Police union president questions Mesa’s place on ‘safest city’ list

9 comments:

• Dale Whiting posted at 8:52 am on Wed, Jan 4, 2012.

  Posts: 3705

  Russell,

  Shame on you for knocking on, then exposing, one of your elected official's planks for re-election. Perhaps Bill Richardson can shed further light on this fraud.

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• billrichardson posted at 10:36 am on Wed, Jan 4, 2012.

  Posts: 111

  Here is a link to the Arizona Crime Analysts Association web page and crime statistics from 2010 and FY 09-10. Mesa is well below crime in Glendale, Phoenix and Tempe. It's interesting to me that crime is down everywhere, but Tempe continues to have the highest crime rate in the East Valley even though they have half as many police officers as Mesa with one-third the population and the Sinaloa Drug Cartel appears to have set up shop. At least the Sinaloans aren't calling Mesa home.

  http://www.aacaonline.org/2010%20Phoenix%20Metro%20Area%20Crime%20Summary.pdf

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• billrichardson posted at 10:37 am on Wed, Jan 4, 2012.

  Posts: 111

  Crime Analysts webpage link.

  http://www.aacaonline.org/valleycrimes.html

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• downtownresident posted at 11:49 am on Wed, Jan 4, 2012.

  Posts: 769

  This is clearly a self serving, greedy attitude. The same cry we hear whenever there's an election. I remember when they were whining because they didn't get paid for getting dressed.

  Don't get me wrong, cops do a dangerous, hard job and I couldn't do it, but let's not cry wolf whenever we see an opening.
  Russel may be working a desk job for his comments.

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• billrichardson posted at 12:59 pm on Wed, Jan 4, 2012.

  Posts: 111

  Here's a link to an old column about the MPA's wanting to get overtime pay to get dressed for work. When it was all said and done it cost Mesa taxpayers almost $350,000 to shut down the union's frivolous lawsuit. $350,000 would have paid the first year salary for seven new police officers.

  http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/opinion/article_76109c6e-a386-5db2-a346-83414f2ddde5.html

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• Juggernaut8000 posted at 1:53 pm on Wed, Jan 4, 2012.

  Posts: 576

  Whoever did this study clearly has not been to this large city. Mesa has approximately a dozen murders per year, countless rapes, assaults and fatal car collisions.

  Illegals roam the streets in troops and the police do nothing about it. Just today, a home invasion led to the death of a young mother...real safe place Forbes.

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• Masterrogue666 posted at 9:18 pm on Wed, Jan 4, 2012.

  Posts: 1797

  First, let me state that you can prove anything you want with statistics, depending how the data is gathered. Second, due to CLOSE PROXIMITY of cities to one another, criminals could easily "work" in one city, and live in another, which would further decrease the accuracy of any information. Third, if you look carefully at the link provided by billrichardson, there's the following statement:

  "The crime and calls for service information, provided by the crime analysis units/planning units in each agency, was compiled by the Tempe Police Department Crime Analysis Unit. This report is based on Uniform Crime
  Reporting (UCR) criteria which are not equivalent to Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) statistics and therefore this data cannot be directly compared to ARS reports. Under the hierarchy rule of UCR, only the most severe offense
  of an incident is counted. Therefore, for example, burglary offenses are only counted where the burglary is the most severe offense committed in the incident. The above tables include dispatched/callback calls for service only.
  U.S. Census Bureau official population estimates were used. Any incidents that had missing or incorrect information may not be properly depicted in this report.
  *Numbers are preliminary and are subject to change ^Chandler, Glendale, Maricopa, Mesa, Phoenix, Tempe, and Tucson CFS data includes both citizen and officer-generated calls."

  Also, once should compare information for the entire FISCAL YEAR. Bill's link is not to the entire fiscal year, so I checked that information as well. I noticed, however, that when you compare Bill's link page, and the fiscal year page (if you check the second link Bill provided, and look for it, you'll find it), some cities are listed, and others are not. So, the data provided isn't the most accurate IMHO, but I'll use it in any event.

  The premise of the entire article is that Mesa IS NOT one of the safest cities in Arizona. The data proves that if you know what to look for. The best comparison would be crime percentage (Overall, Personal, or Property) averaged over the population of the city.

  I've went until Mesa was listed in each case. The last time I tried to create a table in this comment box, it didn't work. Here's the stats. I'll list overall first, Persons, then Property, starting with the worse city by overall listing.

  Non-Fiscal Info:

  Tucson- Overall-1 69.7; Persons-1 6.4; Property-1 63.3

  Glendale- Overall-2 64.3; Persons-4 4.3; Property-2 60.1

  Tempe- Overall-3 57.5; Persons-3 4.8; Property-3 52.7

  Phoenix- Overall-4 48.2; Persons-2 5.5; Property-4 42.7

  Mesa- Overall-5 38.1; Persons-5 4.1; Property-5 34.0

  Fiscal Year Data:

  Glendale- Overall-1 59.3; Persons-4 4.6; Property-1 59.3

  Tucson- Overall-2 58.1; Persons-1 6.1; Property-2 52.0

  Avondale- Overall-3 55.1; Persons-6 3.3; Property-3 51.8 (Not listed in prior)

  Tempe- Overall-4 54.2; Persons-3 4.8; Property-4 49.4

  Phoenix- Overall-5 45.5; Persons-2 5.1; Property-5 40.4

  Mesa- Overall-6 37.8; Persons-5 4.1; Property-6 33.7

  
  So, Mesa is about the 5th WORST CHOICE. The two best are: Surprise or Gilbert, depending on which data you wish to judge by.

  As for why Tempe's got so much crime? I think the answer is simple, and am surprised that Bill hadn't considered it- Customers. Tempe is a party town mostly due to ASU. Parties usually mean drugs, legal or otherwise. Drugs usually increase crime, either person or property. If you are looking for fun, it's easy to get to Tempe (Nice central location), which means people come from OUTSIDE Tempe's city limits, commit a crime(s), and go home (remember I mentioned this earlier). It's not rocket science.

  As for the cartel moving in (if one ignores the direct customer base), imagine if 1 student in 1,000 was willing to work as a "mule" during certain times of the year (or even all year long). Considering ASU has over 56,000 undergraduates, that 56 pipelines all over the USA. Granted that's just guess work on my part, but it certainly can be possible.

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• Masterrogue666 posted at 10:04 pm on Wed, Jan 4, 2012.

  Posts: 1797

  I almost forgot to mention: Anyone notice how HIGH Tucson ranks? It's an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT oasis, and close to the "secure" border. By the way, King Obama has land in the area to sell if you are interested.....

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• Juggernaut8000 posted at 6:00 pm on Thu, Jan 5, 2012.

  Posts: 576

  All I have to say about Tucson is napalm.

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