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By Michael HowardPhotos courtesy: City of La Mesa. Left: La Mesa Police Department Chief of Police Ray Sweeney address the La Mesa City Council on May 28, 2024.
June 23, 2024 (La Mesa, CA) – La Mesa Police Chief Ray Sweeney reported mixed crime results in his first quarter 2024 crime report to the La Mesa City Council during the May 28 city council meeting.
“We had a slight dip in violent crime, property crime did go up a little bit, and then, the FBI total index is exactly the same as it was this time last year,” the chief reported to the council members.
By slight dip in violent crime, the chief was referring to a 17.5% decrease in 2024 first quarter homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assaults compared to the same time period last year. In Q1 2023, the La Mesa Police Department responded to 57 crimes in this category, while in Q1 2024, they only responded to 47.
Notable in the violent crime category were robberies, which were cut in half, from 18 in Q1 2023 to nine in Q1 2024. Aggravated assaults - which the report noted were 47% domestic-violence related – were down 5.5% from 36 to 34. Reported rapes increased from three in Q1 2023 to 4 in Q1 2024, an increase of 25%. Homicides in La Mesa remained at zero in Q1 2024, in line with the previous four years listed in the report.
La Mesa’s dip in violent crime rate exceeds the national average for the region, according to FBI data. In their quarterly report released last week, the FBI reported the average decrease in violent crime in the western region – which includes the states California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah among others – decreased by 10%, compared to La Mesa’s 17.5%.
By comparison, El Cajon’s violent crime rate for the same period decreased by only 15.6%, dropping to 92 incidents in Q1 2024 from 109 in Q1 2023. FBI data on other East County cities was not included in the report.
Related to property crimes, La Mesa’s slight rate increase of 3.6% from 276 reported in Q1 2023 to 286 in Q1 2024 goes against national trends that indicate this category of crime is trending downward too. The FBI’s report shows a 17% decrease in the western region and 13% decrease in cities with a population between 50,000 to 99,000 which La Mesa falls within according to the latest census data at 60,888.Property crimes include residential and commercial burglary, theft, and auto theft. While residential burglaries in La Mesa decreased 22.7% from 22 in Q1 2023 to 17 in Q1 2024, all other crimes in this category increased. Commercial burglaries were up 4.3% from 22 to 23, theft 4.1%, from 186 to 194, and auto theft 11.5%, from 46 to 52.
El Cajon also saw an increase in property crimes during the same period, from 398 incidents in Q1 2023 to 415 in Q1 2024, an increase of 4.1%. Their increase was in large part due to reported thefts, which increased 10.5% from 263 in Q1 2023 to 294 in Q1 2024.
Despite the mixed numbers, overall, the city’s crime rate has remained level compared to the same period last year, with 333 incidents reported for Quarter 1 during both years 2023 and 2024. In relation to La Mesa’s population, this is a rate of 22.4 crimes for every 1,000 residents. El Cajon, while larger in population with an estimated 103,569 residents, comes in slightly lower at 19.6 per 1,000.The crime report was followed by an independent contractor’s presentation of La Mesa Police Department’s staffing needs. During the report, the contractor advised the city council that up to 24 new positions were needed to adequately address the city's policing needs.
Speaking after the presentation, Chief Sweeney stated that he understood the need to remain fiscally responsible and that 24 new positions were more than likely not possible, noting he will ask for six positions in the upcoming budget review.
“We need to prepare for the future,” he said in justifying the request.
SOURCES
Census Reporter. (n.d.). Census profile: La Mesa, CA. Census Reporter. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from http://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0640004-la-mesa-ca/
City of La Mesa. (2024, May 28). City Council—May 28, 2024. https://pub-lamesa.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=a76810b2-9c0f-4ed...
Federal Bureau of Instigations. (2024, June 10). CDE. https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/quarterly
Sweeney, R. (2024). La Mesa Police Department Quarterly Report 1st Quarter 2024.
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