Violent crime rates drop

Violent crime dropped in Huntington Beach last year, according to new data released by the FBI this week. But property crime inched upward from 2005 to 2006. Both were counter to national trends.

Police look at such reports closely to identify trends and respond to them, Huntington Beach Police Lt. Dave Bunetta said. But even some of the larger shifts appear to be within the bounds of data over the last several years, he added.

Violent crime dropped by about 13% to 407 incidents in 2006, according to the agency’s report. All of that downward motion came from a 32% plummet in aggravated assaults, down to 233 last year; robberies reported actually shot up 53% to 141.

Property crime increased by about 9% to reach 4,468 reported incidents, with the biggest increases in burglary and larceny. The small number of arsons nearly doubled, reaching 39 last year.

An increase in housing and business in the city could push up those numbers a little, Bunetta said. But he cautioned that a change in the data can sometimes be a change in reports rather than in the number of crimes committed.

“We encourage people to report suspicious behavior and to report crimes,” he said. “Some of that education program and that process of working with neighborhood watches might bring those numbers up.”

One change Bunetta could account for was a 19% drop in auto thefts.

The department assigned more cops to fight those crimes last year, and the local effort made extra progress when combined with a countywide focus on stopping stolen vehicles.

With a violent crime rate of 207.43 per 100,000 residents in 2006, the city remains in the 20 least violent cities over 100,000 population, at No. 18.

“I think we can still say confidently that between community cooperation, and cooperation between the city and police department, we do a pretty good job of keeping a safe and clean city,” Bunetta said.

Nationally, property crime is down while violent crime is up, but the report still ranked 2006 as the third-least-violent year in two decades.