Vehicle thefts rise, but crime in village down

Royal Palm Beach’s crime rate dropped last year despite a rise in vehicle thefts and break-ins, according to a new report from the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office.

The overall rate dropped 6.6 percent, said Capt. Ulrich Naujoks, commander of District 9, who presented the annual crime report to Royal Palm Beach’s Village Council on Thursday night.

Naujoks described the decrease as “incremental.”

The sheriff ’s office bases the crime rate on seven major crime categories: aggravated assault, rape, vehicle theft, robbery, burglary, murder and larceny, which includes auto burglary and shoplifting.

Crime was down across the board except in one category — stolen vehicles.

The number of vehicles stolen in Royal Palm Beach jumped from 37 in 2016 to 61 last year, according to the report. There also were 261 vehicle break-ins, the report shows.

The lesson to be learned from those crimes is simple, Naujoks said: Lock your car.

“Of those 61 thefts, 44 ... involved keys that were either left in the car that was stolen or left in an unlocked car that was parked adjacent to the one that was stolen,” he said. The statistics were similar for vehicle break-ins: Of the 261 cars broken into, 194 had been left unlocked.

Village Manager Ray Liggins asked Naujoks what else can be done to remind residents to lock their vehicles.

“We have done about as much as we can do to get that message out,” Naujoks said. “It’s just complacency.”

The situation Royal Palm Beach finds itself in is tough, Mayor Fred Pinto said. “When you live in a safe community, you have a tendency to drop your guard and not be as proactive about those kinds of things,” he said.

Crimes in the other six categories dropped, the report shows. The number of homes broken into in Royal Palm was cut in more than half from 89 in 2015 to 41 last year, Naujoks said.

“This marks the sixth straight year that we have seen a decrease in residential burglaries in the village of Royal Palm Beach,” Naujoks said.

The number of rapes also dropped from 10 in 2016 to seven last year. That includes two women who were sexually battered during a violent home invasion on Sandpiper Avenue in July.

As part of its goals for last year, the sheriff ’s office targeted three troublesome intersections in Royal Palm Beach to cut crashes: Southern Boulevard and State Road 7, Southern and Crestwood boulevards, and Okeechobee and Royal Palm Beach boulevards.

Crashes dropped at all three intersections last year, Naujoks said. At Southern and State Road 7, the number of wrecks went from 128 in 2016 to 106 in 2017, a change of 22 percent. At Southern and Crestwood, the numbers went from 87 to 70, and at Okeechobee and Royal Palm Beach boulevards, the crashes dropped from 86 to 57.

At the top of the list for the sheriff ’s office goals for this year: Keep spreading the word for people to lock their cars.

“Crime reduction through public awareness remains a priority,” Naujoks said.