That the number of crimes reported in San Marino in 2019 largely remained in line with the 2018 tally might itself be seen as a victory in these anxious times, but the city’s Police Department is able to point to actual improvements — such as a notable drop in residential burglaries last year.
According to the SMPD’s 2019 wrap-up, there were 230 Part 1 crimes — typically, violent offenses rather than white-collar transgressions such as identity theft — reported to the agency last year, reflecting a slight increase from the 228 reported in 2018. Burglaries in general fell year-to-year, but there were slight increases in other categories of thievery, like larceny or auto theft.
On the traffic side of things, the number of collisions fell from 2018’s total, while more moving citations were issued by San Marino officers. Additionally, detectives’ case-clearance rate also showed an improvement from the prior year.
Police Chief John Incontro attributed the generally positive trend largely to his force operating at capacity for the first time in years and called attention to the fact that most of those officers had finished their training and were therefore operating more on their own.
“We’ve never had this many [officers] since I’ve been here,” Incontro said in a phone interview. “We have four patrol cars responding to calls for service now, instead of two or three. We also have people out there doing active patrol work. Having more people in the field available to respond is safer for the officers and safer for the community because we’re not rushing around. That’s a benefit that’s not usually seen.”
Indeed, response time for high- and middle-priority calls fell substantially last year, with the average priority 1 response being 1 minute 53 seconds last year — down sharply from 2018’s average of 3 minutes 4 seconds — and the average priority 2 response time was 3 minutes 39 seconds, down from 4 minutes 33 seconds.
There were 62 residential burglaries reported last year, compared with 76 in 2018. There also were slightly fewer reports of attempted burglaries — 18, compared with 20 —but commercial burglaries doubled, with 16 reported last year. It’s worth noting that there was an incident in June in which four businesses in the same area of Huntington Drive were broken into, likely by the same perpetrators in one extended incident.
With a more robust force, Incontro recently explained to the City Council, there have been more officers able to respond to calls such as burglaries, allowing for a more effective canvassing of the neighborhood and consistent outreach to nearby residents.
“That has given us an opportunity for us to talk about public safety, to talk about the crime that occurred,” he explained at the January meeting. “We have one-on-one time with the resident and work with them to join our Neighborhood Watch.”
As for this year, Incontro added he hopes to make use of a Business Watch program, which like Neighborhood Watch is a community-centric method of crime prevention and vigilance.
“Here we’ll be able to talk with businesses and strategize with them on lowering the possibility of crimes occurring, of making themselves safer and protecting their property,” he said.
Larcenies — including all package and mail thefts as well as thefts from vehicles — increased slightly in 2019, with 129 cases reported. (There were 120 reported in 2018.) Incontro noted there were several times throughout last year where it appears the same person or group of people appears to have targeted several parked vehicles at Lacy Park and the Huntington Library all at once.
Among more outlying crimes, there were no arsons reported last year, as opposed to the three in 2018, and there were five auto thefts in 2019, an increase from two the prior year.
Last year saw 208 traffic collisions, a decrease from 225 in 2018. The July 4 incident in which a pedestrian was killed by two teenage boys who police said were racing their vehicles down Huntington Drive is listed as a fatal collision, as opposed to the line item for homicides. Incontro explained that this reflects the lack of intent by the boys, who entered into plea agreements with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in December and are serving non-custodial sentences.
There were 1,434 moving citations issued during traffic stops last year, an increase from 1,327 issued in 2018. Notably, Incontro this year plans to include in his budget an allocation to purchase motorcycles and bring back SMPD’s traffic enforcement unit.
Detectives cleared 710 cases last year, up from the 557 cleared in 2018. The clearance rate last year was 63%, also an increase from the 53% clearance rate in 2018.
“That means not only are we stopping crime, but we’re solving it,” Councilman Steve Talt said at the January meeting. “It seems as though the work we’ve done over the last five years is starting to pay off.”
Incontro also thanked the community for its help in making their neighborhoods and city safer and more vigilant.
“The community has been extremely helpful and we appreciate the partnership that we have,” he said.
Home Burglaries Fall Amid Bolstering of Police Dept. Force
