(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 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.
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,]
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