“Calls for service
have gone down dramatically,” Norris said in an interview. “There
have been fewer reports of disturbances. And that’s good news
for the city, because people are experiencing less crime.”
Norris said that is true despite the sharp increase in auto burglaries
and business break-ins last year. Calls for help reflect not just
serious crime, he said, but less serious offenses that may unsettle
a community — vandalism, graffiti, loitering and disturbing
the peace.
“These things are down overall in the (five) cities and unincorporated
area patrolled by the sheriff,” he said. “But percentage-wise
they’re down more here.”
Calls for police service in Ojai dropped 14 percent, from 3,915 in
2005 to 3,372 last year, according to the Sheriff’s Department
analysis.
Similarly, calls in the unincorporated areas of the valley dropped
9 percent, from 5,819 to 5,290. There were 124 fewer calls in Meiners
Oaks and Mira Monte, 162 fewer in Oak View and 243 fewer in Casitas
Springs and the northern Avenue area of Ventura.
“When I came here two years ago, I was out on foot pursuits;
I was out on things all the time,” Norris said. “Now,
just sitting here and listening to the (police) radio, things are
much quieter. Calls are down in almost every area except for thefts.”
Fewer calls allow the 11 sheriff’s deputies who patrol Ojai
to concentrate more on preventing crime, Norris said. “It allows
them more time to look for things that might be happening,”
he said.
The result was a 46 percent increase in field contacts with citizens
last year to 2,740 in which officers filed contact cards on discussions
with residents, witnesses and suspects. In each they compiled names,
ages, addresses and phone numbers for use in future investigations,
Norris said.
Calls for police assistance were down significantly in several areas,
including 176 fewer for public disturbances, 134 fewer for electronic
alarms and 46 fewer for suspicious behavior. Fewer alarms went off,
Norris said, because it was drier last year, and alarms are triggered
by rain.
But a key change, he said, is that officers have been more diligent
about keeping transients from loitering in public places or near homes.
“We’ve asked deputies to spend more time with them,”
Norris said. “And those calls have almost disappeared.”
Importantly, Norris said, calls for police to respond to violence
were also down 35 in Ojai last year compared with 2005, from 241 to
206. That jibes with stable felony violence rates: there were no murders,
one rape and one robbery in the city last year, and felony assaults
were up two to 17, including several gang attacks earlier in the year.
Gang activity has fallen since last summer after several convictions,
the police chief said. The only recent gang-related violence was a
drive-by shooting in east Ojai last month, and the suspected shooter
was from out of the area.
?There’s been very little gang activity,” he said. “Although
we’re starting to see a little more graffiti now.”
Norris said the City Council’s enactment last spring of the
so-called “social-host” ordinance also seems to have had
a significant effect. The law holds parents responsible for teen parties
where alcohol is served, whether the parents are at home or not. Six
adults were fined $1,000 each in the city last year, and five were
fined $1,000 in unincorporated county areas. One parent has been fined
so far this year.
?Deputies are telling me that there were less party calls last year
and the beginning of this year than at any time in recent memory,”
the police chief said.
What wasn’t down, were thefts, especially “smash-and-grab”
break-ins of cars. In Ojai, those jumped from 35 in 2005 to 54 last
year, accounting for more than half of the city’s serious crime
increase.
“Our message is don’t leave valuables in your car,”
Norris said.
Thieves are particularly active in areas where people leave cars for
an extended period – health clubs, hiking trails, ball games
and general parking lots.
“We’ve done stake-outs and stings” of those areas,
he said. “But they don’t pan out very often.”
Instead, police have begun to patrol in unmarked cars and out of uniform,
he said.
“Just the other day a woman went for a horseback ride and just
threw a sweater over her purse,” he said. “Her window
was knocked out when she got back.”
Police fliers posted in businesses warn local residents that many
of their neighbors have recently been victims of auto burglaries:
“Most of these thefts are considered crimes of opportunity where
criminals search neighborhoods for unlocked homes or vehicles,”
the flier says.
Police recommend locking valuables in the trunk of a car, putting
away garden tools and closing garage doors. I suspect most of it is
about buying drugs,” Norris said.
That’s why his department is making a push this year to increase
narcotics arrests, which dropped by six in the city last year, and
by 37 in the rest of the Ojai Valley.
?We made some changes in our personnel, and lost some of the people
who were very aggressive as far as narcotics,” he said. “But
for the first three months of this year our arrests are way up, and
we think that will get the numbers of thefts down.”
Top police officials from around Ventura County have been meeting
to develop strategies to curb auto burglaries, he said. But in recent
years, criminals have been breaking in not just for car stereos and
purses, but for credit cards and social security numbers.
?A lot of the increase is for ID theft,” he said. “We’re
having a lot of broken windows in Ojai and throughout the county because
of that.”
Post
or read comments