SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) – With so many people staying home these days, home burglaries are way down in the city of San Jose.
Overall crime is also down but with some exceptions.
“You start seeing some trends the longer we stay in the shelter-in-place,” Chief Eddie Garcia said.
Pleased that crime is trending down, San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia says morale is good among the rank and file and reports no new coronavirus infection in the department.
“We still only have five department members that have tested positive. All are doing much better,” Garcia said.
Mostly empty streets and more people at home have residential burglaries down here in recent weeks.
Overall violent and property crime is down — four arrests have been made in connection with a sharp uptick in school burglaries, but crimes like domestic violence are harder to track.
“We know that’s an under reported crime and so we really have to stay vigilant in that particular area and ensure that we market our resources as well as we can to our victims and our survivors,” Garcia said.
Since March 20, when police called out scofflaws, compliance with the shelter order has improved dramatically and is directly tied to less crime, says the chief.
“I think it has to do with people being shelter-in-place and people staying at home. Obviously, residential burglaries being down because people are in their homes. Commercial burglaries we’ve seen, we’ve seen some uptick in commercial burglaries and for reasons because, you know, businesses aren’t open, you know, so we’ve taken steps for that,” Garcia said.
Down the road, Chief Garcia notes that budget and staffing issues loom as the city grapples with the on-going fiscal impact of the coronavirus.
Less crime might mean more time for enforcing the shelter order but it doesn’t mean there won’t be a cop around when you need one, says the chief.
“We’ve seen across the country, some police departments not doing as much as they did before the pandemic started, this police department remains fully operational. We are keeping the streets safe and taking the criminal element off the street in the exact fashion that we did prior to COVID-19,” Garcia said.
Latest Stories: