Police Blotter: Temperature Increases, Crime Increases

The weather has been undeniably beautiful this past week, but there's one small problem when it comes to nicer weather.  We start seeing more crime.

Incidents in Golden Valley increased again last week. The made 28 arrests, a significantly higher number than the past week. As usual, a majority of the violations are traffic related, though this week had slightly more variation. DWI and drug violations increased and could be related to outdoor parties and get togethers becoming more common.

The trend of out of town arrests continues with 21 of those arrests being people who do not reside in Golden Valley. Correlated with a high number of traffic and drug violations, these people are just passing through Golden Valley when they are stopped by the police department. Arrests of Golden Valley residents remains low.

However, last week reports of violent crime, drug incidents, burglaries and traffic violations all rose with the temperature (see attached pdfs). Most burglaries were vehicle related, though there were two non-residential robberies. Nice weather comes with increased activity, bringing the crime into the streets. 

Joanne Paul, crime analyst with the police department, said in a March interview with Patch that she expected to see the increase once the weather improved.

"It happens every year to just about every department across the board," she said.  "We just need our residents to be aware and be more vigilant about locking their doors and keeping an eye on their surroundings and each other."