Burglaries spike in LR in year's first weeks

Little Rock police say burglaries in the city are up more than 75 percent through the first 19 days of the year over the same period in 2014.
Little Rock police say burglaries in the city are up more than 75 percent through the first 19 days of the year over the same period in 2014.

Burglaries across Little Rock are up more than 75 percent through the first 19 days of the year over the same period in 2014.

The Little Rock Police Department on Friday released statistics showing there have been 157 residential burglaries reported between Jan. 1 and Monday compared with 84 during the same span in 2014, a nearly 87 percent increase.

Commercial burglaries, meanwhile, increased 21 percent, from 14 a year ago to 17 this year.

Combined, commercial and residential burglaries have gone up more than 77 percent.

Lt. Sidney Allen, a spokesman for the department, said police are shifting resources to keep mobile or SWAT officers in areas that have been hit hard in the hopes of decreasing break-ins in the coming weeks.

He said police have also made some arrests that they hope will lead to diminishing burglary numbers.

"Our ultimate goal is once we do catch them and arrest them, we get those charges on them and keep them in jail," he said.

Little Rock police review crime statistics each week at a COMPSTAT meeting and then release a document detailing the information broken down by sectors within the city.

In the city's northwest division, where residential burglaries were up nearly 74 percent, the COMPSTAT report noted police were adding more patrols and working to identify where stolen property is being sold, including "street-level sales."

Allen said similar tactics would be used in other parts of the city as well. Residential burglary was up more than 33 percent in the downtown area, from 30 cases in 2014 to 40 this year, and it was up 190 percent in southwest, from 20 cases in 2014 to 58 this year.

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