Increase in Midtown Crime Frightens Residents, Alarms Police

Sign up for the Midtown Patch newsletter!

---

Midtown residents are on guard as criminals have increased their activity in the area since the start of the new year, with police data showing marked increases in the numbers of reported aggravated assaults and rapes.

According to 11 Alive News, crimes such as residential burglary and robbery are also on the rise, with residents complaining of brazen criminals kicking down doors in broad daylight and dog walkers being mugged by people jumping out of cars.

Data from Atlanta police mostly corroborate the 11 Alive report. According to the department’s crime report for Week 20 (May 10-16), the number of rapes reported in Midtown’s Zone 5 so far this year is 160 percent higher than the number of rapes reported up until Week 20 of 2014. Furthermore, there has been a 61 percent increase in aggravated assault reports from Weeks 1-20 of 2014. During the last 28 days, the number of car thefts is up 104 percent from the same 28 day set in 2014, according to the report.

In Zone 4, which includes a part of West Midtown, the news isn’t any better. Zone 4’s murder rate is up 133 percent during the first 20 weeks of the year, and the larceny from automobile rate is up 31 percent from the 2014 figures. Overall, the crime rate in Zone 4 is up four percent from this time last year.

Zone 6, which includes the Old Fourth Ward and the area east of Piedmont Road but south of Ponce De Leon, has seen a similar upsurge in crime. There has been a 500 percent increase in the murder rate; rape is up 17 percent; robbery is up 22 percent; auto thefts are up 49 percent. Zone 6’s crime rate is eight percent higher than it was during the first 20 weeks of 2014.

The Midtown Ponce Security Alliance, a neighborhood watch, reports several robberies and burglaries so far this month, with a burglary on May 2, two robberies on May 4, a further robbery on May 5, a burglary on May 13, and a further burglary on May 14.

On May 2, a man who may be using meth was caught outside a home on Penn Avenue attempting to walk away with items he had just stolen out of that house; on May 4, a student dropped his bookbag for armed robbers after one of the suspects told his partners to “waste” the student for noncompliance; on May 5, the wife of the owner of a laundromat was struck with a handgun during the course of an armed robbery of the business.

Atlanta police told 11 Alive News that they do not know why Midtown has seen such a spike in crime, but have stepped up patrols in the area.