Elgin serious crime lowest in 40 years

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An Elgin police detective searches ground at the scene of the Oct. 8, 2011, shooting of a 5-year-old Eric Galarza Jr. boy near 924 Elma Ave. The boy's death was one of five homicides in the city in 2011. | Sun-Times Media~File Photo

Updated: January 27, 2012 2:28AM

ELGIN — Despite some high-profile homicides and a rise in the number of burglaries, the number of serious crimes reported in Elgin dropped by more than 7 percent in 2011 compared to the number for 2010, Police Chief Jeff Swoboda announced Thursday.

It was the single-largest decline in the city in five years.

And when more-minor offenses such as misdemeanor battery, vandalism and drug possession are included, the number of crimes dropped a whopping 15.5 percent.

The FBI, which compiles “Uniform Crime Reports” from all police departments, does not yet have final figures for the second half of 2011 from other villages and cities in the Fox Valley.

In Elgin, Swoboda said, “We are mirroring national trends,” which see crime rates going down in most categories. One common theory among criminal-science experts credits the drop to the fact that the proportion of young males in the American population has been decreasing, and young males commit a majority of most kinds of crime.

“But in Elgin, serious crime is the lowest it’s been in more than 40 years,” Swoboda said.

Serious crimes — or what the FBI calls “Part I Crimes” — include homicide, robbery, rape, burglary, theft, arson and assault that causes severe injury or involves a deadly weapon. Last year, 2,372 serious Elgin crimes were reported, compared to 2,557 in 2010.

“The Elgin Police Department is committed to providing our residents with a safe community and has worked very hard over the years to apply a community-policing philosophy to help reduce serious crime,” Swoboda said. “That philosophy has also helped us reduce overall crime throughout the city.”

During the year, this community-policing approach included sending ROPE (Resident Officer Program of Elgin) officers to live in homes in high-crime neighborhoods; “walk and talks” by police and city officials; a summer activities program to help keep children and teens busy; Night Out Against Crime and Neighborhood Watch programs; school liaison officers; and a unit that works against street gangs.

Fewer robbed

A year ago, Elgin received some negative publicity statewide for having one of the highest rates of violent crime among Illinois’ largest cities. But that black spot was almost entirely due to a 2010 increase in the number of robberies, and many of those involved drunken pedestrians being robbed late at night.

That problem seems to be more under control again, as the number of robberies dropped from 100 in 2010 to 82 last year.

The number of homicides went up from four to five. But to the observer, that might have seemed like more because all of last year’s occurred in the second half of the year and included some highly publicized incidents.

They included the fatal shooting of a 5-year-old boy by a man allegedly aiming at the boy’s gang-member father; the shooting of a teenager by a man who thought the boy was trying to break into his car; the killing of a homeless man struck by a fire extinguisher thrown from the top floor of a downtown parking garage; the stabbing death of a man that police say was done by a couple who robbed him and set fire to his apartment; and the Sunday afternoon assassination of a middle-aged gang member sitting on his front porch.

Police have arrested suspects in every homicide except the porch murder.

The burglary blot

The chief acknowledged that while robberies have gone down — as has the number of vehicle burglaries — the number of burglaries to homes and businesses has zoomed alarmingly, from 432 in 2010 to 564 last year.

Police spokeswoman Sue Olafson said it is unclear how many of those cases involved vacant or foreclosed homes, which often have been broken into by thieves looking for scrap metal.

Swoboda said pushing back that burglary wave will be one of his department’s key focuses this year.

“While statistics may show a reduction, (but) for every crime committed, there is a victim,” said Swoboda. “There’s a lot of work that must be done, and the community’s involvement is key in helping police.”

The chief said he’d like all residents who see any suspicious activity to report it to 911 so officers can respond on a timely basis and catch more criminals in the act.

“That’s especially needed as we work to reduce citywide burglaries,” said Swoboda.

“Our goal for 2012 is burglary reduction. We’ve already made some key arrests that will have an impact, and we’ll be finalizing a plan over the next few days to help us meet that goal.”