Crime in Costa Mesa drops 15% in 2002

Deirdre Newman

Setting goals has paid off for the Police Department.

Out of eight Orange County cities with populations of 100,000 or

more, Costa Mesa showed the largest drop in crime in 2002 with a

15.4% decrease, according to the state attorney general’s report

released Sunday.

The plunge occurred because of concrete actions the department

took after being pummeled with a 16% increase in crime in 2001, Chief

Dave Snowden said.

“What we decided to do was put our heads together and tell our

area commanders specific goals to achieve to reduce crime,” Snowden

said Monday. “All of our people met and exceeded those goals.”

Violent crime as a whole dropped 30.8%. The two categories that

experienced the biggest drop were robbery, which decreased 36.8%, and

aggravated assault, down 23.2%.

Solid police work sparked the downturn in robbery, Snowden said.

“We caught some people that were perpetrating those crimes and we

put them in jail, and they didn’t come back,” Snowden said.

Snowden also commended the community for staying vigilant.

Councilman Allan Mansoor said the statistics pleased him.

“It sounds good to me,” Mansoor said. “I certainly like the idea

of hearing that Costa Mesa is a safe place to live. I would like to

continue to improve on that -- to get even better.”

Property crimes dropped as well, with vehicle thefts down 11.8%.

Burglaries decreased 7.8%. The only categories that rose were larceny

theft and arson. There were 25 more larceny thefts and one more case

of arson in 2002.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.