Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 11, 1993 TAG: 9301110063
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
ROANOKE-AREA CRIME DROPPED IN '92
There was less killing, robbing and stealing in Roanoke during 1992 than in years past, a decrease that officials attribute to luck, good police work and a new emphasis on community policing.Other Roanoke Valley localities also reported less crime last year, although final totals are not complete.
Perhaps the best news was that Roanoke had the lowest number of homicides last year since 1979. Ten people were killed in 1992. The city usually averages about 15 homicides a year.
Three of the killings in 1992 were directly drug-related, and almost all the others involved arguments between people who knew each other.
The number of rapes, robberies, malicious woundings, burglaries and larcenies in the city also declined in 1992. Similar trends were reported in Salem and Botetourt County; the level in Roanoke County remained about the same.
Roanoke Valley law enforcement officials offered several possible explanations for why 1992 was such a quiet year.
In Roanoke, credit was given to a new form of community policing in which a special team of COPE officers was assigned to high-crime areas. COPE stands for Community Oriented Policing Effort.
In addition to driving troublemakers from previously crime-ridden housing projects, the COPE team worked to improve relations between police and law-abiding residents who want to help fight crime.
"We've had a great increase in citizen response" since the COPE teams started work in the summer of 1991, said Maj. J.L. Viar of the Roanoke Police Department.
Residents who in the past may have looked the other way when a crime happened now are joining neighborhood Crime Watch programs and are more willing to call the police about a suspicious-looking person on their block.
Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell, who served on a task force that pushed for community policing and better minority recruiting, said it's clear now that the effort was worthwhile.
"I think the COPE unit and the efforts of the Police Department to get more involved with the community are paying off untold dividends," Caldwell said.
Crime is down in the Lincoln Terrace and Hurt Park housing projects, the two areas where COPE teams have been working. But authorities say the basic approach of community policing is having an impact citywide.
In other localities that do not have an organized community policing effort, citizen reaction was nonetheless up from prior years.
"The public is aware of crime and they're becoming more involved," said Lt. James Bryant of the Salem Police Department. Most crimes in Salem were down by about 15 percent from the prior year, and Bryant believes community input was one reason why.
"People will report crime now," he said. "They're beginning to take it a little more personally than in the past."
Solving the big ones
A new emphasis on community policing may have helped reduce crime in 1992, but it was old-fashioned investigative work that broke up three major crime rings.
After arresting five people who said their cocaine addictions drove them to break into hundreds of houses and businesses, authorities saw the valley's burglary rates go down by more than half.
Everyone involved in the burglary rings received long prison sentences, and the crime rate has yet to return to what it was while they had been at large.
However, police concede it's just a matter of time before others take their place.
Although final figures for 1992 were not available, Viar said automobile thefts appear to be the only category of seven major crimes in which there was an increase.
The statistics were taken from the Uniform Crime Reports, a statewide system of measuring crime in seven basic categories: homicide, rape, robbery, malicious wounding, burglary, larceny and automobile theft.
Because the reports do not count drug offenses and other incidents that require large amounts of police time - such as working traffic accidents - some authorities were wary of putting too much stock in the statistics.
"We're blessed that we have a low homicide rate in Roanoke County, but that doesn't mean we're not busy," said county Police Chief John Cease.
"The cost of having an officer work a homicide and a traffic accident is the same," he said.
Good hospitals, and luck
Both Viar and Caldwell said some murders may well have been prevented in the emergency rooms of Roanoke Valley hospitals.
"We have three very good hospitals in this area, and but for their efforts, our homicide rate might be a little bit higher," Caldwell said.
"A lot of people involved in shootings and stabbings have gone into the hospital with nobody expecting them to walk out, and then they do," Viar said.
But perhaps more than anything else, luck played a part in 1992's crime tally.
"I think this is something that law enforcement cannot take any more credit for than they should take blame for when the crime rate is high," Caldwell said.
"I think much of it depends on luck and just the mood of the community.
"Even if the crime statistics double in the next year, I would still say Roanoke should be proud of the Police Department's efforts to overcome some of the problems there have been in the past."
Keywords:
YEAR 1992 ROMUR