MANSFIELD — The city is ready for more growth, according to Mansfield Police Chief Ken Coontz.
Coontz released the department’s 2016 to 2017 crime statistics, which boasted a 7-percent decrease in overall part-one crimes. Part-one crimes include arson, homicide, manslaughter, rape, robbery, assault, burglar, larceny and auto theft.
This is the third consecutive year of decreased numbers in such crimes.
“What we’re looking at are generally very severe type of crimes,” Coontz said. “Some violent crimes and property crimes.”
According to the MPD statistics, arson crimes dropped eight percent from 25 reported offenses in 2016 to 23 in 2017, rape dropped 30 percent from 80 reported offenses in 2016 to 56 in 2017, burglary went down 13.7 percent from 668 offenses in 2016 to 576 in 2017, larceny dropped 3.9 percent from 1828 reported cases to 1756. Auto theft dropped 38.9 percent from 136 cases in 2016 to 83 in 2017.
“We try to look back and see where we were 10 years ago. We were surprised to see that reported part-one crimes are actually less today than they were 10 years ago. That is huge for us,” Coontz said. “That is huge for the community.
“What it says is that the Mansfield community is being progressive and trying to move forward and we really are ready for businesses to move back into Mansfield.”
Still, statistics also showed there was an influx in homicide cases. In 2016 there were three murders. In 2017, there were seven, a 133.3 percent spike.
“I would be surprised if that number is ever duplicated,” Coontz said. “Homicide was really strange (this) year for us.”
Robberies also jumped 15.1 percent from 66 cases in 2016 to 76 in 2017. Assault was up 49 percent after 55 cases were reported in 2016 and jumped to 86 last year.
“Although some categories went up and some went down, when you calculate the overall category, you’ll find a 7-percent decrease in reported crime from 2016 to 2017,” Coontz said. “Of course our overall goal is to impact all violent crime.
“We’re a police department and we are going to keep trying to hit these areas and violent crime is extremely important to us.”
Coontz said he and the department are proud of the decrease in crime, and gave credit to the community.
“The community has been really involved since 2014,” he said. “You have to look at the business owners and what they have done to the downtown area. I mean if you were to look at what it was 10 years ago, it would look vastly different than today. I think the downtown business owners have done fantastic things for the downtown area and community down there.
“We’ve also had unprecedented church involvement for several years,” he continued. “They’ve been very supportive and have helped to uplift the community and helped get involved in (solving) crimes. We had several churches monitoring what they thought was sex trafficking and we looked into that and were able to shut down a massage parlor on Fourth Street. They’ve done great things.”
Violent crimes have been reduced thanks in part to community-involved programs created by the MPD, Coontz said.
The Focused Deterrent program puts most violent or chronic offenders on watch. Also, the city has seen gun violence deflate by 21.21 percent, and shots fired in the community decreased 25.15 percent.
Mansfield Mayor Tim Theaker applauded the community and the hand they lent in reducing the city’s crime rate again.
“The community plays a big role. It’s not just the police or Mansfield (officials). When citizens see something that’s not kosher, they report it.”
Theaker added the reduction of crime only means positives for the city’s business community.
“The downtown businesses deserve to feel safe,” Theaker said. “They feel they can grow their business. The more people who know of our reduced crime rate, the more people will come to the downtown and be customers for those businesses.”
Assistant Chief Keith Porch said the department has been able to make contact with 65 percent of opioid addicts, and 63 percent of those contacted have entered treatment.
“Mansfield had 123 responses to 100 individuals, 68 resulted in contact and 42 of those contacted entered treatment,” Porch said. “This is definitely a proactive step on our part.”
Still, the police department knows it has work to do.
“There are still a lot of statistics we don’t like on here,” Coontz said. “Robberies have historically been hard to impact. We at the shift levels with watch commanders, lieutenants and patrol officers, have all come up with plans that have been able to result in a reduction … really putting a huge effort in protecting businesses and residential areas.”
