Hyattsville Crime Rate Drops in 2011

Hyattsville's overall crime rate dropped by nearly 14 percent in 2011, according to statistics released last night by the city police department.

The biggest drop within that overall number was in commercial  break-ins, which dropped from 32 in 2010 to 15 in 2011, a decline of about 53 percent.

There were also reductions in the rate of auto thefts and larceny reported to the city police. Larcenies were down 14 percent in 2011, declining to 1,058 last year from 1,233 in 2010. Auto thefts saw a 9 percent decrease, dropping from 97 auto thefts in 2010 to 88 in 2011.

The news wasn't all good, though. A roughly two year streak of no murders within Hyattsville's borders was broken by the at University Town Center on June 30, 2011. Washington, D.C. resident and charged with first and second degree murder and first-degree assault.

There were also , up from one in 2010. Neither has resulted in an arrest.

City police categorize crimes in two broad categories, crimes against people and crimes against property. Crimes against people–mugging, assault, murder and the like–dropped 17 percent in 2011, with 180 incidents reported compared with 217 in 2010. The vast majority of crimes against people reported in Hyattsville are assault cases. Last year, the number of assaults dropped by 25 percent, down from 126 in 2010 to 94 in 2011.

Crimes against property–larceny, theft, breaking and entering–dropped 13.5 percent in 2011, with 1,298 incidents reported compared with 1,501 in 2010.

Last year's numbers continue a half-decade of declines in Hyattsville's crime rates. There were nearly 2,000 crimes reported to the Hyattsville City Police Department in 2007. Now that number has reduced to 1,476 crimes reported in 2011.

Last year's decline in crime coincides with a decline in criminal arrests as well. City police arrested 1,230 people in 2011, down from 1419 in 2010, a reduction of 13.3 percent.