continnue to be itemized (since they're considered "Part 1" crimes; the level of crime doesn't matter; the type of crime determiesn whether the crime is separately itemized. However by downgrading the crimes to misdemeanors, Prop 47 may leave some victims or officers reluctant to make formal reports of these and other misdemeanor crimes, which may result in suppressing their reported numbers. LB's City Council could direct LBPD to itemize homeless/vagrant-related Part II "quality of life" crimes but it hasn't.

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    LBPD will subsequently release detailed crime stats for neighborhood-size reporting districts. Unfortunately, it it has traditionally done so in a hard-copy scanned format that makes it unnecessarily time consuming and burdensome for residents (and for the press) to compare and analyze. LB Mayor garcia (who says he's "data-driven") and the Council (which has approved an "open data" policy) could vote to direct LBPD to make its neighborhood size crime stats available in a user-friendly digital spread-sheet format but hasn't done so.

    LBREPORT.com will report LB's 2019 crime stats when released.

    Jan. 15, 6:50 a.m. Clarifier added re Prop 47 impacts on reported "quality of life" crimes,]


    Support really independent news in Long Beach. No one in LBREPORT.com's ownership, reporting or editorial decision-making has ties to development interests, advocacy groups or other special interests; or is seeking or receiving benefits of City development-related decisions; or holds a City Hall appointive position; or has contributed sums to political campaigns for Long Beach incumbents or challengers. LBREPORT.com isn't part of an out of town corporate cluster and no one its ownership, editorial or publishing decisionmaking has been part of the governing board of any City government body or other entity on whose policies we report. LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. You can help keep really independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.


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