FBI Numbers Show Crime Down Nationally and in Walnut Creek, Too

Walnut Creek joins the rest of the country in seeing its numbers for violent and property crime fall in 2009 from the previous year.  

The report, Crime in the United States 2009, says that violent crime declined for the third year in a row, with an an estimated 5.3 percent drop from 2008 figures. Property crime continued to fall as well—for a seventh straight year—with an estimated decrease of 4.6 percent. 

The report is based on data reported from agencies across the country to the FBI's Uniform crime reports and focuses on what are called Part I crimes. These are also known as index crimes because they are either considered quite serious or tend to be more reliably reported than others.

In Walnut Creek, violent crime fell 9 percent, property crime fell 2 percent, and the total number of reported crimes fell 2 percent from 2008.  

Police Chief Joel Bryden recognizes that Walnut Creek may be affected by national crime trends but also believes his department's officers are doing all they can to keep Walnut Creek a safe community. He notes that Walnut Creek, unlike other cities hit by severe budget cutbacks, is still able to offer a "full-service police department," which means its officers can respond to reports of barking dogs, non-injury accidents and cold burglaries. "I like to think we do a good job on everything we do," he said. 

In 2009, Walnut Creek had one homicide, four rapes, 41 robberies and 85 aggravated assaults.  The city also had 504 burglaries, and 1,940 reports of larceny and other thefts and 203 car thefts, for a total of 2,647 property crimes. In 2008, Walnut Creek had one homicide, three rapes, 36 robberies, 83 assaults, and a total of 2,707 property crimes. 

As Walnut Creek Patch has previously reported in the story "Blue Rising: Walnut Creek Police Form PAC, Push for a Bigger Voice in City Politics," the number of calls for service and the number of reported crimes have  fluctuated or declined in different categories in recent years. This is based on  a 2007 City of Walnut Creek Police Department Strategic Plan, and the FBI statistics from 2008.  In 2006, the police logged 32,058 calls for service, an average of about 89 a day, which indicates that the department is busy serving citizens.

However, the total number of reported crimes in 2008 was 2,851, which was the lowest number since 2001.