Trends in Midtown Car Break-Ins

Editor's note: The following information was posted this week by the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance (MPSA). The MPSA has served the Midtown community since 2003 as a non-profit organization by coordinating neighborhood response to public safety and security issues in order to advance the Midtown way of life. The MPSA achieves this objective primarily by operating a neighborhood security patrol funded by its resident and business members, and community sponsors. See here for more information about becoming a member of the MPSA. The MPSA coverage area includes:

• From Juniper Street to the defunct railroad track just east of Monroe Drive and Home Depot
• From Ponce de Leon Avenue to 10th Street.
• Highlighted in green on the map
• All of Kennesaw Avenue, Penn Avenue, Myrtle Street, are in the service area, along with Glen Iris Drive down to but not including North Avenue

_______

Before leaving home, place your laptop bag and other valuables inside the trunk, and leave the viewable area inside your car clear – that will greatly minimize your chances of falling victim to a smash-and-grab.

We recently reviewed car break-ins in the APD crime stats, and noticed a distinct trend among that category: An inordinate concentration along Tenth Street, but relatively few in the interior of the serivce area. Piedmont Avenue also seems to have a moderate amount of car break-ins, but very few elsewhere in the patrol area. Traditionally car break-ins have been evenly scattered across the service area when looked at over longer periods of three months or more. Bear in mind that we generally isolate the MPSA service area when reviewing stats – car break-ins seem more evenly distributed geographically in the rest of Midtown. And car break-ins comprise a DAY AND NIGHT phenomenon.

The relatively few dots in the deep interior of the service area tells us something very interesting: Midtowners are taking note of the necessity for the Clean Car Campaign. The majority of people who park on Tenth Street are either: Patronizing one of the businesses at Tenth & Piedmont, going to the park, or picking up/dropping off kids at the Childrens School. Most of the reports were taken on evening watch (3 – 11pm) based on a good glance-over. These are the people that would not be getting the word and would be most unaware of highly localized issues like car break-in patterns.

Again, we are glad to see that folks seem to be getting the message about the Clean Car Campaign, but bear in mind that car break-ins are a problem pretty much everywhere. We have posted a map of car break-ins on this page.