Home invasions in Dublin – Are the Crime rates surging?
Posted on: 09/19/2016
Last Sunday, a home invasion robbery took place in Dublin, CA., leaving a mother and her three kids terrified. The Police have been investigating whether these armed men have been involved in some other criminal act as they seemed to be highly-trained professionals. According to abc 7 News, an investigator on the case had heard about a similar brazen home invasion crime just a couple of weeks ago.
The four suspects in Sunday’s home invasion robbery arrived at the crime scene in a late-model Infiniti FX35 and left the premises after half-an-hour with just two high-end handbags and a small stack of cash.
Law enforcement officials have been calculating whether there could be any connection between this latest home invasion crime with some other home invasions in the past.
Lt. Victor Fox, who is leading the case, said the suspects were calm and confident with little fear of getting caught. Also, they were methodological and polite to the victims. “It’s unusual, and it’s troubling because they are going in with numbers and they are armed,” he said.
Mathew Muller, the suspect involved in the home invasion robbery that took place last year in the same North Terracina Drive, left his cell phone behind at the crime scene. He pleaded no contest but was later linked to the Vallejo kidnapping case. The police have been trying to find a connection between the Fremont home invasion and this recent incident. Surveillance footage, however, reveals something else. The suspects of the Fremont home robbery were five in number while they were driving a black-color sedan. The suspects were wearing gloves and masks and fled the crime scene before police arrived.
These kinds of armed robberies are a rarity for this part of California, and even though the there wasn’t a collateral involved in this latest act of home invasion, it’s still highly appalling, knowing how a new trend of home invasion crime could surge. As mentioned, home robberies are rare in Dublin; residents are quite conscious of their security and have largely installed surveillance devices and home security systems. And with this latest incident, the victim’s house was also secured with a closed-circuit camera.
Dublin scores 46 on the Crime Index (100 being safest), which doesn’t make it the best neighborhood to live in; but still, it’s doing a lot better than many other neighboring states. A person’s chances of becoming a victim are 1 in 729 in Dublin; compare that to California, and you have a much higher chance at 1 in 252.
Looking at the crime trends, we could get a better insight. The Dublin’s official website has amalgamated a “Part One Crimes” list and includes crimes like arson, assault, burglary, larceny/theft, murder, rape, robbery, and stolen vehicle. The figures are available from the year 2005-2015. If you look at the total part one crimes list, you will notice that the crime rates have increased just recently in 2015, while they were stable for the preceding years, except for in 2009.
Home invasion robberies are limited in number; if you look at the stand-alone figures, they have actually dropped.
With these kinds of incidents, families get conscious about moving into a place, but before someone makes quick assumptions, it’s worthwhile noticing that Dublin has a much lower crime rate than the U.S. average.
Let’s look at a breakdown of the Part One Crimes in Dublin.
Arson
The number of arson crimes has fallen from 9 in 2005 to 1 in 2015. In the last 10 years, there has been a downward trend in arson crimes.
Assault
Assaults could be categorized into “Assault with a firearm”, “Assault with a knife”, “Assault with other weapon”, and “Assault with hands/feet”. The figure for the total number of assaults has fallen from 63 in 2005 to 45 in 2015. The figures for assault with hands fell, while that with weapons and knife rose. This signals that a larger population has been resorting to weaponry for assaulting others.
Burglary
Burglary could be broken down into categories like “Forcible burglary”, “Unlawful entry”, and “Attempt forcible”. The figures for forcible burglaries and unlawful entries have fallen while that for “Attempt forcible” have risen from 9 in 2005 to 13 in 2015. However, the total burglaries figures fell from 169 in 2005 to 115 in 2015.
Larceny/Theft
Larceny is categorized into “Theft” and “Theft from a motor vehicle”. Not only has larceny increased, but the theft of motor vehicles has also risen massively. Compared to 499 total thefts, there had been 758 cases in 2015.
Murders
What’s great about Dublin is that it’s free from crimes like murder and manslaughter. In the last 15 years, there have been only four cases of murder and manslaughter.
Rape
Rape is categorized into “Forcible rape” and “Assault to attempt rape”. There has been not a single case of the latter, while forcible rape cases increased from 1 in 2005 to 3 in 2015. However, these figures went as high as 10 in 2007, and 6 in 2011.
Robbery
The total number of “h2-arm robberies” has increased, while the total figures for robberies has been steady, increasing from 15 in 2005 to 17 in 2015.
Stolen Vehicles
The figures for stolen vehicles fallen back to 123 in 2015 from 138 in 2005.
Dublin may have experienced home invasion crimes lately, but the place has relatively much lower crimes rates than many other states.
