Evanston Police Release 2011 Crime Stat Summary

The Evanston Police Department released a summary of 2011 crime statistics Friday.

Overall, crime was down 0.3 percent in 2011 compared to 2010, the release said. However, violent crimes had a significant reduction, which the department attributes in part to aggressive investigations of drug dealers.

Statistics include:

* A 40 percent reduction in murders (from five to three)
* A 24 percent reduction in aggravated battery and assaults (126 to 96)
* A 28 percent reduction in responses to calls for shots fired (180 to 129)

The most frequent type of crime in Evanston continues to be theft. There was a 4 percent increase in thefts in 2011 over 2010, the release said. Many of these thefts are crimes of opportunity, where belongings have been left unattended. For example, 163 thefts happened when items were taken from unlocked cars.

The department conducted two major undercover narcotics investigations last year, which led to 54 arrests, the release said. These were Operation Bloodhound, which targeted the Belizean Bloods street gang and Operation Replay, which targeted street and mid-level dealers.

The release praised these operations for their part in reducing violent crime:

"Illegal drug dealing has a direct link to attributing to violent crime within criminal organizations.  These extended undercover operations had a direct result of disrupting these types of criminal organizations selling illegal drugs and using firearms to conduct their day to day criminal enterprises. Evanston is a safer place because of these cooperative efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cook County Sheriff working with Evanston Police."