Jeri Williams Chief of Police |
Oxnard Police Department
R. Jason Benites Scott Whitney |
OXNARD POLICE DEPARTMENT
NEWS RELEASE
INCIDENT: | 2014 FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data shows a continued increase in Oxnard crime |
DATE/TIME: | January-December 2014 |
LOCATION: | Citywide |
PREPARED BY: | Miguel Lopez, Community Affairs Manager |
CONTACT PERSON & CONTACT INFO: |
Miguel Lopez, Community Affairs Manager (805) 385-7631 |
DETAILS: The FBI gathers crime statistics from law enforcement agencies each year as part of their Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. The UCR Program collects data on four violent crimes and four property crimes. The purpose of the program is to generate a reliable set of crime statistics for use by law enforcement. The Oxnard Police Department has been a participating UCR agency for over forty (40) years and believes it is important to share the crime data with our residents.
The City of Oxnard began to see a rise in reported crime in 2012 and we continued to experience an increase through 2014. The UCR crime categories and the reported crime data for 2013 and 2014 are listed below:
Part I Crimes 2013 2014 Numerical Difference
Violent Crimes
Homicide 15 11 -4
Rape 10 45 35
Robbery 328 447 119
Aggravated Assault 298 381 83
Total 651 884 233
Property Crimes
Burglary 974 1,172 198
Motor Vehicle Theft 664 735 71
Larceny (Theft) 3,436 4,475 1,039
Arson 36 27 -9
Total 5,110 6,409 1,299
OVERALL TOTAL 5,761 7,293 1,532
Under the categories of Violent Crimes, there was a 36.3% increase in robberies. The city experienced a series of commercial robberies through the Saviers Road and Ventura Road corridors that contributed to a 41.1% increase in commercial robberies in 2014.
The city experienced eleven (11) homicides in 2014. This is in comparison to the fifteen (15) experienced in 2013 and the 10-year city average of 11.9. The crime category of rape saw a considerable increase after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) implemented a change in the report definition for rape, broadening the reporting requirement. Under the new requirement, approximately thirty-one (31) additional crimes were reported, accounting for the majority of the increase. Reporting under the previous definition of rape, there would have been an increase of four (4) crimes.
For reporting purposes, the crime category of larceny (theft) is divided into eight classifications: Bicycles, Coin-Operated Devices, From Building, From Motor Vehicle, Purse-Snatch/Pick Pocket, Shoplift, Vehicle Parts, andAll Other. Listed below is the comparison from 2013 to 2014:
Numerical
Category 2013 2014 Difference % Change
From Motor Vehicle 1,308 1,824 516 39.4%
Shoplifting 926 1,185 279 30.1%
All Others 499 769 270 54.1%
Vehicle Parts 435 358 -77 -17.7%
Bicycles 129 161 32 24.8%
From Buildings 131 140 9 6.8%
Coin-Operated Devices 5 28 23 460%
Purse-Snatch/Pick Pocket 3 10 7 233%
TOTAL 3,436 4,475
Many of our thefts from motor vehicles can be attributed to unlocked or unsecured vehicles with valuables left in plain sight which can ultimately be prevented. At the beginning of 2014, the Oxnard Police Department launched our Operation Safer and Stronger initiative aimed at addressing current crime trends and empowering our community members to help improve public safety throughout the City of Oxnard. We hosted a series of crime prevention seminars available to the public throughout the year. The topics of the seminars included: “What is Suspicious?” Reporting Crimes in our city, Identity theft, Child safety, Burglary prevention, Cyber safety (including bullying), Robbery, Self-defense (our Oxnard Police RADD program), as well as scams and other crimes targeting the elderly, Graffiti/gangs, and others.
In addition to the crime prevention seminars, we created the Firearms Strike Team (FAST), led by the Violent Crimes Unit, to proactively remove firearms from prohibited persons in the city. The objective of FAST was to reduce gun violence in Oxnard through education, intervention, and enforcement. Overall, in 2014, Oxnard officers made one-hundred and six (106) firearms-related arrests and the Oxnard Police Department seized two-hundred and forty (240) firearms. Gang-related aggravated assaults decreased 24.4% during calendar year 2014 with forty-five (45) being reported, down from fifty-six (56) in 2013.
In response to a third consecutive year of increases in motor vehicle theft, the Oxnard Police Department recently created the Oxnard Auto Theft Task Force (OATTF) which is a concentrated effort with investigators and crime analysis personnel to identify repeat offenders and auto theft trends and ultimately decrease the number of auto thefts experienced by Oxnard residents in 2015.
DATE / TIME PREPARED: 4/3/2015, 1600 hours