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Charlotte has made public safety strides this year, but increases in homicides and home break-ins overshadow the progress.
Police investigated 61 homicides in Mecklenburg County over the first three quarters this year, up 17 percent from 52 investigated during the same period last year.
And the number of reported home burglaries was up 10 percent, as the economy soured and unemployment grew.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department released a mixed bag of news Tuesday in its September crime report. The numbers of violent and property crimes were down slightly from last year, 0.3 percent and 2 percent, respectively.
Other bright spots: Business break-ins plummeted 26 percent, along with decreases in rape, arson and armed robberies.
Deputy Chief Kerr Putney, who released the data Tuesday, said the faltering economy was fueling the increase in home burglaries.
The spike has riled neighborhoods, with residents demanding greater police presence and attention on property crime.
Putney said the increase in homicides is especially troubling because it overwhelmingly involved black victims and suspects.
The department didn't have precise race statistics available Tuesday. But Patrick Graham, CEO of the Urban League of Central Carolinas, agreed with Putney.
“It seems culturally, for some in our community, life doesn't have any value,” Graham said. “We have to renew a spirit of brother and sisterhood, in a real communal sense.”
Graham said black-on-black crime is a story of economics – not race – because too many black people are also poor.
“Something we attribute to race may (really) be attributed to class,” Graham said. “It's just that African Americans find themselves in that economic situation.”
Violent crime in Charlotte's black community is also caused by a breakdown of the traditional family structure, he said. “We've failed with the education of our youth, not just in our school system, but at home.”
Chief Rodney Monroe, hired in June, said he is focused on reducing crime using traditional neighborhood policing.
He's assigned more officers to the streets as city leaders and community organizations have demanded solutions.
He has given division captains greater autonomy to react to problems and assign officers to new programs, such as foot and bike patrols.
As a result, some traditionally troubled parts of town have seen declines in crime, Putney said, such as an 11 percent decrease in crime in the Westover Division, which encompasses 16 squares miles in West Charlotte.
Neighborhoods reacting
The increase in home burglaries has mobilized neighborhood associations, with some hiring their own security, forming citizen foot patrols and marching on City Hall.
Hyde Park Estates in north Charlotte has experienced its first spike in home break-ins this year. The residents have started taking their own precautions, including installing security cameras.
Jenni Storck, a 24-year-old Charlotte public school teacher, double-deadbolts her Piper Glen apartment door and watches more for suspicious characters. She's nervous because there were six break-ins about two weeks ago in the South Charlotte complex, she said.
Storck, who moved from the Detroit-area last year, came even closer to crime last week. She was at a friend's apartment upstairs using a computer when burglars cleared out the first-floor, without making much noise.
“It's very unsettling to know that someone had the audacity to break in while your home…,” she said. “It's more that you lose sense of safety.”
