RedRageNDallas, I have a question pending for you below. (Pardon the bump, folks.)

RedRage, do you not think it was important to take note of the increases in robberies and thefts? It's not the newspaper's job to write puff pieces for the PD. There were two sides to this story, and they ignored one. Someone has to do the objective reporting around here, and you'd think it'd be the newspaper. They should leave the puffery to the Chamber of Commerce.

lol, only you people could find the negative in a positive story!

They really put on the rosy glasses when they interpreted these crime stats. Only 3 of the 6 crime categories decreased. Since the other 3 increased and the overall rate of change was virtually nil, it would be just as accurate to run the headline "Data shows increases in local crime". Claiming a decrease with a minuscule 0.43% (as in 0.0043) drop is nothing but spin. That's a fraction of the likely margin of error.

The more journalistically honest approach would be to draw attention to the nuances of the data. For instance, pointing out that violent crime rates have dropped while thefts/robberies have risen would be more valuable to the public and is probably indicative of economic strife.

what about the unsolved murders in Victoria? who's watching out for those forgotten victims?

Is it the crime rate that's going down or is it the rate of crimes solved that are going down ???

Crime rates are falling across the country.