Annual Crime Report a Mixed Bag for Fargo Police

The Fargo Police Department annual crime report brings some good news, and some bad news for the community.
 
Overall, crime is up, but violent crimes are down.
 
Police say the big takeaway from the report is that they’re a lot busier than they used to be.

Now, they say it’s time to figure out how to fix that.
 
 
In 2015, the number of overall offenses jumped 16 percent in Fargo.

Some areas saw bigger increases than others.
 
“We’ve seen increases in the southwest part of Fargo and the north part of Fargo,” says Deputy Police Chief Joe Anderson.
 
But it’s not all bad news.

Personal crimes are down.

Robberies decreased 26 percent in 2015.

Gross sexual imposition is down eleven percent.

There was one less murder in the city.

But those numbers are offset by a jump in property crimes.
 
Anderson adds,”That’s where you see a lot of the increases; the burglaries, the thefts.”
 
Police have a theory why property crimes are up.
 
“A lot of those crimes are being driven by addiction issues,” says Anderson. “We have made numerous arrests in burglaries, vehicle thefts around the year, and when we debrief individuals, a lot of what we’re hearing is they’re committing these crimes to support their habit.”
 
The extra crime comes with a huge jump in service calls.

Police responded to more than 74,000 calls in 2015, up 57 percent over five years.
 
“It’s almost that they don’t pay attention to traffic tickets. They’re more paying attention to crime and prevention of crime,” says Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney.
 
The department admits it’s playing catch up, so one of the goals for 2016 is to get more officers on the streets to help reduce the number of property crimes in Fargo.
 
“We have to get ahead of the curve,” explains Mahoney. “We just have not had the opportunity to do that yet.”
 
The police department is about 13 officers short of a full staff.

They’re in the process of bringing more people on board, but it takes a while.
 
“It takes probably six months to a year to get that officer trained,” says Anderson. “Hired and trained then out on the street.”
 
Police Chief David Todd brought a plan to the city to add five more officers each of the next five years, to keep up with a growing population.
 
“We have not necessarily kept up with the number of police officers on the street,” says Anderson. “We are trying to increase that.”
 
Police are also looking to the public to help curb the number of property crimes in Fargo.

You can do things as simple as making sure your cars and homes are locked, and turning on your porch light at night.

They also ask people to report any suspicious or unusual activity.