Brentwood Police Chief Mark Evenson reported Tuesday night that overall crime in Brentwood is down 6.3% while the City Council stated they remain committed to hiring more officers.
Between 2012 and 2013, violent crime decreased by 145 incidents, or 22.8%. Brentwood, however, did experience an increase in rape and aggravated assault, but experienced a decrease in robbery, arson, and simple assault. Unlike aggravated assault, simple assault is a misdemeanor where the assault does not include the use of a weapon or the infliction of great bodily injury.
Meanwhile, overall property crime increased by 29 incidents, or 2.4% between 2012 and 2013. The increase is due to the increases in non-residential burglary, theft, and auto theft. Residential burglary remained relatively unchanged.
The City Council focused on police staffing after the chief reported the police staffing is still not at full staff with the city budgeted for 66 sworn-staffing and currently have just 49-sworn. The police department currently has 3 sworn vacancies and 4 open over-hire positions, giving the Department a total of 7 sworn positions to fill. The chief did say they are hoping to fill 4-positions within the next month.
The chief was asked about clearance rates and if staffing was an issue.
The chief explained that the ability to solve part 1 crimes and investigator work that currently both patrol and detectives do investigative work. Patrol officers balance that with responding to calls. They investigate lower level crimes. More serious crimes go to detective units.
“I do think staffing effects this. We have been down in our investigative unit. We have not been able to fill detective positions. That is reality,” said Evenson.
Councilman Erick Stonebarger asked if there was anything else the Council can do to help the police department.
“As your police chief I’d like you to give me 25-more officers and find the funding. But I know that we also work within a fiscal situation where that is not possible,” said Evenson. “What I do appreciate is that all of you have been supportive of me and the police department and willing to step up and get resources to get the job done. We have been going through some tough times trying to hire people and making some policy decisions to help improve that which is fantastic and I appreciate it. Authorizing the overhire is a great benefit. We need to get back to full staffing and its hard for me to access where we are at as far as staffing as we are not even fully staffed—regarding future needs.”
The Chief explained that to hire people and keep people they are working on incentive packages for benefits and perks. These changes are estimated to be in front of the council in the next 30-to-60 days.
“When it comes in front of council I hope you all will be supportive. It does include fiscal impacts and you will have to decide on what to apply to that to show that we are willing to do things different to attact those lateral officers to Brentwood,” said Evenson.
Mayor Bob Taylor thanked the chief and the police department for their efforts.
“I want to thank you. It’s good for us to know what the numbers actually are and a synopsis of what we are doing, where we are going. I want to commend you, the top brass and the boys and women that really have the heartthrob of the city so they need to be thanked,” said Taylor. “If you could turn on the news San Jose is missing a zillion officers everyone is grasping to keep their budget. The bad guys always find a way to come in and get out but Brentwood has a pretty good reputation that if you come into Brentwood we might catch you and that is a good trend I would like to see continue. So thank your people for being on top of their game with what we have right now.”
Vice Mayor Joel Bryant agreed with the mayor on the job the police department is doing.
“The numbers that the chief presented should be where they are at with amount vacancies,” said Bryant.
Councilman Steve Barr explained that public safety is a priority of theirs because the people make it a priority.
“For me the public safety component is one of the ways we keep our community looking the way it does today,” said Barr.
Barr explained how there are other neighboring communities with as much potential as Brentwood had but due to crime people moved out because they did not feel safe. The community suffered because those who cared about crime moved while those who moved in may not care so much about crime. Brentwood was able to prevent people from moving by focusing on crime.
“I know the residents I’ve talked to do not want residents to go down that path. It’s a priority we keep public safety at the top of the list to maintain the quality of the community. It’s not something I am willing to let deteriorate,” said Barr.
The chief also issued an updated to the five armed robberies last Thursday where he stated there have been no arrests, but the police department is working diligently to apprehend the individuals responsible. They are working on leads.
Here is a portion of the information directly out of the Staff Report – click all graphics to enlarge!
RESPONSE TIMES
Response times are an important performance category of police service. Response times vary greatly depending on the size of the City and department, geographical location and level sof crime. Smaller cities usually have faster response times, due simply to the geography. Calls for service are prioritized into two general categories.
- Priority 1 calls involve an immediate threat to life or crimes that are in progress.
- Priority 2 calls are high priority but do not elevate to the level of an emergency.
Brentwood Average Response Times Listed in Minutes and Seconds 2009 – 2013
INCIDENTS OF CRIME AND CRIME RATE
Crimes including murder, rape, robbery, arson, assault, burglary, theft and auto theft are categorized as Part 1 crimes, which are the statistics that are tracked by both the FBI and by local jurisdictions. For clarification purposes, robbery is taking property from a person by force or the threat of force. Theft is taking property of another without their permission. Aggravated assault is an assault with a deadly weapon, or an assault likely to cause great bodily injury. Aggravated assault is a felony. Simple assault is an unlawful use of force on another that doesn’t amount to aggravated assault. Simple assault is a misdemeanor. When examining levels of crime in a jurisdiction, both incidents of crime and crime rate must be considered. Incidents of crime are the total number of Part 1 crimes that occurred in a calendar year. Crime rate is the measurement of crime incidents per 1,000 population.
Violent crime includes murder, rape, robbery, arson and aggravated assault, and simple assault. Property crime includes burglary, theft and auto theft.
City of Brentwood – Part 1 Crimes per 1,000 Population (2004 – 2013)
Sworn Staffing
The following information provides an overview of the current sworn staffing levels within the police department.
The police department currently has 3 sworn vacancies and 4 open over-hire positions, giving us a total of 7 sworn positions to fill.
There are 4 sworn officers out on long-term disability leave. Two of them will more than likely retire within the next 60 to 90 days. We expect one to return to full duty by June. We have 1 lateral hire in the Field Training Program, and he should finish his field training in June. We have 3 police recruits who just graduated from the academy and have started their field training. We expect them to finish their field training by September. We just hired 2 police recruits who will begin the academy in April. We plan to have another 5 police officer recruits hired and in the academy by May. These officers should be done with their field training by February 2015.
The police department continues to be aggressive in our recruiting and hiring process while maintain high standards for those we hire. We have more police officer interviews scheduled for April and May.
SUMMARY
As a reminder, the Brentwood Police Department monitors and reacts to ongoing changes in crime numbers throughout the year. This is in accordance with Council’s direction to provide timely responses to crime trends and patterns.
Response Times
In 2013, we experienced a 1 second increase to Priority 1 calls, and an 11 second increase in Priority 2 calls. From a national perspective, Priority 1 response times under 6 minutes are considered good. Our goal is to continue to provide the citizens of Brentwood with a rapid response when they call for police assistance. Our current average response time to Priority 1 calls of 4 minutes and 51 seconds indicates that we are doing very well in this category.
Incidents of Crime and Crime Rates
Our violent crime rate decreased by 145 incidents, or 22.8%. We had no homicides in 2013. We experienced an increase in rapes and aggravated assaults, but we saw drops in robbery, arson, and simple assaults.
Our property crime rate increased by 29 incidents, or 2.4%. Residential burglaries remained relatively unchanged, but we experienced an increase in non-residential burglaries, thefts, and auto thefts. Our overall Part 1 crime rate was down by 116 incidents, or 6.3%.
Workload
Our reactive workload decreased by 0.7% in 2013. Though our calls for service increased by
538 events, we experienced decreases in all other categories. Overall, our reactive workload remained relatively unchanged in 2013. Our proactive workload decreased by 12.4%. We experienced decreases in arrests, citations, and officer initiated stops. Part of the reason for the lower proactive workload numbers can be attributed to the lowing sworn staffing levels we experienced in 2013.
Clearance Rates
Our clearance rates improved in 2013. Though we still need to improve our clearance rates in some categories, we did experience better clearance rates for rape, robbery, arson, and burglary. When compared to the national average, we are still below the average in the categories of burglary and theft. It is difficult to determine what causes the fluctuation in our clearance rates. Our Patrol Officers and Investigations Unit have done, and continue to do, an excellent job investigating their cases.
Current Trends
At the beginning of 2013, we experienced a spike in residential burglaries. Our Investigations Unit worked diligently and tirelessly to identify and arrest those responsible. In addition, we worked closely with our Neighborhood Watch groups to notify residents about good crime prevention strategies, and we used our crime analysis software to deploy patrol officers in the neighborhoods most affected by the burglaries. Fortunately, we saw the trend subside over the summer. There are no other crime trends to report at this time.
Conclusion
In light of the shortages in sworn staffing over the past year, our existing sworn and civilian staff has done a stellar job dealing with those shortages and taking on additional workload. Overall, it is my opinion that the men and women of the Brentwood Police Department continue to provide outstanding police services to the citizens of Brentwood, and we are maintaining a high level of service to our community.
Though the crime rates are trending in a positive direction, any amount of crime is unacceptable. Our department can improve in all areas, and we will continue to work hard to aggressively fight crime and ensure Brentwood remains one of the safest cities in the state.
The full report can be viewed online:
http://www.ci.brentwood.ca.us/citycouncil/ePacket/ccap2014/ccep20140422.pdf
3 comments
I must say that I live in Antioch and the City of Brentwood gets a high5 to the PD from me. With as few officers that this city has They and are seen every where you look. And that is in every part of brentwood that is possible. I am in Brentwood throughout the week different days of the week every week. And let me tell you everytime I turn around there is an officer somewhere to be seen. So my hat is off 2 the city of Brentwood PD department for being visible everywhere. I think to me that makes a Huge difference in having crime happen or at least to detour it. I sure feel safer in Brentwood, maybe Antioch should get advice from their Police Chief, I think he knows whats up wirh his officers!!!
If they are committed, why is the police department understaffed? Seems like lip service to me with ECT carrying their water.
How is it carrying their water? The reporting is what was stated at the meeting. How is it lip service? Do you even know what the staffing should be for Brentwood? I know, shy don’t gou move to Oakland and do a comparitive analysis for us and relott back in oh, ten years? Carry that water….
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