Due to the arrests made last month, Officer Stafford is pleased to report that there has been a significant decrease in calls for service regarding criminal activity in the Garden District. The decrease for criminal calls of service occurred because the burglars who frequented the Garden District have been apprehended and incarcerated. Also, she has noticed that calls for suspicious incidents have risen. This is where community members call Officers to check out someone or something in the neighborhood that looks out of place. This possibly helped to deter criminal activity. If a criminal was stopped by police for a suspicious incident investigation, the criminal was less likely to commit the crime and less likely to come back into the neighborhood knowing that community members are watching and police are responding.
There have been ongoing reports of burglaries in surrounding neighborhoods such as Hundred Oaks and Capital Heights. So the crime hasn’t stopped, the criminals have just stopped coming to the Garden District. While monitoring the Nextdoor application, there were no reports of burglaries or crimes in the Garden District for the month of August.
A search of the BRPD’s reporting system shows that there were NO reports of crimes in the Garden District for the ENTIRE month of August. There was one incident were a male was arrested by detectives during an investigation for drug possession on Cherokee Street. The only other calls for service were suspicious incidents, false alarms, and public assistance calls. Officer Stafford has continued to monitor crime in the Garden District and has been in constant contact with community members. As long as community members continue to be proactively aware as they have been, the crime will stay out of this neighborhood.