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DURHAM -- Violent crime at the three-quarter mark of 2009 has dropped 12.8 percent from levels in the same period last year, Durham's police chief reported Monday.
Chief Jose Lopez told the City Council that there were 1,211 incidents of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault in the city over the first nine months of the year, compared to 1,388 through three quarters of 2008. Violent crime is down from 1,284 in the same period of 2007, a 5.7 percent drop.
Murders dipped from 22 in 2008 to 18 this year. Of the 2009 total, one case was deemed a justifiable shooting by an officer and another was deemed self-defense. Eight suspects have been arrested; a ninth has killed himself.
Of 32 individuals arrested for violent crimes, 24 are in jail or prison, one is in federal custody, four have been sentenced to probation and three are out of jail.
Property crime -- burglary, larceny and automobile theft -- has risen to 8,731 from 8,535 last year, a 2.3 percent increase. But that is still 2.1 percent below 2007's level of 8,914 incidents.
Key violent and property crimes amounted to 9,942 incidents in 2009 through September, up about two-tenths of 1 percent from the 2008 mark of 9,923. Lopez attributed the increase to the rise in robberies.
The chief said his force has arrested a number of robbery and larceny suspects in recent months. He noted that an uptick in incidents in a particular neighborhood is responded to with both high-visibility patrols and undercover investigations. He added that his department regularly shares information with other local law-enforcement agencies.
In the first three months of the 2009-10 fiscal year, Lopez noted, officers responded to priority calls slightly faster than their goal of 6.5 minutes. The department is responding to 51 percent of calls in less than 5 minutes -- just shy of the goal of getting to 52 percent of calls that quickly.
And Durham will soon be honored as the ninth-best community in America for participation in August's National Night Out event, the chief told the council.
After Lopez's presentation, Mayor Bill Bell grilled the chief on year-to-date clearance rates, which measure crimes solved. They trail Durham and national rates for 2008 in most categories. Notably, only 41 percent of 2009 homicides have been cleared, compared to 88 percent in the city in 2008 and 65 percent nationally last year.
"I'm hopeful that they'll go higher," Lopez told Bell. "We're still working on cases. I don't believe we have a homicide that we don't have a suspect in from this year."
Councilman Eugene Brown asked Lopez what progress had been made in solving the Nov. 19, 2005, quadruple homicide at 2222 Alpine Road.
The crime occurred before Lopez's arrival in Durham, the chief noted, but investigators continue to work on the case. One suspect is awaiting trial; police believe accomplices are currently at large.
