Crime spiked in Seattle, Tacoma, and Vancouver early last year
Feb 26, 2019, 11:57 AM | Updated: 11:59 am
(AP)
(AP)
Crime fluctuated in 2018, depending on the type of offense and where you look in Washington. But some cities got hit much harder than others.
Take Tacoma, for example. The FBI’s most recent crime statistics show that crime rose in 7/10 categories over the first half of 2018. Violent crime went from 770 reported incidents in 2017 to 950 in 2018. Robberies went from 183 reports to 257. Overall, incidents went up in Tacoma for violent crime; murder; rape; robbery; aggravated assault; larceny; and arson. Car thefts, burglaries, and property crimes dropped.
Seattle also experienced a rise in crime across seven categories, with the worst being property crime, which rose by 376 reports (18,686 to 19,062); burglary increased by 253 (3,837 to 4,090); and vehicle thefts jumped by 222 (1,670 to 1,892).
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But Tacoma and Seattle are not the sole targets of the FBI’s most recent analysis covering reported crimes from the first six months of 2018. It compares data from January through June in 2017 and 2018 from Washington’s eight largest cities, including: Bellevue; Everett; Kent; Renton; Seattle; Spokane; Tacoma; Vancouver. Therefore, the data is preliminary and doesn’t cover all of 2018.
A few notable points (first six months of 2018 compared to first six months of 2017):
- Nationally, violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) went down by 4.3 percent; rape alone rose .6 percent; property crimes fell by 7.2 percent.
- Crime only rose in two categories in Renton — robbery and car theft.
- Crime dropped in every category except one (car theft) in Everett.
- Tacoma, Seattle, and Vancouver all experienced spikes in crime in seven categories.
- Some stats seem negligible, such as burglaries dropping by two reports in Kent (411 in 2017 and 409 in 2018); aggravated assault rising by three reports in Spokane (from 500 to 503); or property crime dropping in Bellevue by 24 reports (2,235 to 2,211).
See the full excerpt for Washington state below.
