U Street Area: Burglaries, Auto Crimes Up YOY

On a year-over-year (YOY) basis, property crime has been falling all year in the Dupont-Logan-U Street area. This means that the number of property crimes recorded each month was almost always lower than in the same month of 2009. (See U St.: Assaults Drive Violent Crime Up.)

This changed last month in both the U Street and 14th Street areas: Property crimes for October 2010 were up dramatically from October 2009.

Today we’ll look at October crime numbers for the U Street area. The U Street Corridor crime reporting area¹ (see map) covers a circular area that radiates 1,000 feet from 12th and U NW–an area that roughly runs from 14th Street on the west to 9th Street on the east and from W Street on the north to S Street on the south. All numbers are from the MPD Crime Database.

Violent crime down from last October. Violent crime was down in the U Street area last month compared to both October 2009 and 2008. There were two violent crimes last month, both of them robberies committed without guns. This compares to nine violent crimes in October 2009 and six in October 2008 in the U Street Street area. This is a change from recent crime stat reports in for the U Street area, which had showed violent crime higher than in previous years.

Property crimes doubled from 2009. There were 39 property crimes in the U Street area in October 2010, compared to 20 in October 2009 and  27 in October 2008. The rise in property crimes is due to increases in robberies, thefts from autos, or “smash and grabs,” and stolen autos.

There were seven burglaries last month in the area compared to zero in October 2009. Auto crimes were also up:  there were 22 thefts from autos in October 2010, up dramatically from 13 the previous October. In addition, there were four stolen autos in the area last month compared to one in October 2009.

Total crime stats for October 2008, 2009 and 2010 are below the fold.

U Street Area¹ Crime Stats for October 2008, 2009, 2010

Crime Type	October 2008	October 2009	October 2010
Homicide	0	0	0
Sex Abuse	0	0	0
Robbery Excluding Gun	4	3	2
Robbery With Gun	2	4	0
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) Excluding Gun	0	2	0
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) With Gun	0	0	0
Total Violent Crime	6	9	2
Burglary	2	0	7
Theft	5	6	6
Theft From Auto	19	13	22
Stolen Auto	1	1	4
Arson	0	0	0
Total Property Crime	27	20	39
Total Crime	33	29	41

Source: MPD Crime Database

¹ The U Street Corridor crime reporting area (see map above) covers a circular area that radiates 1,000 feet from 12th and U NW–an area that roughly runs from 14th Street on the west to 9th Street on the east and from W Street on the north to S Street on the south. This area is in Police Service Area (PSA) 305, which is part of MPD’s Third District.