Bellevue Crime Rose In 2018, Police Annual Report Shows

BELLEVUE, WA — The Bellevue Police Department released its 2018 annual report this week, and the document shows a jump in crime overall, although police responded to more calls and made more arrests.

The annual report tracks crime trends in the city, but also other police activity, like response times, hiring trends, and how civilians rate interactions with officers. Here are a few key findings from the report, which you can read in full here:

Crime in Bellevue overall rose 1.6 percent in 2018. There were 4,713 "part one" crimes in 2018, which includes crimes like theft, assault, and homicide (there were zero homicides in 2018). Of the last five years, 2018 had the third-lowest total number of crimes. The high mark was in 2014 when there were 4,765 crimes total.

The "part one" crime rate was 33 per 1,000 people in 2018. By comparison, the crime rate in Issaquah was 39 per 1,000, while Kirkland had a rate of 24 incidents per 1,000 people.

Robbery and aggravated assault ticked up in 2018. Robberies were up 47 percent to 87 incidents compared to 2017. Aggravated assaults rose 17 percent to 76 total incidents. Rape also increased by one incident to 25 total.

Burglaries dropped from 570 incidents in 2017 to 524 in 2018. The biggest drop was in residential burglaries, which declined from 344 to 275. Commercial burglaries increased from 226 to 249 incidents.

The average police response time ticked up by 7 seconds to 3 minutes 42 seconds. There was a corresponding increase in police calls, up 268 to 65,944.

There were 1,669 car crashes in 2018, and 454 were injury collisions. Two people were killed in 2018 crashes, the same number as 2017.

Perceptions of safety in neighborhoods were essentially unchanged, according to a department survey:

• 97 percent said they felt safe "walking alone in [the] downtown business area during the day," down from 99 percent in 2018
• 86 percent felt safe walking downtown at night, down from 88 percent in 2017
• 91 percent said they felt safe "walking alone in neighborhoods after dark," up from 87 percent in 2017

Citizens rated 78 percent of police interactions as good or excellent, 22 percent as fair or poor.

There were 13 "formal" investigations into department employees for "significant violations of department policy or law." That's the highest number since 2014 when there were 12 investigations.

The department hired 19 new officers in 2018, the same number as in 2017.