Miami-Dade the Crime Capital No More
Murders down 15 percent from 2008
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A New Jersey man was arrested for arson on Friday.
Sure, elected officials in Miami-Dade get pinched it seems every other day, but that doesn't appear to have inflated the crime stats.
Mayor Carlos Alvarez and his crew unveiled the 2009 crime stats with grins on their faces as it shows the most significant drop in the crime rate in five years.
Murders were down 15 percent from 2008, which is always good news. Other violent crimes like robberies and rape were down 11 percent. People even stopped stealing cars last year. The non-violent crime rate was down 8 percent from a year ago.
This downward trend could mean the police are doing a better job and preventing crimes or it could mean people are so broke around here that no one has anything worth stealing anymore.
Not so, said Alvarez.
"During a recession you would expect to see more domestic crimes, suicides and violent assaults, but we're not seeing that," he said at the press conference.
Unfortunately 2010 has got off to a rough start in the crime department with a drive-by shooting over the weekend that claimed the life of a teenage girl. Three others were injured in the hail of bullets and the killers are still on the loose.
