The crime reports for East Atlanta have been posted through July 19th at 10 a.m.
With our review of crime data completed for 2017, there appear to be several key items that we've learned. First, the increase in ring doorbells, cameras and door armor has pushed burglars to target windows as their main point of entry. Residents have not adapted quickly to this trend, so this will be a point of emphasis in the community this year. We also need to look at better use of alarms, and make sure they offer protection should someone enter through a window. In too many cases, burglars are entering through a window and no alarm is going off. This is giving burglars unlimited time to go through our homes. Particularly if you don't have pets, be sure to have motion sensors that will be triggered if someone climbs through a window and doesn't set off your alarm. If we don't adapt to this new trend, we could be looking at 100 burglaries in East Atlanta this year. Even extra police presence is minimized to some degree as burglars target rear windows in most cases. The other thing each person needs to consider is package delivery. You may wish to route packages to secure locations such as your office, or FedEx can now route your packages to Walgreen's. UPS also has more options you can utilize to safeguard your package delivery. Even putting up a sign on your door telling package delivery drivers not to leave packages in plain view in front of your door is wise. Before the 2018 holiday season rolls around, or if you regularly receive packages, give some serious thought to steps you can take to prevent package theft. The same goes for mail, where locking mailboxes and P.O. Boxes should be on your radar. Do not leave outgoing mail in your mailbox, particularly checks or gift cards. Transition to paying your bills via automatic bank draft, online bill pay or even through services like PayPal, eliminating the need to send payments in outgoing mail.
Our scorecard for 2017 crime for East Atlanta has been completed. The news isn't as positive as last year, but not as bad as you would think considering the uproar on social media over every crime. Pedestrian robberies were up from 19 in 2016 to 23 in 2017. The good news is that sixteen of those were in the first half of the year, only seven were in the second half of the year. Over the past ten years, the average has been about 24 per year, with the fluctuation from year to year being fairly small. Considering that foot traffic has been increasing in and around the Village for years, safety is a lot better for pedestrians but not as good as we'd all like. Vehicle thefts maintained the improvements we saw in 2016, when the volume of these crimes dropped from 60 to 38. In 2017, the number of vehicle thefts was 37, although 26 of these were in the second half of the year. Does that mean that vehicle thefts are on the rise again? Probably not. There are always random fluctuations in certain crimes. Thus far in January of 2018, no car thefts have been reported. Burglaries were up in 2018, from 65 to 73. For the second year in a row, the volume of burglaries really jumped late in the year, with 47 of the burglaries in the second half of the year. In 2016 and 2017, October was the worst month for burglaries, and reinforces the idea that the holidays are NOT the primary driver of crime. October has been one of the worst months for burglaries over the years, but not this bad. December has not been that much of a problem over the years, although the past two years burglaries have been pretty bad from October straight through December. While there are no good stats on this, package theft is also an increasing problem, as the volume of packages has exploded and made them more of a target.
It's time for our end of 2016 crime scorecard for East Atlanta. While the overall news is good, the trends are very concerning. We will only be comparing three types of crime, since these tend to be the most significant and have the most accurate data. First, pedestrian robberies decreased from 22 to 19 between 2015 and 2016. Auto thefts were way down, from 60 to 38. And residential burglaries showed no change from 65 last year. All that sounds excellent, or at least a step in the right direction, right? Incredibly, in the first half of 2016, there were just 17 burglaries. However, there were 44 burglaries in the second half of 2016. We would love to go with random fluctuation, which could account for some of it, since the two halves of 2015 show 32 and 33 burglaries. Probably nothing major happened to push the numbers down to 21 in the first six months, so perhaps nothing major happened to push the number up to 44 in the second half of the year. However, the first month of 2017 continued the higher crime rates, with six residential burglaries and four pedestrian robberies. The upward trend in crime was particularly pronounced in December and January, which is not a good sign, as winter generally means lower crime rates, even before the holidays. If there is any silver lining, February has been relatively quiet with respect to crime, but we'll continue to monitor the trends closely and further shift our patrol resources if any ongoing patterns emerge.
Please remember that anyone can call the EASP at 404-954-1568 to report suspicious activity or a crime. You are not required to be a member to call! Since we don't always have an officer on duty, we recommend that you call 911 first, then give the EASP a call. Even though our officers monitor calls dispatched via 911, not all calls are dispatched in a timely manner, so making the second call to the EASP after calling 911 often leads to a quicker police response time.
If you would like a free estimate of options to upgrade security at your home, we recommend the Entry Enforcer, 404-289-6960. They'll come out for about an hour to discuss different options for making your home more difficult to enter. They have solutions for often overlooked entry points like windows and french doors, not just the main entry doors to your home. There is no financial arrangement between the Entry Enforcer and the EASP.
With our review of crime data completed for 2017, there appear to be several key items that we've learned. First, the increase in ring doorbells, cameras and door armor has pushed burglars to target windows as their main point of entry. Residents have not adapted quickly to this trend, so this will be a point of emphasis in the community this year. We also need to look at better use of alarms, and make sure they offer protection should someone enter through a window. In too many cases, burglars are entering through a window and no alarm is going off. This is giving burglars unlimited time to go through our homes. Particularly if you don't have pets, be sure to have motion sensors that will be triggered if someone climbs through a window and doesn't set off your alarm. If we don't adapt to this new trend, we could be looking at 100 burglaries in East Atlanta this year. Even extra police presence is minimized to some degree as burglars target rear windows in most cases. The other thing each person needs to consider is package delivery. You may wish to route packages to secure locations such as your office, or FedEx can now route your packages to Walgreen's. UPS also has more options you can utilize to safeguard your package delivery. Even putting up a sign on your door telling package delivery drivers not to leave packages in plain view in front of your door is wise. Before the 2018 holiday season rolls around, or if you regularly receive packages, give some serious thought to steps you can take to prevent package theft. The same goes for mail, where locking mailboxes and P.O. Boxes should be on your radar. Do not leave outgoing mail in your mailbox, particularly checks or gift cards. Transition to paying your bills via automatic bank draft, online bill pay or even through services like PayPal, eliminating the need to send payments in outgoing mail.
Our scorecard for 2017 crime for East Atlanta has been completed. The news isn't as positive as last year, but not as bad as you would think considering the uproar on social media over every crime. Pedestrian robberies were up from 19 in 2016 to 23 in 2017. The good news is that sixteen of those were in the first half of the year, only seven were in the second half of the year. Over the past ten years, the average has been about 24 per year, with the fluctuation from year to year being fairly small. Considering that foot traffic has been increasing in and around the Village for years, safety is a lot better for pedestrians but not as good as we'd all like. Vehicle thefts maintained the improvements we saw in 2016, when the volume of these crimes dropped from 60 to 38. In 2017, the number of vehicle thefts was 37, although 26 of these were in the second half of the year. Does that mean that vehicle thefts are on the rise again? Probably not. There are always random fluctuations in certain crimes. Thus far in January of 2018, no car thefts have been reported. Burglaries were up in 2018, from 65 to 73. For the second year in a row, the volume of burglaries really jumped late in the year, with 47 of the burglaries in the second half of the year. In 2016 and 2017, October was the worst month for burglaries, and reinforces the idea that the holidays are NOT the primary driver of crime. October has been one of the worst months for burglaries over the years, but not this bad. December has not been that much of a problem over the years, although the past two years burglaries have been pretty bad from October straight through December. While there are no good stats on this, package theft is also an increasing problem, as the volume of packages has exploded and made them more of a target.
It's time for our end of 2016 crime scorecard for East Atlanta. While the overall news is good, the trends are very concerning. We will only be comparing three types of crime, since these tend to be the most significant and have the most accurate data. First, pedestrian robberies decreased from 22 to 19 between 2015 and 2016. Auto thefts were way down, from 60 to 38. And residential burglaries showed no change from 65 last year. All that sounds excellent, or at least a step in the right direction, right? Incredibly, in the first half of 2016, there were just 17 burglaries. However, there were 44 burglaries in the second half of 2016. We would love to go with random fluctuation, which could account for some of it, since the two halves of 2015 show 32 and 33 burglaries. Probably nothing major happened to push the numbers down to 21 in the first six months, so perhaps nothing major happened to push the number up to 44 in the second half of the year. However, the first month of 2017 continued the higher crime rates, with six residential burglaries and four pedestrian robberies. The upward trend in crime was particularly pronounced in December and January, which is not a good sign, as winter generally means lower crime rates, even before the holidays. If there is any silver lining, February has been relatively quiet with respect to crime, but we'll continue to monitor the trends closely and further shift our patrol resources if any ongoing patterns emerge.
Please remember that anyone can call the EASP at 404-954-1568 to report suspicious activity or a crime. You are not required to be a member to call! Since we don't always have an officer on duty, we recommend that you call 911 first, then give the EASP a call. Even though our officers monitor calls dispatched via 911, not all calls are dispatched in a timely manner, so making the second call to the EASP after calling 911 often leads to a quicker police response time.
If you would like a free estimate of options to upgrade security at your home, we recommend the Entry Enforcer, 404-289-6960. They'll come out for about an hour to discuss different options for making your home more difficult to enter. They have solutions for often overlooked entry points like windows and french doors, not just the main entry doors to your home. There is no financial arrangement between the Entry Enforcer and the EASP.