It’s Not Your Imagination: Crime is Up in Como
Crime in Como is up in almost every category in the first six months of 2020, compared with 2019, according to city statistics. Nonetheless, Como remains one of Saint Paul’s safest neighborhoods.
Residents, visitors, and businesses reported 463 crimes in District 10 from January to June, a 17.2 percent increase from crimes reported in the same six-month period of 2019. That is in line with crime in Saint Paul as a whole, which increased by 16.8 percent from 2019 to 2020, according to preliminary reports compiled by police in the city’s Crime Incident Report Dataset. (You can find charts containing more details in the column to the right.)
Among the more disturbing trends:
- Confirmed reports of gunshots increased from 10 in 2019 to 32 in 2020; this year’s number is more than twice the previous 5-year average.
- Robberies increased from 6 in 2019 to 20 in 2020; this year’s number is almost four times the previous 5-year average.
- Domestic assaults increased by more than a third, from 13 to 18 in the six-month period.
- Theft increased 11.1 percent overall, driven by a 40.5 percent increase in stolen vehicles, and a 17.2 percent increase in vehicle break-ins. Vehicle break-ins, in fact, have now more than doubled from three years ago.
- Burglaries increased 18.9 percent in total; cases in which burglars forced their way into a home, garage or business nearly doubled from 11 to 21.
- Theft, robberies, vandalism, and gunshots are at their highest levels in the six years for which statistics are readily available.
The only major category where reported crimes decreased was narcotics arrests, which fell from 26 to 16.
Como, however, remains one of the city’s safest neighborhoods. That is true in actual numbers of crimes and in crime rates, based on population. The neighborhood continues to have the third-lowest crime rate in Saint Paul, a ranking that has not changed. Only Highland and Macalester-Groveland have lower crime rates. (See charts in the right column.)
The preliminary statistics do not reflect official crime index totals. They may change after full investigation, police say.
Copyright 2020 Como Community Council. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License