2020 DATA: 35% SPIKE IN HOMICIDES; PROPERTY CRIMES DROP

SANDAG report: 30 more county homicides than 2019

In a year when the fear of COVID-19 and the accompanying lockdowns kept most people at home, reports of robberies and rapes fell, but homicides in the region spiked 35 percent in 2020, according to a newly released report.

Property crime hit a 41-year low last year, with residential burglaries plummeting particularly at the start of statewide stay-at-home orders, according to the report from San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, which tracks local crime data.

The agency releases an annual report comparing crime numbers year over year, and has been tracking the data since 1980. This year’s report includes something more: a deeper look at comparing crime numbers month to month in 2019 and 2020, to get a snapshot of crime during a pandemic.

As people stayed apart and stayed home, reports of robberies and rapes fell. So did home break-ins. But the jump in San Diego County’s homicides is alarming, rising from 85 homicides in 2019 to 115 last year.

It’s not a regional phenomenon. Homicide numbers went up in big cities across the country, with cities like Chicago jumping from 495 homicides in 2019 to 769 last year. Los Angeles rose from 258 homicides to 350, and New York’s homicides went from 319 to 462.

In the city of San Diego, homicides went from 50 to 55 in the two-year span. In San Antonio, a city slightly larger than San Diego, killings rose from 105 two years ago to 128 last year.

Chula Vista police Lt. Eric Thunberg said the increase in violent crime is concerning. But what’s driving it remains a question.

“That is going to be one for the researchers to figure out as we emerge from COVID,” Thunberg said Friday. “Those will be the interesting results to see, and what they attribute it to, especially because it’s so consistent across the country.”

Other findings in the report include:

•Reported rapes dropped 12 percent, with the biggest decline early in the lockdown;

• The number of aggravated assaults increased by 8 percent;

• The use of guns in aggravated assaults rose 42 percent; and

• Arson was on the way toward doubling, up from 287 fires to 551.

Some increases might be easier to explain, such as the drop in reports of rape, which plummeted by 47 percent in April 2020 compared to April 2019, and 44 percent in May — the first two full months of the lockdown. With people staying home, fewer opportunities existed.

“If people are afraid of COVID, which is so contagious with human contact, and they are not out socializing, not at bars, not out in public — there is an easy hypothesis there,” Thunberg said.

Reports of rape through the summer months of 2020 generally mirrored the prior year. But rape reports plummeted again in October, and then again in December — when restrictions tightened amid a surge in COVID cases.

In the first three months of last year — primarily prelockdown — domestic violence reports in the county had ticked up a bit. At the start of the lockdown, police and family violence experts feared domestic violence would increase.

The year brought with it monthly fluctuations, and ended with reports of domestic violence up just 1 percent. But that may not reflect the truth of what happened behind closed doors. Victims may have had less opportunity to get away from their abuser, less opportunity to seek help or less opportunity for mandated reporters to take notice. Maybe victims were financially affected by COVID, an added barrier to leaving an abuser.

“In the crime numbers — and this is just crime that is reported — we did not see the gigantic jump we thought we were going to see. But that does not mean that domestic violence did not increase,” SANDAG’s Research and Program Management Director Cynthia Burke said.

Hate crime reports dipped by 10 percent, with 87 total reports last year, according to the report.

The lion’s share — 63 hate crimes — were motivated by race or ethnicity. Five of the crimes were anti-Asian.

Regionally, property crime continues its slide, with about 7,300 burglaries reported in 2020. That’s down 10 percent from the previous year, and a record low.

Across the county, one of every 348 homes were burglarized, the report states. Five years ago, it was one in every 174 homes.

When people were ordered to stay home last spring the number of residential burglaries dropped. Reports fell 21 percent in April, 24 percent in May and slipped down 42 percent in June. The number of breakins stayed down, too, until a slight uptick in December.

Again, the hypothesis as to why is an “easy leap to make,” Thunberg said. “When people are home for long periods of time, the opportunity is not going to be there as much.”

Larcency — theft — dropped hard early in the lockdown, as did car theft, except for a spike in June. Commercial burglaries, however, were up.