Crime continues to decrease in Bloomfield

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The most recent Uniform Crime Report, released April 29 by the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, shows a slight decrease in crime in Bloomfield, from 2013 to 2014. However, more recent statistics provided by the Bloomfield Police Department indicate that, overall, crime decreased significantly from 2014 to 2015 with the exception of aggravated assault, which increased significantly.

Comparing 2013 to 2014
According to the 2014 Uniform Crime Report, the crime index total, which is the sum of violent and nonviolent crimes, decreased from 1,245 incidents in 2013, to 1,229 in 2014. During that time, violent crimes decreased but non-violent crimes increased. Violent crimes decreased by 36 incidents and non-violent crimes increased by 20 incidents.

What constitutes a crime is defined by the New Jersey State Police. According the State Police, murder is the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought; rape is carnal knowledge of a female against her will; robbery is the felonious and forcible taking of property by violence; aggravated assault is the offer or attempt, with unlawful force or violence, to do serious injury to another person; burglary is the unlawful entry into a structure, and larceny-theft is the taking of property to deprive ownership.

In Bloomfield, according to the report:
• two rapes were reported in 2014 and three were reported in 2013;
• 77 robberies were reported in 2014 and 91 in 2013;
• 25 aggravated assaults were reported in 2014 with 45 in 2013;
• no murders were reported in 2014, one in 2013;
• in 2014, the overall crime rate was 25.8 for every 1,000 residents compared to 26.2 per 1,000 residents in 2013;
• violent crime incidents were 2.2 per 1,000 residents in 2014 and 2.9 per 1,000 residents in 2013.

Crime statewide
Statewide, the total number of violent crimes decreased 10 percent from 2013 to 2014, from 25,452 incidents to 23,004. However, alone in the violent crimes category, rape increased 9 percent, from 874 incidents to 950. Nonviolent crimes from 2013 to 2014 decreased by 7 percent. The total crime index of violent and nonviolent crimes decreased by 8 percent. Twenty persons out of every 1,000 were victims of a crime in New Jersey, larceny-theft and burglary victims accounting for more than 16 of those persons. A crime was said to have occurred every two minutes and 54 seconds in 2014, an improvement over 2013 when it took 11 seconds less.

Crime in Essex County for 2014
Among New Jersey counties, Essex had the highest number of arrests for murder in 2014, with 59. Passaic County was second, with 38. Third was Camden, with 29. Hunterdon and Sussex were the only two counties not reporting a murder. A total of 119 murders were committed in Essex County in 2014, the highest total of any New Jersey county.
Among all 22 Essex County municipalities, 16 had lower overall crime rates per 1,000 residents than Bloomfield in 2014. This included four of the six municipalities which border Bloomfield. Only Newark, with a crime rate of 43.9 per 1,000 residents, and Belleville, with a crime rate of 26, had greater crime rates among Essex County municipalities.

Comparing 2014 to 2015
The most recent Bloomfield crime statistics provided by the BPD show that from 2014 to 2015 there was a cumulative decrease in seven categories of crime by 28 percent.
• For murder there was no change, from 2014 to 2015.
• In 2014 and 2015, two rapes were reported for each year.
• 72 incidents of robbery in 2014 and 59 in 2015, for an 18 percent decrease;
• 23 aggravated assaults in 2014 and 33 in 2015, for a 43 percent increase;
• 219 incidents of burglary in 2014 and 106 in 2015, for a 52 percent decrease;
• 726 incidents of theft in 2014 and 602 in 2015, for a 17 percent decrease; and
• 170 auto thefts in 2014 and 75 in 2015, for a 56 percent decrease.
The BPD also released statistics not included in the UCR.
• 154 drug arrests in 2014 and 387 in 2015 for a 151 percent increase;
• 269 warrant arrests in 2014 and 820 in 2015 for an 205 percent increase;
• 15 gun arrests in 2014 and 24 in 2015 for a 60 percent increase; and
• 3,150 motor-vehicle stops with summons in 2014 and 17,763 in 2015 for a 464 percent increase.

Bloomfield Police Director Sam DeMaio said the aggravated assault increase was due to domestic violence incidents and several more assaults on police officers.

His advice for women is not to wait to seek police help.
“Step forward in the early stages,” he said for women in a potentially violent domestic relationship.

Police action can be taken if an individual feels threatened verbally, he said, so report it to the BPD.

“A lot of people do,” he said. “Intervention at early stages prevents it.”
He also advised that if a couple is going through a bad break-up, and someone has to pick up a personal belonging at the other person’s apartment, that the police be notified to prevent a domestic violence situation from developing.

“It’s a simple phone call,” he said.
He credits the decrease in a burglary and robbery with a more aggressive approach to outstanding arrest warrants.

“For burglary, we arrested a high number of people on a high number of warrants,” he said. “We started a program on outstanding warrants and went out and arrested them.”

He said previously, not much was done with outstanding warrants. DeMaio became police director in late 2014. He said there will be an even greater decrease in burglary in the township for 2016.

“The first four months of 2016, we’ve had only 16 burglaries,” he said. “The same time last year we had 51.”

DeMaio said there have been eight robberies so far this year. At the same time last year, he said there were 18.
“Everything is trending for less crime,” he said.

He pointed out that 75 percent to 80 percent of Bloomfield crime occurs in the south end of town. He said that 75 percent to 80 percent of the police force is concentrated in the same area.

“Just putting cops on the dots is getting people off the streets,” he said. “A lot of the outstanding warrants are for people in Belleville, Newark and East Orange.”

He said if the suspect resides outside Bloomfield, the BPD notifies the jurisdiction where the suspect resides and then executes the warrant.
DeMaio credits the use of social media by the BPD and neighborhood watch groups for making residents more aware of auto theft prevention.
“Most of the auto thefts in 2014 was when people warmed up their cars and then went inside,” he said.

Regarding the use of heroin, DeMaio said the BPD has deployed Narcan 14 times since August 2015. Narcan is a drug used to reverse the effect of a heroin overdose.

“It’s a cheap drug of choice, unfortunately,” DeMaio said.
DeMaio said that the BPD is involved with federal and county law-enforcement agencies to combat drugs in Bloomfield.

“We’ve had some really good drug arrests,” he said.
DeMaio said the department was excited by the crime reduction in 2015 and are looking forward to the 2016 results. The department currently has 123 officers. On June 22, eight more officers will graduate from the police academy.