Following a busy August that saw an uptick in burglaries and assaults, the San Marino Police Department reported a drop in crime in September with only 10 reported serious incidents, making it the lowest number of such incidents reported in a month.
The police department presented the updated statistics to the Public Safety Commission during a meeting on Oct. 16, and among the 10 part 1 crimes — serious crimes such as robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, sex offenses and homicide — were four residential burglaries and six larceny cases. The SMPD officer who spoke to the commissioners said the summer spike in residential burglaries may have resulted from people going on vacation and leaving their homes vacant.
One welcome statistic was the zero in the assault category after having a whopping seven incidents in August, which marked the highest total in any month so far this year.
San Marino has seen 150 part 1 crimes reported so far this year, a 9% drop from the first 10 months of 2022, and arrests are also down 19% this year.
However, the SMPD officer present at the meeting expressed concern over Los Angeles County’s controversial zero bail policy, which went into effect this month. The new policy will affect the department’s arrest protocols, and law enforcement must cite and release individuals arrested in cases involving theft, vandalism and vehicle code violations.
One major headache for the SMPD is arrests that require a review by a magistrate, a civilian officer or a judge who administers the law, because it requires officers to complete their investigation and reports within four hours. Offenses subject to magistrate review include those involving guns, sexual battery, crimes against children and elders and contact with minors with intent to commit a sexual offense.
“It’s already causing issues within our agency,” the officer told the Public Safety Commission. “We had an individual arrested on mail theft who was on parole, and already we could not get a hold of the probation officer to administrate a magistrate review. … So, under the [new bail policy], they were cited and released into the field that day. The magistrate review is going to be one the biggest challenges we’re going to have.”
Many police chiefs in L.A. County are banding together to propose a list of changes to the Board of Supervisors at a future meeting, one of which is extending the four-hour reporting window.
In addition to the crime report, San Marino Police also presented traffic stats for the month of September. There were a total of 15 collisions, two of which occurred on the corner of Huntington Drive and Kenilworth Avenue. The primary factor in the traffic collisions was failure to yield, according to the report, and the secondary factor was excessive speed. The majority of car accidents in San Marino occur on Fridays.
Public Safety Commissioner Elizabeth Feffer urged residents to be vigilant now that the no-bail program is in effect because she believes that the crime situation in L.A. County is “going to get worse.”
The Public Safety Commission and City Council will hold a joint meeting on Friday, Oct. 27, to discuss the roles of the commissioners and how to improve communication between the two municipal government groups. The meeting will be held at the Crowell Public Library’s Barth Room at 8:30 a.m.
First published in the Oct. 26 issue of the San Marino Tribune
