ANNUAL POLICE REPORT Chief cites patrol for crime drop

The police chief says he's going to put criminals' mug shots in cruisers.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- In 2003, crime overall dropped around 5 percent from 2002, a statistic that has Police Chief Robert E. Bush Jr. grinning.
Comparing 2003 with 1993, crime is down nearly 44 percent.
A decade ago, the city had 8,388 so-called Part 1 offenses -- murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, arson, auto theft and larceny. Last year, that number dipped to 5,843.
"For me, it's a big grin," Bush said of his reaction to the Youngstown Police Department 2003 annual report. "We're around the same place we were last year with the homicide rate, and that's good, although I'd like to get it to zero or single digits."
As of May 4, the city had recorded 11 homicides. Last year at this time, there were 12 homicides, with 19 total for the year.
Bush said his officers are working harder and making good arrests. When enough bad guys go to jail, it has an impact on crime, he said.
"We couldn't have done it without the patrol division," Bush said of the crime reduction. "It wouldn't have happened."
It's not unusual, nearly on a daily basis, to see guns and drugs taken off the streets because of arrests by the department's "blue" division, he said. The chief would like to assign more officers to patrol, but not at the expense of the special units, such as the vice squad, street crimes unit and task forces.
Busiest area
Nearly unchanged in 2003 were the calls for service, which were down 2 percent from 2002.
As with previous years, the city's south central area, bordered by Midlothian Boulevard, South Avenue, the Mahoning River and Glenwood Avenue, generated the most calls for police.
Of the 97,066 calls that required at least one officer to respond, 29,694 -- roughly 30 percent -- came from south central.
Bush said that because that section of the South Side is densely populated and because of its reputation for crime, it became a Weed and Seed target area. Weed and Seed is a federally funded program of law enforcement and community activities targeting the South Side. He said juveniles in the Weed and Seed area were responsible for a lot of the cars stolen in the city last year.
The teenagers, he said, mostly steal late 1980s to early 1990s General Motors cars because it's easy to do. Once the steering column is peeled, the car can be started.
In 2003, juvenile arrests jumped to 459 from 235 the previous year.
The chief said he wants to focus on the cars that "disappear" -- the ones taken by professional thieves who may be altering the vehicles' identification numbers.
Mug shots in cars
Police can soon expect to travel with mug shots and brief biographies of gun offenders and drug dealers.
"I want to put in every cruiser a simple binder that the officers can flip through," Bush said. "It will heighten a sense to be more careful and could lead to investigative stops."
In 2002, YPD had 242 employees in all job classifications. That number has dropped to 238.
There were 198 sworn officers in 2002, with 195 in 2003.
The budget for 2003 was $17.5 million, up from $15.7 million the year before.
meade@vindy.com