Crime spike 'sign of the times'
Police stats reveal rise in robberies, burglaries in Riverhead last year
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Crime was up and arrests were down in Riverhead Town last year.
Town police also increased the number of summonses issued by a whopping 41 percent, according to the police department's annual statistics released this week.
Calls for police services, which include both criminal and noncriminal incidents, increased 6.3 percent in 2008, from 25,878 to 27,241, while the number of criminal incidents reported increased 3.3 percent, from 4,150 to 4,291. Arrests were down from 1,283 to 1,237.
"The fact that calls and incidents are up modestly is not surprising in these difficult economic times, particularly since a lot of the increase is attributable to property crimes," Supervisor Phil Cardinale said.
Those property crimes would include burglary (up from 164 to 191), larceny (831 to 995), criminal mischief (409 to 465) and even robbery (31 to 37), all of which saw double-digit percentage increases in 2008.
But there also were increases in assaults, from 57 to 72, driving under the influence, from 177 to 197, and to a lesser degree rape and murder. The number of rapes reported increased from five to eight, while murders increased from one to two last year.
"The decrease in arrests is only 46," he said. "You'll see that number bounce up next year."
He said the number of criminal incidents reported in town had decreased for several years.
Town statistics show that number to have dropped from 5,997 in 2003 to 3,947 in 2006, before heading back up the following year.
One of the two murders was a murder-suicide on Mill Road, while the other took place in the River Pointe Apartments on East Main Street in an incident police said was drug related.
The one category that was down in 2008 was controlled-substance reports, which dropped from 133 to 74. Chief Hegermiller said he couldn't explain the drop. While the town police no longer participated in the East End Drug Task Force, he said the town did receive help from the Suffolk County Police Department's narcotics enforcement unit.
Mr. Cardinale said he was curious about the 41 percent increase in summonses, from 6,092 to 8,644, a category that includes vehicle and traffic law violations, parking summonses and Town Code violations.
"There was no instruction from the Town Board to the police to write more tickets," he said.
Chief Hegermiller said that increase was probably attributable to the town's having hired more traffic control officers last year. Those officers are part-time officers who usually work in the summer months, he said.
Chief Hegermiller said he agreed with the supervisor's assessment that much of the crime in town was property crime. He said there are organized shoplifting teams that come to Tanger Outlet Center from the city, although he said he's not aware of that being the case with the shoplifters at other stores in town.
As for downtown Riverhead, the chief said, "downtown is not dangerous. It's just a perception."
tgannon@timesreview.com
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