Whichever way you spin it, if you lived in Brownsville last year, you were more likely to be murdered, raped, robbed and assaulted than in 2009.
About the only silver lining (if you can call it that) was that there were less burglaries, larceny thefts and motor vehicle thefts reported.
There were seven murders reported in 2010 compared to only four for 2009. Likewise, there were 31 rapes compared to 26 the previous year. And, an alarming increase in terms of
personal safety, there was a sharp increase in aggravated assaults from 272 in 2009 to 360 in 2010.Reports of burglaries decreased 290 from 2009's 1,576 to 1,286 last year. Theft also decreased slightly from 7,784 to 7,865, or 81 cases reported less. Auto theft also went down slightly from 337 in 2009 to 246 last year, or 91 cases less.
What does this say for the incidence of crime in Brownsville. Cops like to have it both ways. They will point to murder an rape and call them "crimes of passion and opportunity" that often times cannot be prevented. Of course, if they had gone down, they would doubtless claim credit for the downturn.
But in the case of aggravated assault, the hefty increase from 272 to 360 signifies an increase of 88 cases of serious injury to the victims.
As far as burglaries and theft, the slight decrease in those numbers may point to the reluctance of victims to bother to report the crime to authorities after repeated reports from the same victims.
"I have more than two dozen cards from police officers after I reported numerous burglaries at my warehouse," said Felipe, a local businessman who closed his store after burglars kept coming in and cleaning out his shop. "After a while, I just quit calling them because they didn't do anything. I was working for the burglars."
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