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Crime continues to soar in San Luis Obispo

May 9, 2019

Driven by an increase in robberies and more reporting of sexual assaults, violent crime rose by 8 percent in San Luis Obispo in 2018, according to statistics released by the SLO Police Department. [Cal Coast Times]

Both property crime and overall crime increased slightly last year. Property crime rose by 1.5 percent, and overall crime rose by 2 percent, according to the annual crime report.

The figures suggest the continuation of a trend of rising crime in San Luis Obispo. SLO has experienced an unprecedented increase in crime since 2015.

In 2015, crime in San Luis Obispo rose by 21 percent. The following year, crime increases by 11 percent.

Last year, police received 51 reports of rapes, up from 39 in 2017. There was also a 41 percent increase in reports of sexual assaults.

As a result of the MeToo movement, victims of sexual assault and rape were far more likely to report the attacks to police than in previous years, according to police.

Robberies increased from 23 in 2017 to 33 in 2018. Though aggravated assaults declined from 111 to 103, total violent crimes rose from 173 in 2017 to 187 in 2018.

No homicides occurred in SLO in either 2017 or 2018.

Among property crimes, residential burglaries increased by 56 percent in 2018. Most of the 164 total residential burglaries occurred at unlocked homes, and 43 percent of the home burglaries took place in neighborhoods surrounding the Cal Poly campus.

In 2018, police arrested 14 alleged burglars who reportedly accounted for 27 percent of the citywide burglaries.

Despite crime trending upward, Police Chief Deanna Cantrell said in a press release that her department’s efforts are yielding positive results.

“Our efforts show positive results in many areas, and we are optimistic the measures will continue to improve the safety of our city,” Cantrell said.

The SLO Police Department had numerous vacancies in 2018, and like other law enforcement agencies across the country, had difficulty recruiting lateral employees. However, the upcoming city budget will include funding for a new school resource officer and for a detective focused on marijuana-related issues.


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The legislators and voters of California have tied the hands of our Judges and law enforcement. AB109, Props 46 & 56 are the hall pass of the century for bad actors. Thank you to the low information voters for letting these meth and opioid addicts out of jail and into our homeless populations.


10

correction – Props 47 & 57


1

I’ve got a great plan to curb crime, unfortunately it will take 20+ years. Start raising children to respect the law and police.


5

And we should also start hiring police who respect people.


-2

Soaring Crime? OK….I’ve got just the fix. I’ll spell it out here:


Start a War on Crime


A War on Crime is going to work just like the War on Drugs, which eliminated all drugs. A war on crime will eliminate all crime!


1. Massively increase funding for police. Give all cops more money, better pensions, nicer squad cars, motorcycles, etc. Let them retire after 10 years with full benefits. This will attract the best and brightest. Double….no….TRIPLE the size of the police force.


2. Militarize the police. More body armor, more weaponry, armored vehicles, attack drones, larger and better funded SWAT teams and advanced weapons and tactics training.


3. Stop being “soft” on crime. Build bigger prisons and fill them up. Don’t wait for people to commit actual crimes….lock them up for pre-crime behavior, IE buying a screw driver or eating at Chick-fil-a. Shoot to kill more often.


4. Curfew for everyone. Disarm the public. Make it illegal to commit crime…..we need far more laws that make far more stuff illegal. For example: when it became illegal to buy sudafed in bulk, meth disappeared.


These solutions should sound familiar. It’s what we’ve been doing for the last 20+ years.


Now, I know some might wonder why crime isn’t way down with all the militarized cops, increased budgets and so forth…and they have a point. But I think we should double down on the status quo and get this community well policed and knocked into shape.


We need to all be very, very scared to go out and commit crime….and that starts with being scared to go out…..Massive amounts of police presence is just the thing to instill fear and fear is what any community needs, especially if they want to start a war on crime.


-6

First you need to take the restraints off of the police.


3

Remember “realignment”? Basically no one goes to prison unless it is a sex crime, violent crime or “serious” crime. Property crimes soar because, at most if caught, the perp will go to jail for a while. Steal a car? Jail time at most, since it’s not a serious, sexual violent crime. So why should the police even bother? Answer: they don’t, they concentrate on the low-hanging fruit, arresting drunken college students. And now the city wants $47 MILLION for a new police station and “city ambassadors” to guide people around town. Seems like our priorities are pretty messed up.


17

Wow, a 2 percent rise in crime. 14 more burglars on the loose. I think common sense barriers would eliminate most of that. Outdoor cameras, RING doorbells should do the trick. Unfortunately, many of our elderly are ignorant of these precautions. Maybe the city or county should help them out—maybe the libertarian ilk won’t object to that too much.


-14

They are stealing the RING doorbell cameras


7

Correlation does not equal causation.


Progressive policies are more favored in densely populated areas. More people equals more crime is the closest thing to a true statement of ’cause”.


Per capita stats would be useful if comparing populations.


By your logic; conservatism equals racist.


I can find a correlation between Conservatism and avowed racists beliefs, but I don’t think being conservative causes you to be racist. Do you?


Can you see how you were proved wrong?


-14

This was a reply to Shelworth blaming crime rate on progressives. Not sure where his/her comment went off to.


-6

I don’t know where it went either, but you really can not find any correlation between Democrat controlled cities and higher crime? Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC, Etc?


4

You make it a binary choice, which makes it easier to find a villain and to model.


I would say that any large populations can be reflected accurately in a bell curve. Cities fall into this category.


The vast majority of the crime would be by the populations in the tails of the curve and not the bell itself, so the extremes (found in the tails) left, right and IN BETWEEN are the culprits. The population may be more or less progressive (or conservative if you like), but the tail never accurately describes a population.


Again correlation does not mean causation.


-2

You mean Ian Parkinson’s half million dollar boat didn’t curb crimes? How much have taxpayers paid for the upkeep? How many joyrides have the sheriffs department taken on the boat? Anyone think it would be better to sell the boat so we could spend more time on land crimes? Well, at least were safe from Fish.


23

This is within the City and has nothing to do with the Sheriff. Put a bar or wine tasting on every corner, have a bunch of Liberals trying to run the city, cater to tourist who come for the weekend and holidays and raise hell and have a college town. What do you expect? They want to play the game and now will be paying the price. We all know what the answer will be don’t we? Raise the taxes and hire more people to take care of the problems that is mostly caused by outsiders but make the insiders pay for it.


23

I bet you’ve been waiting all week to complain about Sheriff Parkinson and today you finally found a piece of news that was the catalyst. Except that the article is about crime in the city of SLO. The sheriff polices the unincorporated areas of the county. Selling the sheriffs boat or any other piece of equipment won’t affect crime in the city and since the boat was purchased and is maintained with federal funds, not county general funds, eliminating it won’t increase funding for the sheriffs department. So.. take the weed out of your a** and cheer up, this is still a nice place to live.


2

We received plenty of rain Parkinson’s Navy should be on patrol


5

I don’t see the police patrol downtown anymore. It’s been since Harmon was elected though I don’t know if it’s related. People do drug deals in the open by the creek now, homeless people scream nonsense at tourists. Not sure why they don’t patrol anymore, would be nice if they did.


37

nazbol gang , if you want to see police patrolling you just have to hang out at the bars on higuera every evening. There’s cops everywhere watching drunk students running in front of cars back-and forth in the middle of the street. Breaking up occasional fights and checking out the hot drunk chicks. Oh, also ticketing Uber drivers who are there to give safe rides home.


21

Yes, the lack of police patrols downtown–other than during late night party time–really irritates me. You never seen them walking or riding their bikes around town during the day. The homeless run rampant, illegally taking up large areas of sidewalks and hogging benches for hours. Not to mention accosting people like when two physically attacked me at the Post Office at 9am one recent morning.


It would do wonders for both locals and tourists if they could have one member of the police force walking around town all day, just like the foot patrols of the old days. And I don’t mean one armed like a member of the military, I mean one that looks approachable, friendly and helpful.


25