PGPD Falls “Short” in Crime Reporting

In case you’re wondering why I’m not posting weekly crime maps on Sundays, here is what is going on.

Recently PGPD has changed the format of their weekly crime reports (please see below). You will see the new format significantly different from the one we used to receive from the Police, as it does not have the information on the date and time of the incident and the location in block format.

College Park used to receive 2 separate weekly stats, one for north College Park and another for south College Park. In the new report we’re receiving one single very short report for the entire police district. For north College Park, we see only one line item (please see below).

Because of the lack of those information, I could not make and send the crime map, as I’ve done in past.

The new format is too brief and doesn’t serve the purpose of real crime reporting to our residents.

It’s true, we can still go to crimereports.com to take a look at crime map, but from my experience, the data on CrimeReports.com is very incomplete and often posted late.

To many residents and my colleagues on the Council, the new format is a step backward. Police is saying that they are doing this “to make stats as a whole, more uniform.” We’re still at a loss why PGPD had to downgrade their crime reporting email system to residents – why couldn’t it upgrade  rime reports in all neighborhood. Residents have always appreciated receiving weekly crime maps and related data in the past. I have already started to receive complaints from residents about the new format, after I sent out the March crime report last week.

District I/B-Sector Crime Stats 3/25/13 – 3/31/13
B1
Robbery- 4000 block of Warner Ave. (Detectives are investigating)

B3 (All of March)
Assaults: 3 incidents at 6001 Good Luck Road(Parkdale HS) (Arrest) 5600 Block Gallatin St (Arrest)
Theft From Autos: 4 Theft From Autos in Templeton Knolls (Detectives are investigating)

B4
7 thefts(Walmart) with 5 arrests
1 recovered stolen vehicle with 1 arrest(Walmart)

B5
Commercial Robbery- 7400 Annapolis Rd. (Detectives are investigating)

B6
2 Assaults- Area of Knox and Rt. 1 (Detectives are investigating, not domestic related)
Citizen Robbery- 8800 block 60th Ave (Detectives are investigating)

B7
5 theft from autos- Hollywood area (Detectives are investigating)