An annual crime report released by the Tempe Police Department Wednesday shows that all reported crimes in Tempe for 2010, excluding homicide, decreased for a fourth consecutive year.
With 12 cases reported, homicide reached its highest point in 10 years. Two of these cases involved ASU students: 21-year-old Kyleigh Sousa, who was killed in a robbery attempt last May, and 21-year-old Zachary Marco, who was shot after being robbed near the Tempe campus in October.
Tempe Police spokeswoman Molly Enright said the department resolved 11 of the 12 homicides.
Arrests were made in all 11 cases, except one in which the suspect was killed, Enright said.
Total crimes reported fell 6.7 percent, from 9,974 in 2009 to 9,303 in 2010.
This contributed to an overall decrease of crimes reported for the last decade. There were 5,943 fewer crimes reported in 2010 compared to 2000. The number of crimes reported in the last decade peaked in 2002 with more than 17,800.
The largest crime decrease in 2010 was arson, which went down 38.2 percent. Hate crime is at the lowest it’s been since 2002, with only four reports. Violent crime, such as rape and aggravated assault, went down 14.9 percent and property crime was down 5.9 percent.
These decreases come on the heels of a citywide budget reduction proposal that was presented to the station in January 2010, detailing a plan to cut $14 million from the police department.
To combat this cut, Tempe Police worked on ways to augment resources by reorganizing the department and increasing the amount of volunteers in the police program, according to the report.
The passing of Proposition 401 in May, which temporarily increased the sales tax by two-tenths of a cent, also assisted Tempe Police by reducing the amount cut from their budget, allowing them to save more than 90 police jobs.
Enright said that Chief Tom Ryff has been most helpful with increasing crime prevention on a lower budget.
“He has focused on intelligence-led policing and developed a strategic plan for the next five years to help plan out in advance where to be more flexible when the budget tightens,” she said.
Improvements in technology have also helped with the budget cuts.
Tempe Police is now using technology that helps officers to communicate with other police departments not just on a local level, but also on a regional, state and national level.
The Central Operations Portal is an internal website that was launched last September. The site lets officers share real-time crime information, which allows for immediate information about crime trends.
Reach the reporter at danielle.legler@asu.edu
