Violent crime in Warren drops 4.8 % in 2015; homicides fall from eight to four

Staff report

WARREN

Warren’s 2015 crime statistics show one of the smallest numbers of homicides in a decade, a drop in robbery and break-ins compared with 2014 but an increase in reported rapes and car crashes.

Violent crimes — murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — declined 4.8 percent. Aggravated assault was relatively unchanged.

Homicides dropped dramatically from eight in 2014 to four in 2015.

Two of the four homicides involved a man and woman who had been romantically linked, and police said a boy, 3, died at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend. The fourth homicide involved a man who died of gunshots, possibly exchanged with another man, who also was hit.

Warren Police Chief Eric Merkel said the lower murder rate and drop in robbery and break-ins may be attributed to the Ohio Attorney General’s Safe Streets Initiative that began in Trumbull County in late 2013.

Read the full story Monday in The Vincidator and on Vindy.com