CRIME DECREASES IN LEMON GROVE

City had seen concerning surge in 2021; 911 calls to fire department increase

Crime in Lemon Grove ticked down last year, with assaults, thefts and overall requests for service decreasing after a surge in 2021 raised concerns.

At the same time, emergency calls to the local fire department rose for the second straight year, a trend seen in other parts of the region, officials said Tuesday at a City Council meeting.

“As long as I’ve lived in Lemon Grove, it’s been one of the busiest stations,” said Mayor Pro Tem George Gastil.

A few crime categories did increase. The three homicides in 2022 were one more than the year prior, according to a presentation by San Diego County Sheriff’s Lt. Pat Mcevoy.

There were a handful of additional robberies and about two dozen more vehicle thefts from one year to the next. Deputies also noted an increase in seized guns: Ninety-one were picked up last year, including 19 that didn’t have serial numbers, making them harder to track.

But rapes, aggravated assaults and burglary were all down, and violent and property crime in particular were at one of their lowest points since 1998, officials said.

“We’re back on the — hopefully — continued downward cycle,” Mcevoy told the council.

Some areas of the city have been affected more than others. About 45 percent of all reported shoplifting occurred at the local Home Depot, and just a little more than a third resulted in an arrest.

Mcevoy said they were especially focused on reducing vehicle thefts in the area.

At the same time, the Heartland Fire and Rescue Department, which serves much of East County, is getting busier.

The total number of incidents in Lemon Grove has risen since 2019, according to Chief Bent Koch.

While there were fewer than

4,000 calls three years ago, the city last year hit nearly 4,500. The vast majority, more than 88 percent, involved emergency medical services.

Only about 200 calls, around 4 percent, concerned fires. A similar share involved people trapped in some way, which can include flooded cars.

It generally took 8 minutes and 50 seconds to respond to a medical emergency, Koch said. (Fires saw a faster response time by about 35 seconds.) Some of the delay was due to factors outside the department’s control, Koch told the council. If traffic was bad, for example, there was no way to safely drive faster.

But he did say he wanted to reduce the time it took firefighters and paramedics to dress and jump in their vehicles. That turnaround time is currently about 2 minutes and 15 seconds, if not more, when it should be closer to 2 minutes f lat, Koch said.

He added that the city will eventually need to replace one of its three fire engines that is nearly two decades old.

The council already approved replacing an even older vehicle last year.

Lemon Grove is not alone when it comes to emergency calls. El Cajon is similarly grappling with a surge in incidents and emergency room wait times, leading the city to launch a new program to divert to nurses some callers whose lives are not in danger.