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GR Crime Stats


mikeb77

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Live by Plymouth/Boston.

Yikes! I live in that area too, and the property I rent is not as well secured as I might like. Do you have any other information about the robberies that have occurred there? As in what was stolen, time of day, etc?

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I don't know details on the robberies in the area, officer just said there had been 8-10 break ins over the last few weeks, mostly during the day.

Mine was at night, 4:30 AM. I left the back slider open, and woke up to footsteps and a flashlight beam. Guy fled immediately when I got up and didn't get much, but again, I wish I had known about the activity before hand so I could have been more cautious.

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My laptop was stolen out of my house on Friday. This came only a few weeks after my iPod was taken from my car. My neighbors up and down my street have had items stolen from their cars and homes as well (Cherry/Diamond area). My sister, who lives in Wyoming, had her car broken into twice in the last two months also. There seems to be a crime spree going on or something...

For all you laptop users, check out qeeqie.com. It seems like a good tool to help you recover a stolen laptop. Stolen iPods are a little tougher to recover.

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My laptop was stolen out of my house on Friday. This came only a few weeks after my iPod was taken from my car. My neighbors up and down my street have had items stolen from their cars and homes as well (Cherry/Diamond area). My sister, who lives in Wyoming, had her car broken into twice in the last two months also. There seems to be a crime spree going on or something...

For all you laptop users, check out qeeqie.com. It seems like a good tool to help you recover a stolen laptop. Stolen iPods are a little tougher to recover.

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hi Mikeb77

Sorry to hear about the theft! A whole lot more of that stuff goes on in this city than anyone knows or admits.

I built the Google maps crime stats page. Yeah, it is far from complete. I only use WoodTV reportage because WoodTV is the only local news outet that has anything remotely like good coverage, and they do a good job of archiving their stories.

Of course, they only report on the relatively big new items.

Actually, I built the thing in response to my car being broken into twice in two years and having my stereo (and everything else in the car) stolen each time.

My plan is to get the crime map hooked into a GRPD database of some kind, but I have the feeling that will be a long, drawn-out process, and may not even be possible.

Still, there should be a place where GR citizens can get detailed, up-to-the-minute info on all levels of crime in all areas of the city.

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By my bet all your doing is taking a WOODTV story and using a 3rd party software program to take a "pushpin" and record the events by hand?

Its quite possible.

What I would do is request any public information from GRPD and see if they have any digital information that is "geocoded" or digitally "tagged" with location (coordinates or street address), crime, date, number of victims, etc. I'm thinking like an excel type of file of data. That way you could go and do a Google mashup or other 3rd party program and just insert the information and have the program display by filters.

With GRPD, being a modern police force, they may already have their information filtered so much of the leg work is done. If they don't and you receive information in hard copy I wouldn't want to be you. :wink: Good work by the way.

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The GRPD is heavily involved with crime data and representing it spatially.

They use a piece of software called Crime View. It takes data from their RMS and geocodes it.

There are a few officers in the detective unit that work with this data.

On a different but similar note...I heard about a regional project that includes 'virtual crime database'.

It sounds like several local municipal police departments will work with the KC Sheriff's dept.

I understand this idea has been around for a few years but slow in the making.

By my bet all your doing is taking a WOODTV story and using a 3rd party software program to take a "pushpin" and record the events by hand?

Its quite possible.

What I would do is request any public information from GRPD and see if they have any digital information that is "geocoded" or digitally "tagged" with location (coordinates or street address), crime, date, number of victims, etc. I'm thinking like an excel type of file of data. That way you could go and do a Google mashup or other 3rd party program and just insert the information and have the program display by filters.

With GRPD, being a modern police force, they may already have their information filtered so much of the leg work is done. If they don't and you receive information in hard copy I wouldn't want to be you. :wink: Good work by the way.

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Yeah, my app is still very much in Beta. I am using the Google maps API and hand-coding the crime info into an XML file. I update it every month or so.

In a perfect world, all of the crimes in this town would be sorted by type, temporally, and spatially so we could see e.g. all of the crimes which happen in 24 hours as an animation from 12:00am to 11:59pm in a day. A lot of information about the movements of the perpetrators could be gathered from this type of display.

*sigh*. There is nothing of value (other than illusions of security) which would be lost by making all of this data publicly and easily available. Neighborhood watch groups could use it to know when and where to be extra vigilant. People wold know to batten down their hatches at certain times of year. Like right now, for instance. Based on what I saw of muggings and hold-ups over the last couple of years, I suspect the local street gangs pick the start of the school year for recruiting drives, which means suddenly there are a lot of teenagers who need to quickly gain some street credit.

Do any of you know someone at the GRPD who would be a good contact for this kind of information?

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No, REGIS did not file a FOIA. Because our members are local governments, they requested the data from the jurisdiction that serves them.

Example; Kent County Sheriff provides police coverage for several townships including Cascade, Ada and Grand Rapids Township.

We are essentially stewards of their data...because we act as a GIS department for these local governments.

I don't know how effective this would be nor if it is covered, but has REGIS tried to file a FOIA? I'm not sure if FOIA covers digital assets, or even if its appropriate in this case?
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True. I do know that if some crime cases involve medical situations, HIPAA laws may prevent this data from being shared.

It's still very difficult for some public institutions to share data. Even if there are no laws preventing it, people default by keeping it a secret.

*sigh*. There is nothing of value (other than illusions of security) which would be lost by making all of this data publicly and easily available. Neighborhood watch groups could use it to know when and where to be extra vigilant. People wold know to batten down their hatches at certain times of year. Like right now, for instance. Based on what I saw of muggings and hold-ups over the last couple of years, I suspect the local street gangs pick the start of the school year for recruiting drives, which means suddenly there are a lot of teenagers who need to quickly gain some street credit.
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Yeah, my app is still very much in Beta. I am using the Google maps API and hand-coding the crime info into an XML file. I update it every month or so.

In a perfect world, all of the crimes in this town would be sorted by type, temporally, and spatially so we could see e.g. all of the crimes which happen in 24 hours as an animation from 12:00am to 11:59pm in a day. A lot of information about the movements of the perpetrators could be gathered from this type of display.

*sigh*. There is nothing of value (other than illusions of security) which would be lost by making all of this data publicly and easily available. Neighborhood watch groups could use it to know when and where to be extra vigilant. People wold know to batten down their hatches at certain times of year. Like right now, for instance. Based on what I saw of muggings and hold-ups over the last couple of years, I suspect the local street gangs pick the start of the school year for recruiting drives, which means suddenly there are a lot of teenagers who need to quickly gain some street credit.

Do any of you know someone at the GRPD who would be a good contact for this kind of information?

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Live by Plymouth/Boston.

i've seen the google map, but my understanding was that the data was based on a media source, reported stories, etc, as opposed to GR police reports, meaning its probably not very exhaustive. Probably leaves out the petty crime.

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There's crime everywhere.

I live in EGR. People have bikes stolen from their garages all the time.

2 years in a row, the Friday night after school lets out in June, someone came down our street, tried every car door and stole everything from any car left unlocked. We all guessed it was kids (because of the timing). Same night this year, same problem (with cars) and someone broke a kitchen window at one of my neighbors houses and stole a laptop from their kitchen counter.

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I just moved to North Monroe (between leonard and ann) and I hear and see a LOT of police activity up here. I never read about anything on WoodTV though and I don't get the paper. Most of the activity seems to be centered between Taylor Ave and Plainfield Ave in the Caledonia, Quimby, and Matthews area. I don't see anything on the Google crime map for this area but I know somthing must be going on. A few weeks ago I saw three police cars and a mobile unit racing around the area. One of the unmarked cars had two or three cops in the back seat with the doors open ready to jump out!unsure.gif Then early last week police had the area blocked off and were using their spot lights searching for someone after dark. Has anyone heard anything recently about this area?

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A few years ago, when I was living near the corner of Diamond and Fulton, there was a group of young kids who wandered around after school harrassing people and generally being little jackasses. They were suspected of some minor theft and vandalism.

One day I made a point of being out on my balcony during the time they were usually causing trouble. They stood below me, talking trash and flicking a laser pointer across my eyes, etc ("Hey! That's lightning! You like that??") So I said "I have something for you guys!" Then I whipped out my camera and took several pictures of them. As they ran away I yelled after them "Hey! This is a camera! You like that?"

They didn't cause any more trouble after that. I guess the thought that they might be held accountable for their actions took some of the wind out of their sales.

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It's mostly safe, you're right. Certainly safer than many places.

My point was actually that no matter where you live (even supposedly-almost-gated EGR) there's crime.

Oh, and if you need anyone to ride their bike and shout obscenities at you, I've found riding down Fountain past Central High is a good one. I've been "tailed" (is that the right word?) by obscenity-yelling teens a few times. That's never fun, but I'm faster than they are. :)

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I used to live in EGR. We had problems with bikes being stolen out of our backyard (two... both of them my brother's... we were naive as we had just moved from Milwaukee and assumed that EGR was a lot safer).

I encountered a flasher one time as I walked up Plymouth from Hall to Argentina (I think that's the street... it's been a while). The pinhead was by the creek right behind Grace Church. What a jerk. When I didn't give him the "courtesy" of responding, he followed me up the street on his bike yelling profanities.

And some neanderthal spat on my mother's forehead as she sat in her car in the parking lot at what used to be Eberhard's (now D&W). The kid was angry because he wanted to steal a bike and my mom would have been a witness, even though she wasn't even watching, just sitting there.

I have never encountered that much trouble anywhere else in the city.

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The Diamond and Fulton area is very sketchy indeed. I lived on Atwood between Grand and Eastern for a time and loved the area. I used to walk to Marie's and to downtown. Perfect centralized spot. I stopped walking at night though after a few rapes happened in the hill right by my place one of which happened during the day.

I also was driving home one night 10/11ish heading west on fulton from fuller and as I came up on the graveyard I saw a young 20 something woman running toward me on the sidewalk as fast as she could with a very scared look on her face. I looked in the direction she came from and there were 3 or 4 teens on the opposite side of the street running in my direction as well but they were laughing and casual. I made my beau stop the car and we waited there with the girl for the police to come. Apparently her and her boyfriend were walking east on fulton and the teens assaulted the guy and tried to take her purse. She took off running. That was at the corner of Eastern and Fulton. The teens rounded the corner and headed south on Eastern long before the police arrived. I had trouble sleeping that night I remember because I couldn't get the woman's petrified look out of my head. sad.gif

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