MANASSAS, Va. -- Looking at the numbers might lead some to believe that there was a spike in crime in Manassas, but Chief Douglas W. Keen said numbers can be misleading.
Calls for violent crimes went up by 5 percent city-wide and calls for all crimes went up by 1 percent in the third quarter of 2011 compared to the third quarter of 2010, Keen told the Manassas City Council Monday.
An intensified police presence in parts of the city including Georgetown South accounted for the increases in calls to police, Keen said.
The increased police activity, specifically in Georgetown South arose in response to a triple murder that occurred just outside the town house neighborhood in February.
Keen told the council that his department put on 881 extra patrols, 441 foot patrols, 35 K-9 patrols and 10 bike patrols in Georgetown since then.
The extra patrols netted 259 arrests with the top three charges being public drunkenness, possession of marijuana, and assault and battery of a family member, Keen told the council.
There were 655 traffic summonses issues, which represents a 53-percent increase in traffic summonses, with the top three offenses being expired state inspections, failure to stop and driving without a license.
Keen said he expected the numbers to go up when he intensified police activity.
"A zero-tolerance stance means lots of tickets, lots of arrests and that's what we're doing now in Georgetown South and surrounding areas," Keen told the council.
Another factor that led to an increase in the statistics was the way police report the numbers, Keen said.
The department recently started using the National Incident Based Reporting System rather than the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, Keen said.
The Uniform Crime Report would count a triple murder as one crime while the National Incident Based Reporting System would count each murder as a separate incident, Keen said.
"That's going to make our numbers at least appear to go up when actually they did not go up that high," Keen said.
The bright side is that city wide, violent crime decreased by eight percent for the year, Keen said.
In addition, police officers made 1 percent more calls on their own initiative in the last year.
"That is a sign that we are going in the right direction and that the officers are being proactive instead of just reactive in going to the calls," Keen said.
While some of the numbers could be alarming, Keen said his department has a handle on things.
"I know some of these numbers make us open our eyes wide. We need to be cautious about that. We don't need a knee-jerk reaction. We monitor this on a regular routine," he said.
Keen told the council that he would be able to increase police activity even more once 10 new officers graduate the academy in December and complete their on-the-job training by April.
Copyright 2011 - News & Messenger, Manassas, Va.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
