14th Street Area: Violent Crime Flat, Property Crime Soars

As noted in yesterday’s story about the U Street area, 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 14th St.: Violent, Property Crimes Decline in 2010.)

This changed last month in both the U Street and 14th Street areas: Property crimes for October 2010 were up dramatically from October 2009 while violent crime went down (U Street area) or remained stable (14th Street area).

Today we’ll look at October crime numbers for the 14th Street area. The 14th Street Corridor crime reporting area (see accompanying maps) covers a circular area that radiates 1,000 feet from 14th and Q Streets NW–an area that roughly runs from 15th Street on the west to Vermont Avenue/Logan Circle on the east and from S Street on the north to Rhode Island Avenue on the south. All numbers are from the MPD Crime Database.

Violent crime unchanged from last October. The number of violent crimes in the 14th Street area last month was exactly the same as in October 2009: four violent crimes. This compares to six violent crimes in October 2008. Three of the four of the violent crimes last month were robberies, while one was an assault — none of them involved a gun.

Property crimes doubled from 2009. Bucking the trend we have seen this year in the area was the rise in property crimes YOY in the 14th Street area. Burglaries, thefts and thefts from autos (“smash and grabs”) were all up dramatically last month when compared to October 2009. A total of 36 property crimes were reported in the area last month, compared to 13 in October 2009 and 29 in October 2008.

There were four burglaries last month, up from zero the previous October. After a year-long decline, the number of thefts from autos climbed to 16, which compares to 6 in October 2009. Thefts more than doubled as well YOY, from 6 in October 2009 to 14 last month.

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

14th 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	4	3
Robbery With Gun	2	0	0
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) Excluding Gun	0	0	1
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) With Gun	0	0	0
Total Violent Crime	6	4	4
Burglary	3	0	4
Theft	12	6	14
Theft From Auto	9	6	16
Stolen Auto	5	1	2
Arson	0	0	0
Total Property Crime	29	13	36
Total Crime	35	17	40

Source: MPD Crime Database

¹ The 14th Street Corridor crime reporting area (see map above) covers a circular area that radiates 1,000 feet from 14th and Q Streets NW–an area that roughly runs from 15th Street on the west to Vermont Avenue/Logan Circle on the east and from S Street on the north to Rhode Island Avenue on the south. The crime reporting is in Police Service Area (PSA) 307, part of MPD’s Third District.