Downtown Vancouver suffers the most robberies and assaults, police statistics reveal
Kelly Sinoski and Glenn Bohn
Sun
Crime statistics for Vancouver
The city’s central business district reported more crimes than some of its poorer areas last year, mainly because it is a “target-rich environment” for the city’s chronic thieves looking for loot to steal, police statistics show.
Despite the Downtown Eastside’s grim reputation as a drug and crime hot spot, someone is more likely to get hurt or robbed in downtown Vancouver, according to Vancouver police department statistics.
Const. Tim Fanning said the condo-and-office-dotted downtown is often hit hardest because it attracts well-heeled business people and others who park in the downtown core for arts, entertainment or sporting events.
Compounding the problem, he said, is that police are often dealing with the same 50 chronic drug-addicted offenders, many of whom live in the neighbouring Downtown Eastside.
Those petty offenders often scour the CBD parking lots looking for something of value to steal.
“Most of the crime down there is property crime, mostly attributable to theft from autos,” Fanning said. “There are a lot of cars down there. There’s not a lot of opportunity in the Downtown Eastside.”
According to the latest police statistics, the CBD, which doesn’t include the West End, had the most reported robberies (497), burglaries (1,150), thefts from cars (630), other thefts (7,947), arsons (34) and mischief (1,133).
Fanning said property-theft crime in the CBD has dropped 24 per cent since 2003 as police educate people to take all valuables out of their vehicles and try to provide treatment for chronic offenders.
The CBD also had the most assaults with 1,840, beating out second-place finisher Strathcona with 514 assaults.
Strathcona includes a section of the Downtown Eastside.
The same downtown Vancouver area — which encompasses the so-called “entertainment district” along Granville, with all its pubs and nightclubs — also recorded the largest number of “offensive-weapon” crimes: 504. Police have been warning about a rise in violence and gun incidents for the last decade.
By comparison, there were 163 offensive-weapon crimes in Strathcona, 124 in Grandview Woodlands, and 123 in the West End.
Stanley Park, the city’s internationally renowned refuge of nature, seems to be a relatively safe place. There were just eight reported assaults, three robberies and seven offensive-weapons crimes.
Some of Vancouver‘s wealthiest neighbourhoods are also its safest neighbourhoods. For example, there were 34 assaults and eight robberies last year in the Arbutus Ridge neighbourhood, 30 assaults and nine robberies in Dunbar Southlands, and 18 assaults and eight robberies in Kerrisdale.
Drive carefully in downtown Vancouver.
The CBD had the largest number (195) of non-fatal traffic accidents. The second-place finisher, Mount Pleasant, had 111 non-fatal traffic accidents. Grandview-Woodland came in third, with 80 non-fatal accidents.
Deadly accidents occurred in many neighbourhoods. There were three fatal traffic accidents in the CBD, Fairview and Oakridge; two fatals in each of Hastings-Sunrise, Kerrisdale, Kitsilano, Victoria Fraserview and West Point Grey; and single-fatality stats for several other west and east side neighbourhoods.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008