Presentation at Evergreen’s Public Safety Forum May 7, 2015 by BT
Evergreen crime rates now are higher than 10 years ago when San Jose was the safest large city in the US. The reason is because our SJPD is now short‐staffed. However, violent crimes such as assaults & batteries and robberies are currently lower in Evergreen than other parts of San Jose.
Whenever Evergreen is mentioned in the news, usually there’s an immediate drop in Evergreen crimes. The bad guys tend to avoid our area when they feel that more residents may be watching for them. Their odds of being caught are higher when more of us are watching, but this immediate drop is only short term. That’s why we need to continue to remain vigilant and report suspicious activities.
Mayor Liccardo, Vice Mayor Herrera, Supervisor Cortese, and the SJPD all want crimes to drop in San Jose. Late last year, Evergreen residents went to Supervisor Cortese and then to City Hall asking for help, so more police resources were put into Evergreen with additional police overtime. We are very vigilant in the Fowler Creek and nearby Nextdoor groups. But we can’t share our postings and alerts to the northern part of Evergreen such as the Eastridge and Norwood areas due to Nextdoor’s limitation.
So looking at the burglary map for January 2015, we need to be more vigilant in the northern part of Evergreen. But look at the January burglary map for the southern part of Evergreen, from Aborn Road and southward. Compare that to Almaden, Los Gatos, Cupertino, and Palo Alto/Menlo Park areas. Burglaries in the southern part of Evergreen were mostly lower in January 2015.
Burglary rates fluctuate month to month. But on a good month as seen from these maps, the southern part of Evergreen can have among the lowest burglary rates in all of Silicon Valley.
Police chief Esquivel, Captain Mata, and the SJPD are doing a very good job. Among large US cities, San Jose has the lowest police officers per capita. Yet, the homicide rate in San Jose in 2014 was lower than many other large US cities. Taking the low staff issue under consideration, I feel that the SJPD is still one of the best police departments in the United States.
2012: Police officers per 10,000 residents
San Francisco 26.5 (about 2.5 times more than SJ)
Oakland 15.7 (40% higher than SJ)
San Jose 11.2
2014: Homicides
Homicides Population Homicides per 100,000 residents
Oakland 80 405,000 19.8 (518% higher than SJ, per capita)
San Francisco 45 850,000 5.3 (65% higher than SJ, per capita)
San Jose 32 1,000,000 3.2
References:
http://www.governing.com/gov‐data/safety‐justice/police‐officers‐per‐capita‐rates‐employment‐for‐city‐departments.html
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Bay‐Area‐cities‐homicide‐rates‐show‐striking‐6023054.php
Crimes in Evergreen are lower than other parts of San Jose. Looking at the burglary maps, Evergreen is still a safe place to live. Let's continue to be vigilant, communicate with neighbors, share info on Nextdoor, and support our police department. Crime rates will drop further as we get more police officers. I'm confident that when we have a sufficient police force, San Jose will become the safest large city in America again.