FBI: Violent crimes dropped 1.4 percent in 2007

Which is great because it ends two years of increases. There were drops in property crime, too, by 2.1 percent. (Arson was down something like 7 percent.)

Here's a link to the table that shows individual breakdowns for a few Missouri and Kansas cities. (You might have to scroll down.) Doesn't look like KCMO's results are part of the report, but KCK -- which saw a HUGE drop in homicides last year, from 45 to 24 -- is there. So is Independence, which climbed from two homicides in 2006 to seven in 2007. More from CNN here.

Violent crime appears to drop, FBI reports

That's based on early data from the first six months of 2007, the AP reports. If it holds up, though, it means the country's increase in violent crime over the past two years has broken.

Violent crime reportedly decreased 1.8 percent, and some property crimes were down even more: car thefts by 7.4 percent and arsons by nearly 10 percent. Smaller cities, rural areas and suburbs, though, did see a jump in violent crime.

Violent crime jumps 17 percent in Columbia

And there's still another month left to go in 2007. Police there are planning extra patrols to keep a lid on things.

FBI: Hate crimes up 8 percent in 2006

The total last year for hate crimes was 7,722 incidents.

The Most Dangerous City in America?

CQ Press -- the same folks who publish "Congressional Quarterly" -- have declared Detroit the most dangerous city in America, based on FBI statistics released in September. (St. Louis, the previous No. 1, slips to second place, but they might have other issues.)

KCMO was ranked 18th, KCK was 25th. As a metro area, we placed 58th. The report, which is published as a book, debuts today.

The publishers are already getting pushback from the FBI, the American Society of Criminology and others, who say it's like comparing "watermelons and grapes." CQ says they're blaming the messenger.

Chicago and Minneapolis aren't included in the study at all because of incomplete data.

New study counts number of in-custody deaths

A new study says 2,002 suspects died in police custody from 2003 to 2005, the DOJ's Bureau of Justice Statistics reports. Police killed about half of those as the suspects fought with them or tried to flee.

Most of those killings were justified, the DOJ says. Other causes of death include drugs and alcohol (13 percent) and suicide (12 percent.) The study's authors also note that 40 million people were arrested during that time frame, so in-custody death are fairly rare.

During the same period, 466 law-enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reports.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, Jewwells P!

MO sees fewer crimes overall, but more violent crimes

Overall, Missouri had fewer 1,859 fewer crimes reported in 2006 compared to 2005 -- but there were 1,557 more violent crimes, the Southeast Missourian reports. Specifically, the Show-Me State saw more burglaries, forcible rapes, aggravated assaults and manslaughter cases -- but fewer homicides.

Star launches new interactive crime map

The Star is unveiling a new feature today: a searchable Google Map of crimes reported in Kansas City, Mo. The map only includes KCMO right now, but with any luck, we'll be adding other cities in the near future. Please let us know what you think! If you've got any questions or suggestions, please write them in the thread below.

Booming Branson sees crime grow, too

About 7,400 people live in Branson, but 80,000 visitors are in town on an average day. Which means the town is dealing with a big jump in crime, too -- a 19 percent climb from 2005 to 2006, the News-Leader reports.

A drifter recently was fatally stabbed, but homicides are still pretty rare. Assaults and stealing, especially shoplifting, are more common. (Back in 1995, shoplifting was 25 percent of all stealing offenses; most people were taking refrigerator magnets.)

IT CAME FROM THE POLICE BLOTTER!

Er ... sorry to be a little overdramatic there. Just wanted to let you know we've got some more police blotter reports from the Neighborhood News. This time around, you can get more on JoCo towns, plus Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. These are all available as Word files.

This is the blotter report covering all of Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties.

Blue Valley covers Leawood, south Overland Park and parts of unincorporated JoCo.

This one covers Shawnee, Lenexa, Merriam and part of Johnson County.

The Olathe report also includes part of Overland Park, Lenexa and Johnson County.

And the Shawnee Mission report includes north OP, Prairie Village, Mission and other communities in northeast JoCo.

JoCo Blotter Reports

We're going to be running a roundup of police calls from around the city, courtesy of the Neighborhood News, on a weekly basis. First up? Johnson County. Each file is available as a Word Document.

Blotter for Olathe with parts of Lenexa, OP and Johnson County.
Blotter for Shawnee, Lenexa and Merriam.
Blotter for Shawnee Mission area, including north OP, Fairway, Mission and other NE JoCo towns.
Blotter for Leawood, south Overland Park and south JoCo.

I'll be adding more suburbs in the very near future. We're also close to offering spreadsheets of KCPD dispatched calls again.

FBI: Violent crime up, property crime down

From The AP: The nation’s murder rate rose slightly last year but the number of robberies skyrocketed by 6 percent, preliminary FBI data released Monday show.

The statistics were part of an overall 1.3 percent rise in violent crime across the country in 2006 — the second straight annual increase. However, car thefts, arsons and other property crimes dipped for the second straight year, the data show.

Blame the kids: Violent crime went up in early 2006

Violent crime increased by 3.6 percent in the first six months of 2006, the FBI reports. And they say young people were responsible for a lot of the gains. To fight back, the Department of Justice plans to spend $31 million fighting gangs and $18 million on preventing illegal gun sales.

Like a filthy Noah's Ark

Arizona police found 100 animals at a rural home including horses, chickens, turtles and 13 monkeys. Two kids, ages 16 and 5, lived there, too, but the state's taken them away. When the raid was conducted, an unattended dog was giving birth to more puppies. Authorities say the place was filthy and the animals weren't being cared for. Noah and his old lady are facing charges of both child abuse and animal cruelty.

Hat Tip: Thanks, eephus!

8 days of Kansas City crime

These files are daily compilations, lists of all calls to Kansas City police that resulted in a case report. Files are ordered by street and house number, and cover Sunday, April 1 through Sunday, March 25. Key: CRN is case report number; PONUM is police officer number. REPORTAREA is the police beat. ADDRTYPE is A for address or I for intersection.

Download kccrime20070401.xls
Download kccrime20070331.xls
Download kccrime20070330.xls
Download kccrime20070329.xls
Download kccrime20070328.xls
Download kccrime20070327.xls
Download kccrime20070326.xls
Download kccrime20070325.xls

Reader seeks KC assault reports

Email from reader, let's call him Maverick:

• We are thinking about buying a home in the Kansas City area and in looking over your blogs I notice that there have been a couple of assaults at the neighboring house. I don't want to buy a house if there is a bullying kid next door or other situation.
• Can I get a get a copy of these police incidents reports from the KC police department?  I know in some states that is possible, but I am uncertain about the KC area.

You certainly can get those reports. Copy down the "crn" column from the case you are referring to; that's the Case Report Number. Call the police administrative office at 816-234-5000 and ask the easiest way to get a copy of the report by that number.

As far as moving to the Kansas City area, readers of this blog are always helpful in offering advice. You may find some useful tips in the comments on a recent post, Nazarene student: What about KC crime?

Nazarene student: What about KC crime?

Recent e-mail from reader Josh S.:

• I am moving to Kansas City from Nashville to Attend Nazarene Theological Seminary. I am looking at Presidential Garden Apartments on Forest Avenue (8239). Do you know what the crime is like in that area? Can you give me any kind of statistics? It will be (me) and my new wife, we're graduating from Trevecca Nazarene University. Would you recommend looking elsewhere?

Welcome to Kansas City, Josh! I answered your e-mail with some general crime numbers, but here's a look at crime in the 8200 block of Forest Avenue in the past decade:

That means a burglary or theft on the block every month on average, and a serious assault, robbery, rape or murder four times last year. I looked at figures for the surrounding census tract, which encompasses about a dozen blocks, and the numbers for violent and non-violent crime ran into the hundreds. As I mentioned in my e-mail, crime in Kansas City south of the Missouri River is several times higher than that of that in Kansas City, North, or in the suburbs.

Not to deter you from your choice - there are stronger neighborhood associations in these urban core areas than in almost any suburb - and there are neighborhoods south of the river with much lower crime rates than Forest Avenue. But you'd have to move to Forest with your eyes open to the reality of crime around you.

Murder rates up slightly in some cities

Up, um, 1.4% first six months of this year v. 2005:

NEW YORK (AP)- Murder rates climbed this year in New York and many American cities, some to their highest rates in a decade after many years of decline.
Officials blamed street gangs and the availability of illegal guns, while many said there was no way to know for sure why so many more crimes occurred.

Oklahoma tops in female prison inmates

Two new reports about the nation's prisons are now on the Bureau of Justice Statistics website, and numbers are already being parsed:

• Oklahoma continued to have the highest incarceration rate in the nation for females, according to a story in the Tulsa World.

Here are the actual numbers, and state rank:

And, in discussions of who ends up in the nation's prisons, the following BJS table is indispensable (Click on image for clearer picture):

My editor hates the above chart, says it doesn't make sense. Just think "how many people per 100,000", it will all become clear. But he wants raw numbers, so here they are (Click on image for clearer picture):

Prisoners in 2005
Probation and Parole 2005

Hat tip to blondie2hot7!

7 million in jail, on probation or parole

There's no such thing as too many prison statistics, and there's a new batch of them from the fount of all such numbers, the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice.

• WASHINGTON - A record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year.
• More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Prison releases are increasing, but admissions are increasing more.
• In the 25-29 age group, 8.1 percent of black men — about one in 13 — are incarcerated, compared with 2.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.1 percent of white men. And it's not much different among women. By the end of 2005, black women were more than twice as likely as Hispanics and over three times as likely as white women to be in prison.

The BJS website does not have the new annual report yet.

Hispanic crime wave on the Plaza?

Reader openmind asked in the open thread Tuesday:

• I live on the Plaza, and recently there has been a large number of rumors concerning “incidents” involving illegal immigrants. It seems like every week someone has a new horror story about a woman getting raped or a man getting stabbed, and every time its “a Hispanic illegal” that is the culprit. The funny thing is, I never see anything mentioned on the news or in the paper about the attack. Do you have any info on anything like this? Since I haven’t found any supporting stories, I just assume its fear mongering, but I still wanted to check with you.

Short answer -- I don't know; I get lots of crime data from Kansas City police, but no arrest data.  What I need to answer this question is arrests by race by address or police beat. I've put in a request for it In response to your query -- we'll see.

St. Louis ranked as #1 crime city

These are not straight FBI crime stats. The company applies a crime ranking formula to the figures:

ST. LOUIS - A surge in violence made St. Louis the most dangerous city in the country, leading a trend of violent crimes rising much faster in the Midwest than in the rest of nation, according to an annual list.
The city has long fared poorly in the rankings of the safest and most dangerous American cities compiled by Morgan Quitno Press. Violent crime surged nearly 20 percent in St. Louis from 2004 to last year, when the rate of such crimes rose most dramatically in the Midwest, according to FBI figures released in June.

Hat tip to readers Mike S. (hometown St. Louis), J D, BS Steve!

East Coast couple mulls Raytown move

Email from reader Megan C.:

• I was wondering what you could tell me about the crime rate in Raytown. My husband and I moved here last January from Maryland and we are not sure where the best area to buy a house would be. We want low cost so we were looking in to Raytown. Do you know how I could get crime stats on this town?
• Our other choice is north of the river but I am not thrilled about the long drive to Lenexa, KS where I work.

I don't receive crime data directly from the Raytown PD, but there's a great online resource to analyze crime stats by city, county and state 1986-2004 nation-wide:

• Bureau of Justice statistics agency trends

Here's  a small comparison table I created:

Property crimes include burglary, larceny and auto theft. This site allows you to track detailed crime trends for your community.

Come back to KC, Wendy, the city's safer

Email from reader Wendy S. 5:18 a.m.:

• Subject: Thinking about moving back to KC MO
• I lived there in the late 80's and early 90's. I was at 900 block east 77th. I just read over the crime reports for 2006 and was so surprised to see 80th and troost as well as Gregory 400 block. My friends have been telling me that north of the river is the only safe place to live any more and I hate to believe that. Is the Plaza area still alright? It also seems as if Brookside area is fine.
• North KC is the only other option and I don't know what has happened there from the time the old apartments were taken down.

Short answer: Violent crime has dropped sharply in Kansas City since you lived here, and the overall crime rate is down too. The violent crime rate in the fast-growing Northland has actually risen slightly since 1990, but crime there remains a fraction of that south of the Missouri River. Here's a chart I published recently:

Now, comparing it to 1990:

Welcome back, I hope!

Pesky vandals trouble low-crime Northland

Violent crime in Kansas City is four times higher south of the Missouri River than in Kansas City, North., adjusted for population. Burglaries and auto thefts are three times more common.

So crimes like vandalism may stick out more. From Northland reader  Terry S.:

• Last Friday night, a group of delinquents drives down the street shooting out windows in vehicles yet again, and manages to violate about a dozen people in this crime spree. What is to be done about it? They were witnessed, fled the scene, and there is realistically very little that can be done at this point. Where have all the laws gone for the protection of the everyman?
• There have been a number of instances in the Northland where mailboxes are smashed, vehicles egged, and recently windows on vehicles being shot out. It appears that there is a small group of people, under age 21, who are responsible for this.

The culprits are hard to catch, harder to prosecute, Terry says. He's also worried about the jurisdictional borders of Kansas City and Gladstone.

I have a call in to KCPD North Patrol Division commander Maj. John Armilio. Meanwhile, here are the relevant crime stats comparing the two worlds of Kansas City split by a river:

FBI releases latest crime stats

The FBI has posted its annual roundup of crime stats online, and it's a real treasure trove for people who like digging into the numbers. Here's the Cliffs Notes for everybody else, from the FBI's site:

Although violent crime totals grew over 2004, they have dropped 3.4 percent since 2001 and 17.6 percent since 1996;

… Burglaries—up 0.5 percent—were the only property crimes to rise in 2005;

… Murders were up 3.4 percent and arrests of juveniles for murder were up nearly 20 percent over 2004;

… Forcible rape decreased 1.2 percent, the only violent crime category to fall;

… Property crime victims lost an estimated $16.5 billion last year;

… Of the 14.1 million arrests made by law enforcement in 2005, drug violations accounted for more than any other offense.

… According to the Crime Clock 2005, a violent crime took place every 22.7 seconds and a property crime every 3.1 seconds in this country.

Nation's crime rate hits 32-year-low

There are two measures of the nation's crime:

• Reported offenses, as summarized by the FBI from local police departments; only about half of all crimes are reported.
• The real crime rate, as established by the large, well-refined National Crime Victimization Survey, performed by the Census Bureau for the Deparment of Justice.

This story's about the survey:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans were robbed and victimized by gun violence at greater rates last year than the year before, even though overall violent and property crime reached a 32-year low, the Justice Department said Sunday.
Last year, there were two violent gun crimes for every 1,000 individuals, compared with 1.4 in 2004, according to the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. There were 2.6 robberies for every 1,000 persons, compared with 2.1 the year before.
"This report tells us more the serious events _ robbery and gun crimes _ increased and the FBI already told us homicides increased," said criminal justice professor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University.

Hat tip to reader Doc!

Crime grips mid-sized cities. Ouch!

Another story about the mid-year FBI report on a whopping 2.5% increase in violent crime. Sadly, this one doesn't blame President Bush, although in fairness, one cop does blame the war on terror.

Communities grapple with crime wave
It's a 'perfect storm' of crime! It's a crime emergency! Mid-sized cities bloodiest! National law-enforcement summit is being held to discuss how to reverse rising crime.

Hat tip to readers All in A Day's Work, BS Steve!

Men need to 'Take Back the Night' too

Men, the perpetrators of most violence, need to hold the same kind of 'Take Back the Night' marches that for years have decried violence against women, according to this iFeminists column on www.foxnews.com.
The story cites a large study of violence-by-gender in Australia - the only country to study the issue - that found:

• Men are twice as likely as women to become victims of physical violence or of threats thereof (11 percent of men; 5.8 percent of women).
• Men were three times more likely than women to be the perpetrators of violence.
• Men get attacked by other men at "licensed premises" (34 percent) and in the open (35 percent).
• But if the attacker's a woman, 77 percent of those assaults occur in the home.

Hat tip to reader Biggin!

Bush blamed for rising crime rate

Kansas City rates a top mention in this breathless Reuters story, which manages to blame President Bush for a 2.5 percent increase in violent crime:

U.S. facing wave of murders and gun violence
ROXBURY, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Analicia Perry was kneeling to light a candle at a makeshift shrine to her brother when she was shot in the face and killed -- four years to the day after her brother was gunned down on the same spot.
The slaying of the 20-year-old mother -- on a narrow street behind a police station in Boston's poor Roxbury district last month -- is one of the shocking examples of a rise in the murder rate across the United States that is raising questions about whether police are fighting terrorism at the expense of crime.
In a shift from trends of the past decade, violent crime is on the rise, fueling criticism of Bush administration policies as a wave of murders and shootings hits smaller cities and states with little experience with serious urban violence.
From Kansas City, Missouri, to Indianapolis, Indiana, places that rarely attract notice on annual FBI crime surveys are seeing significant increases in murder.
A 2005 Federal Bureau of Investigation crime report, issued last month, showed violent crime increasing for the first time in four years in 2005, up 2.5 percent from the year before, with medium-size cities and the Midwest leading the way.

A reminder:
1. Comments must be signed. Unsigned comments may be deleted.
2. Comments signed as someone other than the writer may be deleted.
3. No profanity or vulgarity, racially or sexually offensive speech.
4. Feeling off-topic? Visit the open thread.

Homicide possibly maybe trending up

I love crime-trend stories, even the questionable ones:

• After long decline, murders rise in small cities
• It's too soon to call it a trend, but last year's 4.8% jump in murders - largest in 15 years - has some police and crime experts worried.

Murder's not only the worst crime, it's the worst crime to measure crime trends by. Especially in smaller towns, there's no discernible trend: More drinking, better aim can change a homicide curve literally overnight.

But the story trots out this great list of expert opinions for the "jump":

• Budget cuts to police
• Budget cuts to social services
• Proliferation of guns
• Diversion of police to War on Terror
• Growing meth use (wake up, Midwest!)
• Spread of violent ideas through media and music

One of those has to be it.

Reported crime up 5.7% in Midwest

There are two measures of crime in this country: FBI stats (below) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The increase below may be real, may reflect increased reporting, may reflect variations in the 12,000+ police agencies reporting to the FBI.

I'll wait for NCVS results - which have shown a steady drop in crime for 30 years.

Violent crime on the increase in 2005, FBI figures show
WASHINGTON (AP) — Murders, robberies and aggravated assaults in the United States increased last year, spurring an overall rise in violent crime for the first time since 2001, according to FBI data.
Murders rose 4.8 percent...from 89 to 126 in Kansas City, Mo., a 42 percent rise...
The overall increase in violent crime was modest, 2.5 percent, which equates to more than 1.4 million crimes. Nevertheless, that was the largest percentage increase since 1991.
Criminal justice experts said the statistics reflect the nation’s complacency in fighting crime, a product of dramatic declines in the 1990s and the abandonment of effective programs that emphasized prevention, putting more police officers on the street and controlling the spread of guns.
Crime last year increased in all regions, although the 5.7 percent rise in the Midwest was at least three times any other region’s. These states make up the Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

(Links coming)

Moving to KC - and worried about crime

Update 3:04 p.m. - Travis emails thanks and sez his gun's on layaway! :) "It's good to hear about the other parts of life such as schools, taxes, and the culture.  This would have been difficult information to find.  I will keep checking in periodically."

Email query from Travis B., Salt Lake City, UT:

• I am moving to KC for a new job.  For now, I have to rent a house or an apartment.  My main concern is Kansas City's crime level.  We can live anywhere since my job is located in midtown...we would like to know where crime hot spots are and make sure we avoid those. Even though I will be paying a relatively high price for housing, I'm worried that this doesn't necessarily mean I will be in a low crime area.

Travis: Surprisingly, you're moving to a lower crime metro. Overall crime is actually lower here, although both areas rank among the top crime metros for metros their size. Spreadsheet

Then why the bad rap against Kansas City? Well, violent crime is twice as high here as in Salt Lake. Still, in either place, being the victim of a violent crime is a little like getting hit by lightning:

• Odds in KC: once every 70 years
• Odds in SLC: once every 140 years

I hope my readers can weigh in on advice on where to move. There was a pretty good discussion about our area here last week. You might want to add whatever personal info you feel appropriate - marital status, occupation, age, etc.

I could toss around crime statistics all day. But here are the basic, latest full-year available FBI UCR data for Kansas City area communities:

For the Excel-savvy, here's a fat spreadsheet. Note: the FBI explicity warns us not to compare city-to-city crime stats. Oh well. We all do.

Homicides drop to near-record lows

The Census Bureau conducts a huge telephone survey for the Department of Justice, asking people if they or someone in their family has been the victim of a crime.

The idea of this study, the National Crime Victimization Survey, is to reveal the extent and nature of unreported crime. Only about a third of larcenies, half of all burglaries and three-quarters of all violent crimes are reported to police.

The only crime not asked about is homicide. For that, analysts rely on police reports. And homicide, like crime overall, has been on a downward trend in the last 30 years:

Homicides have declined to late-1960s levels

People - and crime - returning to NOLA

After Katrina, murder makes a comeback in New Orleans
New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley insisted that murders and other violent crimes per person are down from a year ago. But that was based on January-through-March figures that do not count April’s bloodshed.
“We are not seeing a return to the old days,” Riley said. “This city is still the safest it has ever been.”
Law enforcement officers acknowledge rising numbers of murders and shootings, and attribute them largely to turf wars among criminals returning to the city.

Incredibly detailed graphic of NOLA crime by AP

8 days of Kansas City crime

These files are daily compilations, lists of all calls to Kansas City police that resulted in a case report. Files are ordered by street and house number, and cover Sunday, April 00 through Sunday, April 00. Key: CRN is case report number; PONUM is police officer number. REPORTAREA is the police beat. ADDRTYPE is A for address or I for intersection.

kccrime20060409.xls
kccrime20060408.xls
kccrime20060407.xls
kccrime20060406.xls
kccrime20060405.xls
kccrime20060404.xls
kccrime20060403.xls
kccrime20060402.xls

All manner of police blotters

Here are police blotters for 35 Kansas City area cities, printed Wednesday in Neighborhood News sections of The Star. Some are links, others are PDF files.

Blue Springs-Grain Valley-Jackson County-Oak Grove

Buckner-Independence-JaCo-Raytown-Sugar Creek-East Kansas City Kansas City

Kansas City, KS-Bonner Springs-Leavenworth-Lansing

Leawood-Overland Park

North Patrol Divisions (Kansas City)-Excelsior Springs-Gladstone-Kearney-Liberty-North Kansas City-Parkville-Riverside

Olathe (66061, 66082)-Overland Park (66210, 66213, 66221)

Overland Park-Fairway-Merriam-Mission-Prairie Village/Mission Hills-Roeland Park-Westwood/Westwood Hills/Mission Woods

Shawnee-Lenexa-Merriam

The Southland blotter - Lee's Summit, Grandview, Belton, etc. - is published on Saturdays.

Police blotters for 25 area cities

Here are police blotters for 25 Kansas City area cities, printed Saturday in Neighborhood News sections of The Star. Some are links, others are PDF files.

Olathe (66061, 66082)-Overland Park (66210, 66213, 66221)

Overland Park-Fairway-Merriam-Mission-Prairie Village/Mission Hills-Roeland Park-Westwood/Westwood Hills/Mission Woods

Shawnee-Lenexa-Merriam

Southland: Lee's Summit-Belton-Grandview-Greenwood-Lone Jack-Peculiar-Pleasant Hill-Raymore-South Kansas City

Leawood-Overland Park

8 days of Kansas City crime

These files are daily compilations, lists of all calls to Kansas City police that resulted in a case report. Files are ordered by street and house number, and cover Sunday, March 26 through Sunday, April 2. Key: CRN is case report number; PONUM is police officer number. REPORTAREA is the police beat. ADDRTYPE is A for address or I for intersection.

kccrime20060402.xls
kccrime20060401.xls
kccrime20060331.xls
kccrime20060330.xls
kccrime20060329.xls
kccrime20060328.xls
kccrime20060327.xls
kccrime20060326.xls

Police blotters for 25 area cities

Here are police blotters for 25 Kansas City area cities, printed Saturday in Neighborhood News sections of The Star. All are PDF files this week.

Olathe (66061, 66082)-Overland Park (66210, 66213, 66221)

Overland Park-Fairway-Merriam-Mission-Prairie Village/Mission Hills-Roeland Park-Westwood/Westwood Hills/Mission Woods

Shawnee-Lenexa-Merriam

Leawood-Overland Park

Southland: Lee's Summit-Belton-Grandview-Greenwood-Lone Jack-Peculiar-Pleasant Hill-Raymore-South Kansas City

 

Brett is back! See his KC homicide maps!

E-mail just now from local programmer Brett Rickman, who has been mapping crime data I've posted here on his Website, www.rickman.com:

• I've mapped the KCMO homicide data you posted earlier.  While rudimentary, I think it provides a useful view of just how clustered murders have been here in Kansas City over the last 10 years.
• Also, new daily Overland Park police blotter maps will contain the address in the pop-up balloon.  I am working on adding this to the older OP blotters as well.

Brett has been using Google Earth to make maps with a dot over each crime address location. He's plotted Overland Park as well as Kansas City offenses.

Now he's mapped 1,200-plus homicide addresses from my recent post, 11 years of Kansas City homicide. On his site, scroll down to the bottom of the list of maps and you'll find a detailed map of homicides for each year, 1995-2005.

Brett also wrote:

• I would appreciate any feedback on the maps.

You heard him, folks. Can you take a look and comment?

8 days of Kansas City crime

These files are daily compilations, lists of all calls to Kansas City police that resulted in a case report. Files are ordered by street and house number, and cover Sunday, March 19 through Sunday, March 26. Key: CRN is case report number; PONUM is police officer number. REPORTAREA is the police beat. ADDRTYPE is A for address or I for intersection.

kccrime20060326.xls
kccrime20060325.xls
kccrime20060324.xls
kccrime20060323.xls
kccrime20060322.xls
kccrime20060321.xls
kccrime20060320.xls
kccrime20060319.xls

Year-to-date crime in KC at record low

The number of serious crimes reported to Kansas City police in January and February was the lowest of any year since at least 1990, a study of police-supplied shows.
Serious crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, serious assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft. They are known collectively as Part 1 offenses.
Some caveats - Lower numbers for burglary and larceny are behind the drop; violent crime actually ticked up from last year. Also, two months do not a trend make, and January-February are always the lowest crime months.
But the number of February Part 1 offenses was so low (2,393, compared to the second-lowest, 2,525 in 2003) that I thought it noteworthy:

(Click image for clearer picture)

Here's a spreadsheet of the above numbers if someone wants to do further analysis.

All manner of police blotters

Here are police blotters for 35 Kansas City area cities, printed today in Neighborhood News sections of The Star. Some are links, others are PDF files.

Blue Springs-Grain Valley-Jackson County-Oak Grove

Buckner-Independence-JaCo-Raytown-Sugar Creek-East Kansas City

Kansas City

Kansas City, KS-Bonner Springs-Leavenworth-Lansing

Leawood-Overland Park

North Patrol Divisions (Kansas City)-Excelsior Springs-Gladstone-Kearney-Liberty-North Kansas City-Parkville-Riverside

DOlathe (66061, 66082)-Overland Park (66210, 66213, 66221

Overland Park-Fairway-Merriam-Mission-Prairie Village/Mission Hills-Roeland Park-Westwood/Westwood Hills/Mission Woods

Shawnee-Lenexa-Merriam

The Southland blotter - Lee's Summit, Grandview, Belton, etc. - is published on Saturdays.

Police blotters for 25 area cities

Here are police blotters for 25 Kansas City area cities, printed Saturday in Neighborhood News sections of The Star. Some are links, others are PDF files. Pantpant - so much data...

Olathe (66061, 66082)-Overland Park (66210, 66213, 66221)

Overland Park-Fairway-Merriam-Mission-Prairie Village/Mission Hills-Roeland Park-Westwood/Westwood Hills/Mission Woods

Shawnee-Lenexa-Merriam

Southland: Lee's Summit-Belton-Grandview-Greenwood-Lone Jack-Peculiar-Pleasant Hill-Raymore-South Kansas City

Leawood-Overland Park

180,000 millionaires, 30 IRS audits?

Expect a response from the IRS if this gets any play:

• New data from the IRS reports that only 30 of the nation's 180,000 plus millionaires were subject to face-to-face audits in FY 2005. Analysis by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) also shows that when only traditional face-to-face audits are considered, those reporting less than $25,000 in total positive income were six times more likely to be audited than all those reporting $200,000 or more in income. IRS continues to withhold from TRAC statistical data it has made public in the past that might explain the aberration.

I know both TRAC founders:

• David Burnham was the NYTimes reporter whistleblower Karen Silkwood was going to see when she died in a traffic accident.
• Susan B. Long and her husband sued the IRS for its "audit triggers" when they were audited in the 1970s. The Supreme Court said you can't have 'em, but you can have tons of other IRS and federal agency data. Thus TRAC was born.

And here's the IRS response, via the above TRAC co-directors, 4:13 p.m.:

• After TRAC's report on the government's audit of millionaires was posted this morning, the IRS contacted TRAC and informed us that its official numbers were not correct. In an effort to understand the reasons for this error, TRAC has requested additional information from the IRS. A follow up report will be posted if it is warranted.

Previous post: Worst-named group has best stats on federal prosecutions

11 years of Kansas City homicide

Ron McMillan of Move Up and others have asked me to post Kansas City homicide data. Since the mid-1990s, I've received quarterly homicide reports from KC police, with victim name, sex, DOB, race, address of occurrence, victim address and means of attack.

I receive these files 8-10 weeks after the end of each quarter. Now I've formatted files from 1995 through 2005 into Excel spreadsheets. The data appears as received from police, except that I've masked victims' house numbers and added age at death.

There were 1,209 homicides in this city in the 11 years between 1995 and 2005. Some breakdowns by age, sex and race:

Open/Download:

  kchomi05.xls
kchomi04.xls
kchomi03.xls
kchomi02.xls
kchomi01.xls
kchomi00.xls
kchomi99.xls
kchomi98.xls
kchomi97.xls
kchomi96.xls
kchomi95.xls

8 days of Kansas City crime

These files are daily compilations, lists of all calls to Kansas City police that resulted in a case report. Files are ordered by street and house number, and cover Sunday, March 12 through Sunday, March 19. Key: CRN is case report number; PONUM is police officer number. REPORTAREA is the police beat. ADDRTYPE is A for address or I for intersection.

kccrime20060319.xls
kccrime20060318.xls
kccrime20060317.xls