FBI Mid-Year Report Shows Drop In Irving's Crime Rate

 Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd presented to the City Council his Mid-Year Crime Assessment. Most notable is the fact that the overall crime rate in Irving is down 6% in 2006 compared to the same time period in 2005. As the details regarding crime and reductions in specific categories were discussed, the following information and supporting facts were relayed as the Chief delineated the top five categories of the recently released FBI Uniform Crime Report (comparing 2005-2006):

The only homicide in the city tragicaly involved a shaken baby, and the investigation resulted in the arrest of the babysitter's boyfriend who is currently awaiting trial. The UCR category of Sexual Assault showed an increase which was almost completely attributable to domestic assault. There was no significant increase in stranger-on-stranger type sexual assaults.

Robberies were down 35% showing a total of 93. Three-quarters of these were robberies of individuals, primarily in apartment complex parking areas. Chief Boyd added that the department is hopeful that implementation of the recently adopted Crime Free Multi-Housing initiative will reduce the occurrence even more.

In the Burglary category, Irving is seeing a downward trend (lower this year than last, but slightly higher than the five year average). Two areas that appear to be a problem are residential garage burglaries and construction site burglaries (thefts of copper). The next category is a common "driver" of UCR statistics - Theft, the category which includes burglary of vehicles. Of the theft offences reported in Irving for this period, 44% were vehicle burglaries. Overall there was a 3% reduction in this category of the UCR.

One of the historically "market/accessory driven" categories of the Unified Crime Report is that of Vehicle Theft, and Irving is currently seeing a five-year-low with a total of 548 vehicles reported stolen this year compared to the five-year-average of 621 (last year's comparative was 627).

The final category of the top five presented was the offence of Aggravated Assault. Irving showed a nearly 8½% decrease in the number of cases reported, and almost half of those cases were domestic violence assaults.

Concluding the report to the council members was a listing of the top ten calls for service thru June: Alarms - 5829, E*911 - 5236, Suspicious Person - 3568, Suspicious Vehicle - 2980, Minor Accident - 2903, Traffic Hazard - 2854, Disturbance - 2800, Loud Music - 2302, 911 Pay Phone - 2266, Assist Citizen - 1955