Authorities grapple with rise in LV crime

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2003 | 11:30 a.m.

Crime in the Las Vegas area increased 12 percent last year, according to an annual report released Monday by the FBI, and the number has jumped even higher through August.

Undersheriff Doug Gillespie said overall crime jumped by 15 percent during the first eight months of 2003 compared to the same time period last year. Crimes against people, which include murder, robbery, aggravated assault and rape, are up 3 percent through August.

The department is trying to grapple with the increased crime that has come with increases in the area's population, Gillespie said.

"Since Sheriff (Bill) Young took office in January, we've been focusing our attention on developing new strategies and implementing new plans so we can impact these numbers," he said.

Robberies, which rose slightly -- 2 percent -- between 2001 and 2002 are the focus of a series of seminars to be held at a different police substation each week beginning today, Lt. Ted Snodgrass said.

The seminars are geared toward business owners and employees and will focus on robbery prevention.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Report is an annual compilation of crime data culled from more than 17,000 city, county and state law enforcement agencies across the country. The FBI compiles and analyzes the data and releases its report every October.

Nationally, the number of serious crimes -- 11.9 million -- was up by less than one-tenth of 1 percent between 2001 and 2002.

In Metro Police's jurisdiction, the crime that increased most was aggravated assault. The number swelled by 38 percent, the report says. In contrast, aggravated assaults in Henderson dropped by 34 percent.

"Any increase in crime is cause for concern for us in the law enforcement profession," Gillespie said. "Because Las Vegas is a fast-growing community, we have to put that in perspective with the growth numbers."

The number of people living in Metro's jurisdiction went up 3 percent from 2001 to 2002, according to the FBI's estimate, but state figures are slightly higher. The state demographer estimates that from July 2001 to July 2002 Clark County experienced a population increase of 4.3 percent.

Increasing the number of police officers on the streets is one way to deter crime, and Metro officials are trying to figure out ways to do that. Currently, Gillespie said, the ratio of officers per 1,000 residents is 1.74 compared with a national average of 2.5 officers per 1,000 residents.

Young plans to ask voters in November 2004 to pass a ballot initiative that would allow the department to hire more officers by increasing property taxes.

That's a tactic that Henderson Police tried -- and voters in that city rejected -- in November 2000 and again in May 2001.

Even if the outcome is different for Metro, Gillespie pointed out, the additional officers wouldn't be fully trained and on the street until January 2006.

Overall crime increased 8.4 percent in North Las Vegas overall and 1.4 percent in Henderson. Crime decreased in Boulder City by 19 percent.

Metro, North Las Vegas and Henderson have experienced a rise in motor vehicle theft -- 18 percent, 16 percent and 27 percent, respectively.

Henderson Police Department spokesman Keith Paul said police officials hope their participation in the National Watch Your Car program will help reduce their auto theft numbers.

Car owners enrolled in the program sign a form saying their vehicle is not normally driven between 1 and 5 a.m. and if police spot the car on the road during those hours, they are permitted to pull it over.

As for the most high profile crime, murder, police caution that in some instances the FBI statistics are different from those kept by local authorities because the FBI classifies the crime differently.

For example, the report says Henderson handled four murders last year, but the number is actually six, Paul said. The FBI did not count the starvation death of a 1-year-old girl last October as a murder, even though the baby's parents were charged with murder.

Also, a man who injected a one-armed man with drugs at his request wasn't counted as murder by the FBI.

The report says 19 murders occurred in North Las Vegas last year, but Officer Justin Roberts, spokesman for the department, said they consider the actual number to be 22.

Metro's murder total was the same as the one reported by the FBI. Metro handled 137 murders in 2002 compared to 133 the previous year.