Crime Up 24 Percent in Charlestown; Residential Burglaries and Car Breaks an Issue

In what will be the Boston Police Department’s last crime stat report before the end of the year, the report shows overall crime is up in Charlestown’s A-15 and residential burglaries and larceny from motor vehicles, or car breaks, continue to be a problem here according to BPD stats.

Part One Crimes, the more serious crimes the Boston Police track, are up 24 percent overall in the area when comparing Jan. 1 2020 through Nov. 8 2020 with the same time period last year.

The main culprits continue to be residential burglaries and larceny from a motor vehicle, which are up 44 percent and 69 percent respectively.

By this time in 2019 there were only 9 residential burglaries but that number has risen to 31 so far this year.

There were 69 reported car breaks by this point in 2019 but that number has increased to 117. It seems the number of motor vehicle largencies, an opportunistic crime that only takes seconds to pull off, is up all over Boston. Citywide the number has gone from 2,332 in 2019 to 2,932 so far in 2020, a 25.7 percent increase.

“The Department obviously takes great pride in the fact that arrests were made in all three incidents, we would, nevertheless, like to take this opportunity to remind community members to employ common sense preventative measures to protect items of value when exiting their vehicles,” said the statement. “As simple as it may sound, protecting your motor vehicle from a break-in starts with locking the doors and closing windows. Simple? Yes. But, highly effective.”

In fact, simple steps can often spell the difference between your car being broken into and the would-be thief moving on to another, more desirable target.

“More than anything else, thieves look for the easy score,” said the police. “So, don’t make it easy. If you have items of value, be it a cell phone, charger, money or iPad, take them with you when you exit your car. Because if a thief can see it, you can be sure he or she will do everything they can to steal it.”

As for other Part One Crimes in A-1 there have been 2 reported Homicides for 2020, up from zero last year; Rape or Attemped Rape is is down from 3 to 2; Robbery or Attempted Robberty is up from 4 to 11; Domestic Aggravated Assault is down from 26 to 14; Non-Domestic Aggravated Assault is down from 26 to 21; Commercial Burglaries are up from 3 to 5; other Larcencies are up from 118 to 134; and Auto Theft is down from 26 to 15.

So far this year there have been a total of 352 Part One Crimes, up from the 284 reported during the same time period in 2019.

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