Now that we’re keeping an updated campus crime map, we figured at the end of every month we should give you a roundup of what (and how many) crimes have been committed on campus over the past month. Here’s what happened this July:

View Georgetown Voice Crime Map: July 2009 in a larger map

The Department of Public Safety finally updated their July Daily Crime Log yesterday, so we have all the data about campus crime this July. Last week Georgetown Metropolitan noted that the wider Georgetown neighborhood saw a bit of a crime spike this July, and it seems like that trend held for the University as well.

There were 29 incidents recorded in the DPS log during July, 53% more than June’s 19 incidents and 61% more than May’s 18 incidents. Here’s how the crime broke down this past month:

• If you’re looking for a cause of the campus crime spike, the answer is probably the huge increase in thefts. During July there were 24 thefts. That represents a 118% increase over June’s 11 thefts and a 200% increase over May’s 8 thefts. Earlier this month we noticed that there were a couple burglary sprees in the Southwest Quad—8 of the 24 thefts occurred in the Quad.
• One reported incident of disorderly conduct.
• One reported forcible entry into Maguire Hall (nothing was stolen).
• One reported assault.
• One reported sexual assault, the alleged rape which we reported on.
• One reported case of fraud perpetrated against the bookstore.

While most of the reported thefts involved cash, computers, bicycles or electronics like cameras and iPods, there was one curious case from July 22nd of a box of cherry hardwood flooring reportedly being stolen from the Harbin Garage. And unlike most of the other thefts, this case was actually classified as closed. How’d DPS solve it? According to the log, “Case closed after audit showed no missing materials.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 3:40 pm and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.