The Observation Deck

It has come to my attention that there have been several home burglaries in Lakewood over the past couple of weeks. They have occured on Arthur, Winchester, Arliss, and Lincoln.

As always, watch for suspicious people wandering around or looking at houses with no apparent purpose. Of course, always lock doors. Most of these burglaries happen in the daytime when people are at work, so take necessary precautions.

I was just speaking with a veteran criminal defense lawyer today. He said that crime in Lakewood is rampant and Lakewood is in real trouble.

Brian Essi wrote:I was just speaking with a veteran criminal defense lawyer today. He said that crime in Lakewood is rampant and Lakewood is in real trouble.

I've been hearing some version of "Lakewood is going to hell" since my family moved here in 1983.
I never believed it before....back in the 80s/early 90s, much of it was reaction to the growing number of middle eastern residents. By the late 1990s it was a reaction to new Black population moving in.

But things are different now. The hospital issue brings us to an economic tipping point....within a couple years the lost revenue will require either higher taxes or cuts to services. There isn't any fat in the budget, so safety services will be on the chopping block.
Our schools have a legitimate need for funding, but the tax burden is here is extremely high.
Frankly, it's gotten far out of line with the quality of services we receive.

To make matters worse, this administration refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem.
We know how obsessed they are with "controlling the message"....fake newspaper, water bills, and sending city employees to monitor and post social media.
They have even hit a new low..... City Hall had Jen Pae create a new Facebook page to propagate "good news" about the city. The page is not labeled as a City page..it is designed to trick readers into thinking it's legitimate.

Our "bar and restaurant economy" increasingly competes with other "bar and restaurant destinations" like Kamms Corners and Westlake.
It only takes a couple high profile crimes to frighten drinkers away from our scene...further aggravating our economic problems.

I won't even get into other issues like the millions of dollars of CDBG money we will lose after 2020. ugh.

I've spoken to many fine residents that for the first time in their lives are considering leaving Lakewood.
These are very good, tolerant people that weren't affected by the previous decades of "Lakewood badmouthing" from other communities.
When your most loyal customers are planning to leave, it is not a good thing.

Michael Deneen wrote:

Brian Essi wrote:I was just speaking with a veteran criminal defense lawyer today. He said that crime in Lakewood is rampant and Lakewood is in real trouble.

I've been hearing some version of "Lakewood is going to hell" since my family moved here in 1983.
I never believed it before....back in the 80s/early 90s, much of it was reaction to the growing number of middle eastern residents. By the late 1990s it was a reaction to new Black population moving in.

But things are different now. The hospital issue brings us to an economic tipping point....within a couple years the lost revenue will require either higher taxes or cuts to services. There isn't any fat in the budget, so safety services will be on the chopping block.
Our schools have a legitimate need for funding, but the tax burden is here is extremely high.
Frankly, it's gotten far out of line with the quality of services we receive.

To make matters worse, this administration refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem.
We know how obsessed they are with "controlling the message"....fake newspaper, water bills, and sending city employees to monitor and post social media.
They have even hit a new low..... City Hall had Jen Pae create a new Facebook page to propagate "good news" about the city. The page is not labeled as a City page..it is designed to trick readers into thinking it's legitimate.

Our "bar and restaurant economy" increasingly competes with other "bar and restaurant destinations" like Kamms Corners and Westlake.
It only takes a couple high profile crimes to frighten drinkers away from our scene...further aggravating our economic problems.

I won't even get into other issues like the millions of dollars of CDBG money we will lose after 2020. ugh.

I've spoken to many fine residents that for the first time in their lives are considering leaving Lakewood.
These are very good, tolerant people that weren't affected by the previous decades of "Lakewood badmouthing" from other communities.
When your most loyal customers are planning to leave, it is not a good thing.

Mike,

Anecdotally, my lawyer friend was saying that a woman in Rocky River's Whole Foods had her purse snatched and this was not an isolated incident--so the spread of crime is affecting our neighbors to the west who are "perceived" to be immune from the plight of the "inner ring" Lakewood.

Brian Essi wrote:

Michael Deneen wrote:

Brian Essi wrote:I was just speaking with a veteran criminal defense lawyer today. He said that crime in Lakewood is rampant and Lakewood is in real trouble.

I've been hearing some version of "Lakewood is going to hell" since my family moved here in 1983.
I never believed it before....back in the 80s/early 90s, much of it was reaction to the growing number of middle eastern residents. By the late 1990s it was a reaction to new Black population moving in.

Mike,

Anecdotally, my lawyer friend was saying that a woman in Rocky River's Whole Foods had her purse snatched and this was not an isolated incident--so the spread of crime is affecting our neighbors to the west who are "perceived" to be immune from the plight of the "inner ring" Lakewood.

Mike

I believe Brian and I have been hearing longer as we both grew up here.

One of the many things that had saved Lakewood over the years was, if you broke into a Lakewood house chances were you would get a VCR and a TV that weighed 90lbs. Today, everyone has flat screens. Alas, we have joined the suburbs farther West catching up with burglaries.

.

Jim O'Bryan wrote: if you broke into a Lakewood house chances were you would get a VCR and a TV that weighed 90lbs. Today, everyone has flat screens. Alas, we have joined the suburbs farther West catching up with burglaries.

.

Good point, I never thought of it that way. One of the few disadvantages of technological items shrinking in size.

Always important to remain vigilant and alert about crime. However on the topic of longer-term trends it's worth noting that crime on the whole is down significantly in Lakewood since 2008.

BURGLARY
2008: 191
2015: 118

ROBBERY
2008: 59
2015: 42

AUTO THEFT:
2008: 153
2015: 70

ARSON:
2008: 6
2015: 0

BREAKING AND ENTERING
2008: 114
2015: 56

Dan OMalley wrote:Always important to remain vigilant and alert about crime. However on the topic of longer-term trends it's worth noting that crime on the whole is down significantly in Lakewood since 2008.

BURGLARY
2008: 191
2015: 118

ROBBERY
2008: 59
2015: 42

AUTO THEFT:
2008: 153
2015: 70

ARSON:
2008: 6
2015: 0

BREAKING AND ENTERING
2008: 114
2015: 56

Thank you for the statistics, Dan. However, you can't make a conclusion based upon two years of data. This is considered "cherry-picking." In order to obtain a true assessment of the trend more statistics over a broader time range would be necessary. Could you please provide those statistics or a link to the website where you obtained the data?

Thanks to Dan for the info.
I agree with Tara, I'd love to have a link to the primary data.

I provided the numbers I did because they were the statistics for the most recent year data was available, and because they were related to property crimes which was the subject of the original post.

2015 Lakewood Police annual report: http://www.onelakewood.com/wp-content/u ... rt2015.pdf

You'll note this decrease in crime occurred all the while the strength of our police force remained about the same, and I'm grateful to them for their work.

I agree with the previous two posts, and would add that the two years presented here are seven years apart. When we start to hear anecdotal reports of crime increases, it is recent, so the past couple of years would be most relevant, and even better if we can see something reflecting the first quarter of 2016.

(Dan O'Malley's post came in while I was composing mine. I note from the report that burglaries went up from 2014 to 2015, although they had gone down in 2014. I stand by the need for a more thorough presentation of numbers closer to the present day.)

Dan:

In addition to the annual police division report, there is a document called the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) that is complied by the FBI every year. There also is the annual Cleveland Magazine survey of all nearby cities that delineates some of these numbers.

For easier reading, at the bottom is a screenshot from the LPD Annual Report that Dan posted the link to.

In breaking down the actual numbers, I do not see any significant decrease in overall crime.

It is worth noting that felonious assaults (as of 2015) are the highest they have been since 2011. I suspect that many of these are results of domestic violence. It would be interesting to see statistics for domestic violence, as this seems to be what the police go to all night long. Sometimes I foolishly ask myself, don't these people have a job to get up and go to?

Back on the topic of property crimes, it does appear that burglary and B&E has decreased over the past several years. The question is, why? Is it because the city is actually safer or because home security systems are becoming more and more popular? I do notice that a large amount of homes in Lakewood now have security systems. With the Heroin epidemic, unemployment, alcoholism, and an overall apparent lack of morals, I find it hard to believe that Lakewood is suddenly significantly safer.

Just some food for thought. FWIW.

I would make the assumption that much of the crime in Lakewood as with other areas can be avoided or curtailed by doing the following....

1) Buy and install a $10-20 motion light in the front and back of your home
2) Don't leave house or car doors unlocked or expensive items in the car overnight, ever.....
3) Observe and report any suspicious activity to the police

AS others said, I've been hearing the same year-to-year over the last few decades... not much seems different.

Granted it is my own perspective but my day to day activities in Lakewood are no differently affected by crime than they were 20-30 years ago. I think we'll be just fine, others should flee since they may not truly appreciate what the city offers.

J Hrlec wrote: I think we'll be just fine, others should flee since they may not truly appreciate what the city offers.

Fortunately - and to another point made earlier - not many are "fleeing." We appear to have just 70 or so single-family homes for sale in Lakewood today, which must be near an all-time low for inventory.