IncidentLog Crime Reporting for Berkeley
Those people interested in observing the massive crime wave engulfing Berkeley day-to-day crime reports for Berkeley can now do so with a handy googlemaps feature. It’s called IncidentLog, and here is a Press Release from the founder, Scott Brodsky:
Incidentlog.com has announced the addition of Berkeley’s Police data feed into Incidentlog.com’s national database of police and fire events combined with google maps. http://www.incidentlog.com/lookup.pl?Src=56 The Berkeley feed is updated once per day based on data provided by the police department’s website. Users can also search by street and setup alerts to be notified when events happen on streets they wish to monitor. Incidentlog.com was formed in February ‘05 as a hobby and currently has a database of 1.5 million events and has over 55 national feeds continuously updated to a central database. Future additions will include city-based RSS police/fire/911 feeds, and radius-searching.
Here’s a picture of the map in action (but you should really just go look at it yourself, because it’s an interactive feature):
The Willis-Starbuck murder notwithstanding, Berkeley violent crime rates hit a 35-year low in 2004:
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/news/2004/04apr/042804Violentcrime.html
The jury’s still out on 2005, but hey we’ve got five more months to go.
Comment by jonp — August 2, 2005 @ 11:26 pm
there are just lots of stolen cars and thefts from cars. Other than that, there isn’t much violent crime.
Comment by anon — August 2, 2005 @ 11:36 pm
Well, what do you expect from a fairly wealthy, middle class town?
Comment by Anonymous — August 3, 2005 @ 12:08 am
Attempted mugging at one end of my block by 4 or 5 youths (I’m sure they’re all good kids, and it’s just a tragedy for the whole community), a mugging at the other end of the block. Armed mugging and attempted aremed mugging within a couple of blocks, in the past 3 weeks. If crime is low now, I shudder to think what it was like then.
Berkeley does an excellent job at ignoring crime. For example, the Berkeley Daily Planet makes light of it in it’s police report. Further, there are probably 20 reportable events every day, and RIchard Brenneman writes up about 4 for half the week. I’ve always been puzzled why they don’t follow up on the murder stories, report what occured in the trial. Remember the guy, Jarell Johnson, who stomped the homeless lady to death. That was in April or May. Has it gone to trial? I think it did. Anybody know what he got?
Comment by observer — August 3, 2005 @ 8:56 am
anonymous, what do you mean by “what do you expect from a fairly wealthy, middle class town?” That people in such a town commit higher than average amounts of crime?
please explain in detail.
Comment by observer — August 3, 2005 @ 8:58 am
C’mon Jon, you know better than that. Crime rates may be lower than in the past, but that doens’t mean its at an acceptable level now.
And you have a Ph.D? In Sociology? Can’t say I’m that surprised.
Make google and your life useful. Find us stats on the crime rate in other cities of comparable demographics. Otherwise stop spinning.
Comment by Anonymous — August 3, 2005 @ 9:28 am
4 murders in 2004, compared with maybe 1 in 2003? Also, look at the Oakland/Berkeley/Albany region as a whole, and you’ll see that the violent crime hasn’t disappeared, it’s just moved a few feet over the city border line.
Comment by Ben N. — August 3, 2005 @ 11:19 am
Berkeley does an excellent job of ignoring crime?
How bout we worry about crime too much? These are incidents that occur over a period of time in a city of over 100,000 people. The chances of it happening to you are very small to begin with if you don’t take the necessary safety precautions (like dont go down Shattuck at 2 AM). People worry too much as a result of these things.
Comment by ? — August 3, 2005 @ 11:32 am
observer: I was inferring that wealthy towns generally don’t have as much crime as, say Richmond or Oakland.
Comment by Anonymous — August 3, 2005 @ 11:41 am
I took Anonymous’ comment “Well, what do you expect from a fairly wealthy, middle class town?” to mean that the number of violent crimes would be comparitively lower than that of theft or burglary.
Violent crime happens more often in not “fairly wealthy, middle class” cities, whereas car theft or petty crime would occur more often in this type of environment. That is, violent crime occurs more often in South Berkeley than in North Berkeley, while Berkeley as a whole remains much lower on average when it comes to violent crimes for cities the same size.
There are a lot of factors, as always. One would be a fool to think that the City of Berkeley might be blind to the fact that crime simply disappears as opposed to moving over our friendly border. The City is working to approach crime, homelessness and access to health on a regional basis. It’s the only way to attack Berkeley’s blemishes.
Comment by Reason — August 3, 2005 @ 11:53 am
Take a look at the police department’s report for yesterday. There are thirty plus events that fall into the crime category. Sorry, apart from a threat by gun, there is only one report of robbery by gun. I guess there’s no real crime then. Multiply 365 times 30 and you get 10,000 events per year. That’s a lot.
What would happen if we gave the entire police force a month long sabbatical? The town’s pacifists might realize they have the luxury of being defended by a local army of 200 police officers. Give them a vacation and you’d gather an arsenal and you wouldn’t set foot outside after dark.
Comment by observer — August 3, 2005 @ 12:48 pm
Regional Approach to Ending Homelessness:
http://www.abag.ca.gov/cgi-bin/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1122490023,51141,
Berkeley’s Health Task Force report:
http://www.cityofberkeley.info/mayor/HealthTaskForce/Healthtaskforce.htm
Comment by Linker — August 3, 2005 @ 12:54 pm
it should be noted that the interface is still rather broken — compare his map with the actual police reports at http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/police/crimestats/policebulletins.html , and you’ll notice that he gets the location right only when the bulletin shows the location as an address (a la “2367 TELEGRAPH AV.”). but most entries in the police bulletin give just the street in the first location line and list the cross-street on the next line. in the latter case, his script ignores the cross street and just feeds the street name to google maps, causing it to use its idea of where “the street itself” is located, which is usually at one of its two extremeties.
this is, for instance, why you see (at least right now) a bit of a ring of incidents surrounding the west berkeley “flats” — that’s just where most west berkeley streets terminate.
Comment by af — August 3, 2005 @ 1:04 pm
Berkely’s pacifist residents may well tout reports and statistics of low crime as justification for less police or less oppressive police force, etc. and may cite it as evidence of something having to do with prison self-help programs of some other ultra-liberal waste of time venture but what it really means is that the BPD is doing a fine job.
Any Berkely resident with a true and real sense of the world realizes that a professional police department is unquestionably necessary. And some pacifists might wise up and realize the police department in a way makes it possible for them to sit around pondering utopian bullshit.
Comment by Anonymous — August 3, 2005 @ 1:08 pm
scared of “Shattuck at 2 AM”? hahaha! fucking wieners!
most of you havent even seen a real recession, but you’ll get your chance soon enough. you little creampuffs are going to be in for a big surprise when you finally come face to face with an actual “crime-wave”.
Shattuck at 2 AM! HAHAHAAH!
Comment by mano — August 3, 2005 @ 1:32 pm
If it Bleeds, It Leads
We hear this criticism all the time in TV News… all you do is tell us the BAD stuff. Crime Crime Crime. Well, what would you rather hear? “235 planes took off and landed safely at the airport today.” That’s…
Trackback by The Bay Area Is Talking — August 3, 2005 @ 1:32 pm
I got a car and my insurance company sent me a big refund when I moved the location out of Berkeley.
My friend who grew up at Channing and San Pablo said that it was pretty bad in the late 80s. The neighbors walked around with rifles and slit the throat of their pet cat because their mother was a church lady and was banding together with other church people to drive people doing vice crimes in the parking lot of lo-cost liquors away. Now, most of the poor people who weren’t owners have been driven out of the city into West Sacramento and so forth, but I have never been scared of going around Berkeley and Oakland.
Comment by anon — August 3, 2005 @ 8:22 pm
in santa cruz, all last week some dysfunctional person was sneaking to a different street and popping tires of 7-20 cars. It would suck if that happened to me, but it is interesting to read about because that’s so risky, because he’ll eventually get caught and have hundreds of people angry at him. the city has driven the homeless out into the bushes though.
Comment by anon — August 3, 2005 @ 8:26 pm
Even a police state can’t manage a zero crime level. I have no idea what crime level people view as “acceptable.”
Comment by jonp — August 4, 2005 @ 12:34 am
By the way, it’s generally common knowledge among criminologists (and their sociological colleagues like myself) that crime peaked in the 1980s and then dropped precipitiously in the 1990s. To a limited extent, the beginning of the 21st century has continued the 90s crime drop, although we may be experiencing signs of an uptick. At this moment, criminologists are in the middle of a major debate over what caused the 1990s crime drop, because there really isn’t a consensus on the issue. Giuliani would like to say it’s the “broken windows” method of policing, but the crime drop occurred in cities where this policing method was not used. Other explanations given include (1) a decline in black teen unemployment during the Clinton Administration; (2) the adoption of three-strikes laws; (3) the burnout of the crack cocaine trade; and (4) Levitt’s argument that it’s due to legalized abortion. Personally, I think 2 & 3 had the most effect. There’s also the theory of the “younger brother” effect. Basically, the crime epidemic of the 80s burned itself out, because the little brothers of crack addicts and gangbangers saw too many people getting killed, jailed, or injured. Based on their childhood experiences, they decided crime and drugs don’t pay.
Comment by jonp — August 4, 2005 @ 12:43 am
2005-07-19 2242 PDT LOUD FRAT BOYS CHANNING WAY AND COLLEGE
BERKELEY CA
CA -
BERKELEY
WOO!
WOO!
WOOOOOOOOO!
Comment by David Horowitz — August 4, 2005 @ 7:49 pm