St. Tammany News

The crime statistics for 2007 submitted to the public Tuesday by the Slidell Police Department have good news and bad news.

The good news is there were no homicides in Slidell city limits last year. That is a 100 percent drop in homicides from the three murders in 2006. The other good news is the rates of burglaries, robberies, assaults and auto thefts also decreased in 2007.

The bad news is overall crime Increased 4.2 percent with 2,287 crimes reported in 2007 as compared to 2,194 reported crimes in 2006.

The biggest jump are in rapes and thefts. Rapes went from eight reported in 2006 to 13 in 2007, a 62 percent increase. Reported thefts increased from 1,492 in 2006 to 1,708 thefts in 2007, a 14 percent rise.

Police Chief Freddy Drennan and police spokesman Capt. Kevin Foltz said the increase in the two types of crimes result in the way crimes are reported.

Foltz said the department uses the rules and regulations of the federal Universal Crime Reporting Index, which defines the types of crimes. The UCR Index makes crime reporting from different police departments universal for the federal government.

For example, the number of raped increased over the year, because now, the police department has to include all child molestation crimes under the rape category, according to the UCR.

Even though that has increased the number of rapes during 2007, Foltz believes this means more children and adults are reporting child sex crimes.

"I would hope that more awareness and more education has made it easier for children to come forward and report these crimes," Foltz said.

As for the increase in the number of thefts, both Drennan and Foltz said now all thefts have to be lumped together under UCR reporting.

"We have to put shoplifting of a $50 item to a $1 million embezzlement under one category now," Drennan said.

Foltz said there has been an increase in shoplifting reports in the city because stores have better security measures and are catching more thieves.

The number of burglaries in the city dropped 19 percent from 334 in 2006 to 281 in 2007. Foltz attributes that to the arrests of one or two individuals who committed many burglaries.

"Some of these guys committed 30 to 40 burglaries each. Arresting them takes a big chunk out of the numbers," Foltz said. He added the number of burglaries spiked in 2005 with 347 reports. He explained this as people burglarizing empty houses right after Hurricane Katrina.

The Slidell police also saw a 13 percent decrease in auto thefts, a 33 percent decrease in assaults and a whopping 73 percent decrease in robberies.

"We are very happy with these numbers," Foltz said.

There is some more good news about the crime rate. Despite the 4.2 increase in one year, statistics show overall crime in Slidell has dropped by 1 percent since 2004.

In 2004, the total number of reported crimes was 2,310. There was a 12 percent drop in 2005 with 2,058 reported crimes, and then a 6 percent increase in 2006 with 2,194 reported crimes. Which means that the 4.2 percent increase in 2007 is still lower than the 2006 increase.

Drennan is happy with not having any homicides in the city for 2007.

"Being in the proximity of New Orleans with its high murder rate, our rate speaks volumes for the men and women working in the Slidell Police Department," Drennan said.

Of course, Drennan would like to see all the figures go down to zero.

"If the chief lost his job because of a zero crime rate, he would still be a happy man," Foltz said.