Overall State Crime Down, Wiregrass Follows Trend
By: Scott Packard, SPackard@wdhn.com
Updated: June 11, 2010
Six percent...that's the rate overall crime fell in Alabama last year. They're figures reflected here in the Wiregrass.
"The majority of our major crimes, we saw a decrease which is wonderful," Cpl. Rachel David with the Dothan Police Dept. said.
In Dothan homicides are at a five year low. There was just one reported murder in 2009... that's down from the three in 2008.
Despite overall crime being down 30%, the Dothan Police Department Says reports of assaults more than doubled last year. The Houston County Sheriffs office says they experienced an increase in the same category.
"We had a huge increase in assaults. But 52 of those came from one incident... a mass of people at the Gordon boat landing caused that to go up. Without that one incident, our assaults would have went up by one," Houston County Sheriff Andy Hughes said.
"We did see a slight increase in the assults. We are proactively working to combat that problem," Cpl. David continued.
Houston County also saw a sharp increase in burglaries. There were 267 in 2009, that's up from 103 in 2008.
"On the other hand, we've solved a lot of the burglary cases. Our solve rate on burglaries is 20%. The state wide average is 11%. I'm very proud we are above that,"Sheriff Hughes continued.
"I think it's been a great joint effort between law enforcement and our community to protect our city and bring those numbers down," Cpl. David said.
It's a trend the Wiregrass is happy to join.
