Rising rates

An increase in burglaries, thefts and assaults was reported to residents in Zone 4 at the Cops and Neighborhoods United meeting Thursday evening. The statistics show Zone 4 experienced the same outbreak of criminal activity as many other areas of Newton, but not all the news was bad.

“The good news is some of your stats went down, bad news is some of them went up,” Newton Police Department Sgt. Chris Wing said.

Burglaries went up to 22 from 19, thefts went up to 27 from 17 and assaults went up to 44 from 30 in 2019. In 2019, Wing said there was an outbreak of burglaries and thefts that occurred. Much like the other zones in Newton, this caused some of the crime statistics to go up during the year.

“Right now the numbers are down fortunately and we hope to keep them that way,” Wing said.

Throughout the meeting programs were discussed to help bring down crime activities. One of those was the crime free multi-housing program. Wing said it works by applying a points system to space, tallying points for each time officers are called and taking away the landlord’s ability to not rent a space for incremental periods of time to violators.

“It has been very successful. Some of the individuals we used to have a ton of problems with have been basically forced out of town because nobody is going to rent to them because they are a problem tenant” Wing said.

The spotlight section this year dealt with the two NPD school resource officers . Those in attendance had questions about the SRO’s and how they operate within the schools.

“Do your SRO officers that are in the schools of the junior high and high school wear their gun?” Mary Mullan of Newton said.

The NPD officers who are in the schools wear the full equipment, just like the patrol officers do on the street. There were questions about navigating schools and curious children while having a firearm.

“In certain school programs if you have a bunch of inquisitive kids, they might ask a bunch of questions about what your equipment is, I’m sure the police officer would definitely explain it to them,” Wing said.

Additionally, a question was asked about how citizens may become educated about what certain drugs look like. Drugs like marijuana or pills the average citizen may be unable to identify.

“Through the public safety academy there is a one or two hour block that is allotted specifically to the drug task force,” Wing said.

The final Cops and Neighborhoods United meeting, Zone 6, is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. March 20 at Community Heights Alliance Church, 2500 S. 13th Ave. E.

Contact Dustin Teays at 641-792-3121 ext. 6533 or dteays@newtondailynews.com