By Aaron Burgin, The Porterville Recorder
Statistics: Most serious offenses rose 19 percent.
Violent crime in Porterville rose in alarming rates between 2005 and 2006, according to the Porterville Police Department year-end report. Overall, Part One crimes — homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts and auto thefts — rose 7.8 percent in 2006. The most serious offenses, however — homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults — shot up 18.75 percent during the same period.

This increase was highlighted by a dramatic 350 percent increase in homicides in Porterville, when the number of increased from two to nine during the two-year span. Overall, Part One crimes have increased nearly 40 percent since 2001. “It was a rough year, and there is a lot of concern,” Porterville Police Department Sgt. Duanne Griffin said. “There was a lot of things that occurred last year that can be attributed to the increase, however.” Aside from homicides, robberies, rapes and assaults each increased more than 15 percent in the year.

The increases occurred even while the number of officers at the police department increased from 40 to 53 between 2005 and 2006. The roster is expected to increase to 58 by June. The most glaring development that played a role in the crime hike was annexation, Griffin said. Porterville’s population increased from 45,170 to 51,467 when it added nearly 6,000 residents through a series of annexations completed in April 2006.

The increase was the fourth highest statewide, according to the state department of Finance. In addition to adding both residents and land into the city limits, Porterville police inherited the crime in those areas, Griffin said. “Some of the areas we brought in had marked crime problems,” Griffin said. “How much of the crime can be attributed to the new areas is not known, but it did make a difference.” In addition, officers said gang-initiated activity reached a fevered pitch in 2006; gangs, police said, were responsible for six of the city’s nine homicides.

The increase, however, was not any reflection on a lack of enforcement, according to statistics. Officers responded to a record 30,495 calls for service, and made 3,881 felony and misdemeanor arrests, down slightly from 2005, when officers made 3,920 arrests. Another aspect is that many of the officers recently hired had to go through training and probationary periods, one year away from truly making an impact on the streets, Porterville Police Chief Chuck McMillan said. Of the 18 new hires over the past 18 months, only eight had prior law enforcement training, McMillan said. “These officers weren’t on the street yet, and other officers had to train them,” McMillan said. “Overall, the time of our current officers was spent in a lot of activities, so a lot of proactive police work went to the wayside.

“We are continuing to recruit and train new officers as part of the Measure H initiative, and our efforts have not tailed off,” McMillan said. “Hopefully, we will begin to see some of that pay off in 2007.”

A difference can be seen this year in at least one of those categories. There have been no homicides in 2007. “We’d like to keep it that way,” McMillan said.