Public safety is up, crime down in Lynn

LYNN – Crime decreased 5 percent in 2014 compared with 2013, continuing a three-year trend that has seen total crime drop 9 percent.”We had a good year,” Lynn Police Chief Kevin Coppinger said Tuesday. “Crime is down overall 5 percent … and most of the major categories are also down.”But the heroin epidemic continues to rage, and Coppinger said it was “perplexing” why this didn’t cause a corresponding rise in crime.”Overdoses are going through the roof ? and we usually see that drug use fuels crime,” Coppinger said. “There are more heroin overdoses and officers report more heroin addicts on the streets. But they are not hitting places for breaking and enterings.”Police annually report statistics for six major crimes: murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary and larceny. Statistics for robberies, assaults, burglaries and larcenies are further subdivided into categories such as simple assaults and commercial versus residential burglaries.In 2014, the numbers of incidents in these six major areas all decreased or remained the same.There were three murders in both 2013 and 2014.Rapes decreased by 43 percent, from 35 to 20 reported.Total robberies were down 15 percent; and all subcategories of robberies decreased with the exception of the numbers for street robberies involving a firearm, the number of which remained the same at 40 incidents reported in 2013 and 2014.The total number of assaults decreased by a single percentage point, but there was a 41 percent increase in the total number of assaults involving a firearm and 4 percent increase in the number of assaults not involving a dangerous weapon.Burglaries decreased by 15 percent, with 445 total incidents reported in 2014 compared to 522 incidents reported in 2013.Larcenies also decreased, with car thefts down by 12 percent and larceny of other property down 3 percent.Heroin overdoses continued to exponentially grow; from 189 heroin overdoses in 2013 to 280 in 2014. Of these, 19 and 35 were fatal, respectively.Coppinger said it is difficult to attribute the dropping crime to one single factor.In fact, the budget was cut by $1 million last year, and one of the department’s most successful and popular programs – the Community Liaison Teams (cops on bikes) – was eliminated as a result. Lynn School Superintendent Dr. Catherine Latham also came to the department’s aid and absorbed the annual summer Student Police Academy and the School Resource Officers in the school budget, Coppinger noted, thanking the superintendent.But Coppinger said programs and initiatives begun years earlier may be paying off.”You don’t see the net results until a few years later,” Coppinger said.For example, Coppinger stressed the success of the 2010 anti-gang initiative dubbed Operation Melting Pot. This led to a decrease in gun incidents in 2011 and 2012 as individuals were arrested and sentenced. The numbers have started to creep up again, Coppinger acknowledged, possibly because individuals sentenced in 2012 have completed their jail sentences. However, the gang problems in local schools have greatly decreased according to school resource officers and school officials, Coppinger said.He also noted that the number of guns on the street – both legal and illegal – continues to rise.So with a decreasing budget and programs cut, Coppinger said the department has relied on grant funding and new policing techniques to ensure a robust presence on the streets.”We tried to get creative,” Coppinger said.Federal and state traffic safety pedestrian grants have enabled more officers to be on the streets monitoring traffic. Police have also adopted a technique called Data-Driven Analysis to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) where traffic officers are deployed to high-crime areas, or areas where recent crimes have occurred ? often resulting in traffic stops turning into felony motor vehicle stops when officers notice suspects or suspect vehicles or approach the vehicle and find drugs or weapons.The department has als