Crime & Safety

La Mesa Serious Crime Rate in 2010 Was Second-Highest in County

But SANDAG report also depicts major declines in local crime, part of a countywide drop to lowest levels in 30 years.

La Mesa’s crime rate for serious offenses was the second-highest in San Diego County in 2010, according to SANDAG and its annual report. But the city’s violent crime rate fell by 19 percent between 2009 and 2010. And since 2006, that rate is down 24 percent.

In a town with no recorded homicides since 2006, La Mesa had 185 violent crimes in 2010—defined as  homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault— according to the San Diego Association of Governments in its report  “Thirty Years of Crime in the San Diego Region: 1981 through 2010.”

In 2006, La Mesa recorded 235 violent crimes and in 2009 it had 225, SANDAG reported in a detailed report by its Criminal Justice Research Division.

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But as Police Chief Al Lanning told the City Council on April 12, the city’s 2010 crime rate for FBI Index crimes, the most serious, was likely to draw attention.

Among jurisdictions countywide, La Mesa’s serious crime rate of 38.01 per 1,000 residents was second only to National City’s 39.41—and well above the county average 24.65 per 1,000 residents.

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“We may not compare real favorably with some of the other cities,” Lanning said two weeks ago. “I just want to forewarn you on that. But we’ve kind of isolated the reasons for that [spike], and feel that, based on recent statistics, we have those things under control.”

However, between 2006 and 2010, La Mesa’s serious crime rate fell 22 percent (from 48.8 per 1,000 residents)—reflecting the region’s trend toward decline in such offenses.

In fact, SANDAG said: “In 2010, both the violent and property crime rates for the San Diego region decreased and were at new 30-year lows. . . . Compared to the U.S. overall, the San Diego region had lower violent and property crime rates in 2009 (the most recent year national statistics are available).”

The 67 homicides in San Diego County in 2010 represented a 76 percent drop since 1991.  And “despite concerns that the economic downturn would result in more property crime, the number of burglaries and larcenies were at 30-year lows,” SANDAG said.

In raw numbers, the La Mesa Police Department in 2010 reported 13 rapes, 68 robberies, 104 aggravated assaults, 234 residential burglaries, 193 nonresidential burglaries, 270 stolen vehicles and 12 cases of arson.

La Mesa’s property crime rate—involving larceny, burglary, and motor vehicle theft—rose from 31.21 per 1,000 residents in 2009 to 34.82 last year, a 12 percent increase and second among the county’s 18 cities. Only San Marcos, with a 15 percent year-to-year rise, was higher among incorporated areas. And the county as a whole saw a 4 percent decline in that rate in 2010.

But La Mesa’s property crime rate in 2006 was 44.67, so in five years, the city has seen a 22 percent decline in that category.

In terms of actual dollars, La Mesans suffered the loss of $3.44 million from property reported stolen in 2010, compared with $3.03 million in 2009 and $5.7 million in 2006, SANDAG said.

SANDAG also tracked the number of domestic violence incidents. La Mesa had 394 cases in 2010, compared with 363 in 2006 and 419 in 2009.

The property recovery rate for La Mesa last year was 29 percent, compared with 32 percent in 2009 and 54 percent five years ago.

How did our Police Department do in solving crimes?

The SANDAG report said La Mesa police cleared 61 percent of violent crimes and 19 percent of property crimes in 2010—better than the county averages of 49 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

 “A crime is cleared or solved for reporting purposes when at least one person is arrested and charged with the offense,” SANDAG said.

In August 2010—during the ramp-up to city elections—La Mesa officials drew heat when The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that La Mesa had the highest rate of FBI index crimes in the county for the first six months of 2010.

Chief Lanning later called the first quarter of 2010  “something of an anomaly, a perfect storm” of bad crime figures, including a spike in car break-ins, later doused with the help of a regional auto-theft detective.

Even though the official U.S. census put La Mesa’s population as 57,065, SANDAG said the city’s 2010 resident tally was 58,150—a rise from 57,096 in 2009. 

At a Chamber of Commerce event Thursday, however, Mayor Art Madrid said a district manager for the Census Bureau conceded to him an undercount of 4 percent to 6 percent.

“So I took 6 percent and multiplied it with my math from one of the better schools in El Cajon and came up with 60,000 people,” Madrid said.


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