Northern District police arrested 22 burglary suspects in the past 28 days.
"That is unprecedented in my career," said Northern District Commander Maj. Sabrina Tapp-Harper.
It's one of a string of statistics that Tapp-Harper is using to show a year-to-date decline in Part I crimes across the board, including double-digit decreases in several categories.
For the year to date compared to last year, homicides are down by eight percent, aggravated assaults by 11 percent, robberies by 3 percent, burglaries by 4 percent and auto thefts by 13 percent, Tapp-Harper told the Northern District Community Council, a citizens advisory group, on Wednesday, Nov. 16.
"In law enforcement language, double digits are a really big deal for us," Tapp-Harper said.
Total year-to-date Part I crime has dropped by 7 percent, she said.
In some cases, 28-day statistics tell a better story than year-to-date data, she said, noting for example that police recovered 11 guns in the past 28 days, a key time period snapshot of how police are doing in combating crime. For the same 28-day period last year, police recovered only two guns, she said.
And although Tapp-Harper said the year-to-date reductions in burglaries and robberies aren't as steep as she hoped for, she is encouraged by the 28-day statistics for arresting burglary suspects and for recovering guns.
"Clearly, the officers are applying themselves," she told council members.
When asked by one council member how the Northern District stats compared to those of other police district in the city, she said with a smile, "Of course, we are the best."
But not everyone is happy with police in the Northern District.
Casey Jenkins, chef and owner of the Greenmount Avenue restaurant Darker Than Blue and co-founder of the Waverly Merchants Association, told the Messenger earlier this week that the association is disbanding, partly because he and other merchants think police aren't patrolling the Greenmount corridor enough, especially on foot.
And Jenkins said he is considering relocating Darker Than Blue within the city.
In an allusion to that issue, Tapp-Harper told the advisory group, "We are encouraging the officers to get out of the car more."
In an interview after her address, she said she met with Jenkins the night before and that "he'd like to see the officers walking around more."
"We're going to be working with them," she said of Jenkins and other merchants.
But she said police are not indifferent to Greenmount Avenue, as Jenkins contended.
"I don't agree with that at all," she said.
And Deputy Maj. Richard Worley said individual statistics for crime in the Greenmount corridor are consistent with the districtwide numbers.