District A-7 Community Officer Dan Simons reported Monday that car-breaks, which were a huge problem in 2020, have dropped significantly so far this year.
In 2019 there were 107 car-breaks, or larceny from a motor vehicle, in Eastie but that number soared 99 percent to 213 car-breaks in 2020. This caused Eastie’s overall Part One Crime statistics, the more serious crimes that the Boston Police track, to increase 21 percent last year.
However, Simons said some arrests have been made and overall crime is trending in the right direction.
“Our statistics are trending in a good direction,” said Simons. “It looks like we are definitely a lot lower in our Part One crimes than we were at this time last year–especially with car-breaks way down.”
Simons said by this point in 2020 Eastie was hit hard by car-breaks.
“Around this time, when the pandemic and shutdown hit, we were really getting hit hard by car-breaks,” said Simons. “At this point last year there were 116 car-breaks in Eastie but that number has dropped to 49. This is over a 60 percent decrease.”
Simons said there was a recent rash of car-breaks in Orient Heights on Gladstone and Leyden Streets and a couple of residents reported that their cars were broken into overnight.
“One witness described a couple of people casing cars and looking for doors that were unlocked,” said Simons. “A lot of people still forget to lock the vehicle so these suspects will just walk down the street trying car doors”
Simons reported that on May 16 District A-7 officers arrested two individuals for breaking into a motor vehicle.
“So those two individuals were placed under arrest for the car-break,” said Simons. “We don’t know if they had any ties to the same activity that was going on in Orient Heights but we hope they were so they are no longer on the streets and committing crimes.”
Simons said one or two individuals committing car-breaks, an opportunistic crime that only takes seconds to pull off, can skew overall crime stats and wreak havoc on the neighborhood.
“In our experience when you have crimes like car-breaks or break-ins at people’s homes it’s usually a few individuals that are known to us,” said Simons. “And once they are apprehended those crimes tend to trend downward.”