FREDERICK, MD - Frederick City Police released their 2012 Uniform Crime Report, and the number of serious crimes have gone up.
In 2012, Part 1 offenses, such as robberies and assaults, went up by 8.7 percent.
"The population in the City of Frederick continues to grow, and Part 1 offenses continue to remain either consistent or go up or down mildly one way or another," says Chief Thomas Ledwell, with the Frederick City Police Department.
The highest spike was in aggravated assaults, which went up from 78 in 2011 to 127 in 2012.
"I think sometimes we see an upsurge in that depending on economic problems, people being out of work, different variants there that cause some of those things to spike," says Sgt. Bruce DeGrange, commander of the patrol division.
Auto thefts also went up from 78 in 2011 to 127 in 2012. And 42 of those were motor scooters.
Chief thomas Ledwell thinks the new law requiring owners to register their scooters will help those numbers go down.
"It's going to make it more difficult for a thief to steal your motor scooter now, so I think the numbers will decline as far as auto thefts," Ledwell says. "With aggravated assaults, we just need to look at whether we have any concentration area, hot spots, and provide good visibility in that area."
Police say there are things you can do so you're less likely to become victim of a vehicle theft. You should lock your doors and never leave a set of spare keys inside the car.
The one area that went down in 2012 was homicides, down from two in 2011 to one in 2012.
Police already have strategies to deal with the problems.
"We've changed our approach significantly under the new administration where we're doing a lot more intelligence-led, data driven policing," DeGrange says.
Ledwell says the spike is also due to the low crime rate in 2011. That's something he hopes to bring back and take a bite out of crime in the city.
For more information on the report, click here.
