Police Release 2014 Crime Data
Overall Crime Is Up
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It might now come as a surprise that robberies and vehicle thefts are on the rise in Fargo. That is the finding in the latest crime report from the city.
Janessa Marquette is a criminal justice student at MSUM who lives in Fargo. She said one problem in particular from last year’s crime report sticks out.
“I think one of the big issues is the sex trafficking,” says Marquette.
Homicides were up with five major cases. They investigated the deaths of Dvraughn Rutues, Rolandes House, Randall Doehner, and Mario Perez. They continue to investigate the homicide of NDSU student Tom Bearson, whose body was found in Moorhead in September.
“They are the lowest low-lights that we have because they really are devastating stories,” says Lt. Michael Mitchell of Fargo Police.
But overall criminal offenses only increased by one percent.
“The aggravated assaults, which were something we were very conscientious of, they went down 17 percent,” says Mitchell.
While areas like aggravated assault and burglary went down, robberies and motor vehicle theft went up by more than 40 percent.
“Of the robberies we did have, about half of them we were able to solve by arrest,” Mitchell explains.
Nonetheless, bringing those crime rates back down is something the police are working on. Police say that this year, they plan on continuing to educate people by consistently posting to their Facebook page.
“If we didn’t do stuff like that, our numbers wouldn’t be nearly where they’re at today,” Mitchell says.
And people like Janessa are proud of the Fargo Police’s work.
“I think they’ve been making a lot of positive changes,” Marquette says.
“There’s definitely a raising crime rate but they’re doing the right steps to take care of it,” says John Daly of Fargo.
“I think the Fargo police are doing a great job,” Greg Everett says.
If you would like to read the full report, it’s available on fargopolice.com as well as on the Fargo Police Facebook page.
