Tracking Assaults on Crime Maps

From time to time we get asked questions that may be of some interest to the general public. To facilitate the flow of information we believe may be useful to you, we are creating a new Q&A category to share these questions and answers via the blog.

Q:   Hey Chief ~ why are assaults (simple or aggravated) not listed on the weekly crime reports or marked on the weekly crime maps?"

A:   We track assaults during each of our weekly TAC meetings looking for trends or other factors that allow us to intervene and prevent future crimes. Typically we find these crimes to be some type of domestic disturbance or situation involving a relationship between the victim and the offender (bar fight, etc.). Assaults on victims by unknown subjects are not the general rule, though they do happen from time to time.

As such, we do not view these offenses as something threatening a neighborhood's safety or of much interest to the public (unless you really want to know what happened at your neighbor's house last night with all the cop cars there - and who is not curious about that).

We are happy to list assaults if deemed of interest to the public. Please be assured we are not withholding this information to keep it from anyone - we just don't think adding more pins to the crime map that mark the location of assaults or disturbances are of much interest to the public. We get more interest in where cars are being stolen or where residential and vehicle burglaries are occurring so people know what is going on in their neighborhood.

Let us know what you think - should we start listing assaults on our weekly crime maps? Is there a big demand from the public for this type of information?

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Comments

[Bob]

I am a concerned citizen in my neighborhood and having only lived in Lakeland for just over a year we have seen a trend of crime in and around our area and would love to see all stats available...

Thanks