Sacramento police officials recently sent a note to residents of several south area neighborhoods warning of an increase in home burglaries. To combat them, police have formed a response team.
What the cops didn't say was that while there has been an uptick recently, burglaries in the area are actually down over last year.
In the second week of December, police reported 13 home break-ins in the Pocket/Greenhaven neighborhood - more than twice the number of burglaries from the previous week, department statistics show.
In Meadowview and Valley Hi, the past 90 days have seen 249 burglaries, an increase of 23 percent over the same time period last year.
But those numbers tell only half the story.
Burglaries in the Pocket/ Greenhaven area are down significantly, from 710 in 2009 to 535 this year. There have also been fewer of the crimes in Meadowview and Valley Hi (851 this year compared to 869 last year).
Police offer these tips:
• Lock your doors. Some recent break-ins were at homes left unlocked.
• Make your home appear occupied when you're not there. Leave some lights on.
• Report suspicious people in your neighborhood.
- Ryan Lillis
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