- Liberati at NCPCA
Prince George’s County Police Department (PGPD)’s new Commander for District 1 Major Robert Liberati was at this month’s NCPCA meeting at Davis Hall. In the meeting, he made a PowerPoint presentation on the recent crime statistics in our city.
The overall result Mr. Liberati presented can be summarized in one word – “mixed“.
Maj. Leberati said that the overall violent crimes against persons, such as homicides, assaults, robberies from 2009 to 2010 have increased 10%, whereas crimes against properties, such as burglaries during the same period have gone down 18.4%. The percentage of changes in crimes against persons and properties from year 2008 to 2009 are -18.8% and -15.2% respectively.
He attributed last year’s rise in violent crimes against persons to an increase in citizen robberies (from 17 to 22) and assaults (34 to 42). He also noted that the number of burglaries, thefts and stolen vehicles have gone down during the past year.
At the end of his presentation, he answered a few questions from the members.
- He asked members to notify the Police about any vacant or foreclosed houses, which he said the Police can keep an eye on.
- He commented that remotely monitored safety alarm systems may not be always effective, since most burglars know how to disable such systems by disconnecting telephone lines.
- He also cautioned against false alarms which may result in fines. He said 97% of alarms are false in nature. He said most of the burglaries are not done in a planned way, thus taking simple precautions may help in avoiding such crimes.
- He advised residents to keep a record of their valuable property items’ ID (serial numbers etc.) so that they can be easily recovered should these items end up in pawn shops after thefts.