Fort Smith crime down, but fires up in 2018, data show

FORT SMITH -- Crimes in the city were down but fires were up last year, according to annual reports presented by Fort Smith's fire and police chiefs to city directors last week.

Interim Police Chief Danny Baker told city directors that last year's crime rate was 5.6 percent lower than it was in 2017 and 17 percent lower than in 2016.

"I see things on social media that do not say that," City Director Neal Martin said of the report. "This tells me otherwise."

Crimes that make up the statistics are murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, theft, motor-vehicle theft and arson.

Last year there were eight murders, 59 rapes, 470 aggravated assaults, 102 robberies, 729 burglaries, 3,630 thefts, 325 motor-vehicle thefts and 19 arsons, according to police statistics.

Achieved with reduced staffing, Baker attributed the drop to programs designed to analyze and respond to crime trends within the city, concentrating officers during high-crime periods and better acquainting the police force with residents in a non-enforcement role.

Many of the programs were instituted by Nathaniel Clark during his two-year tenure as police chief. He resigned earlier this month.

"It was Chief Clark's leadership and the hard work of the dedicated officers that produced these results," Baker said.

Baker said one program, CompStat, pulls the command staff and supervisors together twice a month to review and evaluate crime data and address problems. The frequent meetings hold the staff accountable, he said.

Another program, Operation Inside Out, takes nonuniformed personnel out of the office to work in high-crime traffic areas, such as retail areas during the holiday shopping season, Baker said.

The department upgraded equipment with $1.8 million left unspent from unfilled personnel vacancies. It bought nine new patrol cars with armor built into the door panels, body cameras, radios, a third motorcycle and has plans to build a security fence around the police station parking lot.

Baker said the department had 147 uniformed officers. It was budgeted for 151 and was authorized to increase the number to 164.

The police annual report said 26 new uniformed employees were hired last year. Eight were women, three were black, two were Hispanic and two were listed as other.

Of the 19 nonuniformed employees hired, 12 were women.

The report said there were 2,850 traffic accidents in Fort Smith last year. Eight were fatalities, 56 had serious injuries and 279 had minor injuries.

The city's Fire Department responded to a total of 375 fires last year, according to Fire Chief Phil Christensen. Of those, 196 were building fires, 58 were vehicle fires and 121 were listed as other fires.

The 375 total compared with 332 in 2017, 365 in 2016 and 295 in 2015.

Christensen gave two reasons for the constant rise in fires: The high number of older houses with obsolete wiring, and furniture manufacturing processes.

"Everything burns hotter and quicker," he said, resulting in structure fires.

Emergency medical calls were up 16 percent over 2017, Christensen said. Medical calls accounted for about 70 percent of the 11,337 calls the department responded to last year.

Christensen said Fort Smith set a record last year. Property damaged by fire had a value of $146.5 million. The amount of loss to those properties from fire totaled $4.2 million, or about 2.85 percent of their value.

"For a city our size and call volume, a 2.85 percent fire loss is astounding," he said.

Since March 2017, Fort Smith has had an Insurance Services Office Class 1 rating, the highest in the industry. The department provides fire suppression, technical rescue, medical first-responder, hazardous material response and improvised explosive device response.

The department constantly battles against the increasing fire rate with firefighter training, equipment upgrades, annual business pre-plans and inspections and with education, fire drills, fire extinguisher training and fire station tours in the community, Christensen said.

Firefighters received 53,756 hours of training last year in 85 categories, the report said.

The Fire Department employed 149 uniformed members, including 48 firefighters, 45 drivers and 42 captains along with 14 chiefs.

State Desk on 04/14/2019

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