Crime in town was down 10% in 2019

TRUMBULL — The town’s crime rate dropped nearly 10 percent from 2018 to 2019, according to the latest FBI Uniform Crime Report released this week. The report lists crime numbers by town, divided between offenses against people and crimes against property.

“It seems to be pretty steady, like sometimes when larcenies are up, there are fewer vandalisms,” Trumbull police Lt. Brian Weir said.

Violent crime dropped slightly, from 46 in 2018 to 45 last year. Property crime dropped from 850 in 2018 to 778 last year.

Included in the violent crime statistic are nonnegligent homicides, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults. Rapes decreased from 10 to 7, and robberies from 18 to 15. Assaults increased from 18 to 23. There were no homicides either year.

Property crime reporting includes burglary, larceny, vehicle theft and arson. Burglaries in town dropped from 79 to 53, larcenies from 721 to 692, and vehicle theft from 50 to 33. In both years, there was a single arson case.

According to the FBI, the data is ranked according to a hierarchy where incidents that include multiple crimes are reported only by the most severe offense. The heirarchy has murder on top followed by nonnegligent homicide, rape, robbery and assault followed by the property crimes burglary, larceny and auto theft. Arson, although considered a property crime, is always reported separately so a burglary/arson is reported as both a burglary and an arson unlike an assault/ robbery, which is reported only as a robbery.

As part of its crimefighting efforts, Weir said the Trumbull Police Department has dedicated itself to training and recently received Tier 1 status by the Police Officer Standards Training Council. He said the addition of a fulltime police officer assigned to Westfield mall next year could further deter crime, especially the kind of larcenies that are common at large shopping areas.

“It’s true that an officer there may detect more crime, so it could look like crime is increasing because we’re catching more,” he said. “But on the other hand, just having an officer there full-time could be a deterrent, that people don’t commit a crime because they see the police there.”