Violent crime, especially rape, rose in Elgin in first half of 2012

In December 2011 “the two guys from Carpentersville who were stealing things from Craigslist and then trying to resell them on Craigslist. One of those guys, Jonathan D. Miller, 18, of Oxford Court, Carpentersville, was charged with a Class 2 felony count of theft.

Updated: February 16, 2013 6:15AM

ELGIN — Following a national and statewide trend, violent crime rose some in Elgin during the first half of 2012, according to statistics released Monday by the FBI. But while property crimes also rose nationally, they dropped in Elgin.

The FBI’s numbers cover the whole nation, each state and cities with more than 100,000 people, from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2012. The Elgin Police Department is compiling crime stats for the entire year and is expected to report those in the next two weeks.

Elgin saw at least minor increases in every category of violent crime when compared with the first half of 2011.

The most striking rise came in the number of forcible-rape reports — a 40 percent increase, from 35 in the first half of 2011 to 49 in the first half of 2012.

The number of homicides went from zero to one (the gang-related shooting of a teenager in a skate park along East Chicago Street near Elgin’s eastern border). However, it is believed that only one more homicide occurred during the second half of 2012 (a domestic incident involving a frying pan, among a squabbling couple in an apartment along South State Street), while the second half of 2011 saw five more killings.

The number of robberies — most of which in Elgin are what could be described as “muggings,” occurring outdoors without the use of weapons — edged up from 34 to 37. The number of aggravated assaults was virtually flat, going from 57 to 58.

Nationally, violent crimes increased by 1.9 percent in those six months.

The picture was much brighter when it came to property crimes. Those increased 1.5 percent nationwide but dropped almost 10 percent in Elgin. Burglaries, a focus of the Elgin Police Department during the year after a rise in break-ins during 2011, dropped from 219 to 187. Thefts (most commonly, shoplifting) dropped from 657 to 617, and vehicle thefts from 44 to 38.

Aurora bucked the national trends, as its total of violent crimes fell from 280 to 256.

There were no murders at all in Aurora in the first six months of 2012 — and none for the entire year — compared to one in the same period in 2011. The number of robberies, aggravated assaults, property crimes, burglaries, thefts and motor vehicle thefts also fell in Aurora.

The only two categories where violent crime rose in Aurora were forcible rape, from 21 to 24; and arson, which went from five to 15.

Besides Aurora, of all the cities over 100,000 population in Illinois, the violent-crime rate fell only in Rockford and Springfield. The rate also went up in Joliet, Naperville and Peoria.

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