By Keighla Schmidt, Staff Writer
As the city of Savage continues to grow, single crimes are no longer the norm.
“A lot of the cases we’ve dealt with this year have mushroomed into multiple cases,” said Police Chief Rodney Seurer.
Seurer said in 2007 it wasn’t atypical to arrest a person for one crime. In many cases, once investigators got into the case, they discovered many other crimes were committed leading up to the arrest.
In one such case, an investigator was looking into the identity theft of non-native English speaker and discovered the thief had stolen the identities of over 100 people all across the nation. As a result, many agencies got involved in the investigation, including the Financial Crime Task Force, a state-funded agency that has a division in Savage.
“It’s really nice to be able to have resources like that available,” Seurer said.
However, the department is dealing with more and different kinds of crimes than it has in the past.
“The criminals are more advanced,” Seurer said. “Now, they’re much more technological. Identity theft is growing. Forgery and counterfeit is up 40 percent, that’s huge.”
Capt. Dave Muelken said crimes that seem simple also mushroom out into many violations. “When a suspect enters a garage with the intent to commit a crime, theft for example, they committed a burglary (which is a felony). Then they enter the car and remove a purse, now they have also committed a theft.” Muelken said. “Then later they use a credit card they have now committed Financial Transaction Card Fraud (FTCF), which is a felony.”
Another change -- the typical thief is no longer breaking in the glass on the door with a ski cap over his head and pillow case in his hand to store the loot. Rather, they are going into open garage doors and taking things out of the car or entering the home through an unlocked door from the garage and taking the keys sitting on the counter to steal the car.
“Some crimes have simply increased because they have more opportunities,” Muelken said.
In 2007 there were 50 vehicles that were stolen in Savage, a 28 percent increase from 2006. However, Seurer added, all but one of those were recovered.
Drug-related crimes were also up in 2007. From 2006 to 2007 those types of crimes increased by nearly 15 percent, from 147 to 172. Part of the reason is increased enforcement of drug crimes through increased participation by Savage with the Dakota County Drug Task Force.
And, homicides increased by 100 percent in 2007, when resident Michael Anderson was arrested in connection with the Craigslist Web site murder in October.
Overall, the raw numbers of total crimes has increased. An increase of 727 total crimes was a smaller change than the previous back-to-back years; from 2005 to 2006 the overall number increased by 1,240 crimes.
“We can never eliminate crime, but we can limit their opportunities by increasing patrols,” Muelken said.
Seurer added people can also contribute to lowering crimes by preventing opportunities in the first place.
“Close the garage door and nothing happens,” he said.
Despite the increases in many crimes, both Muelken and Seurer said the city is safe. Some of the increases can be attributed to growth and others to the city’s proximity to the urban Twin Cities as crimes infiltrate into suburban areas.
The report also reveals some decreases.
Traffic accidents were nearly cut in half and speeding violations significantly decreased from 978 in 2006 to 657 in 2007.
All categories of arrest, except adult felony arrests, also decreased.
Driving Under the Influence (DUI) arrests decreased by 61 percent. That decrease helped bump Scott County off the list of the 12 deadliest counties in the state, which led to the loss of a state grant to help fund Operation NightCAP, a prevention program aimed at reducing preventable alcohol-related deaths on the roadway.
“Even though agencies are no longer part of the NightCAP grant, all Scott County agencies will continue this effort on their own in 2008,” according to the Savage Police Department’s annual report.
2007 was also the first full year the department’s Crime Mapping and Analysis program which allows police to look at a physical map and see where the crimes are happening and increase patrols in that area. Some of the areas include tracking domestic-related crimes (85), drug-related crimes (112), alcohol-related crimes (205) and computer-related crimes (42).
Keighla Schmidt can be reached at kschmidt@swpub.com [1].