Police: overall crime down in Seaside, but some problems still exist

SEASIDE, Calif. (KION) Crime overall is down in the City of Seaside. The Seaside Police Department has released its annual crime report, and while most numbers are down, there are a few notable crimes up.

When it comes to crimes against people, most of them went down in the last year. But one exception was homicides.

In 2018, there were no homicide cases in Seaside, but there were three in 2019. To put this into perspective, the average number of homicides that we’ve seen in the area over the last 5 years is 1. So it’s not all that common, and those 3 cases in 2019 are actually on the higher end of the range for police. 

The other crimes against people—rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—all decreased in the last year. Robbery stands out because it dropped over 40 percent. 

Similarly to crimes against people, property crimes have have gone down between 2018 and 2019. But arson cases have more than doubled.

There were only three cases of arson in 2018, compared to 7 in 2019. The five-year average is just three, so that means 2019 was an especially bad year for this kind of crime. Burglary also jumped up slightly, by about 5 percent.

Meanwhile, the other types of property crime—larceny and auto theft—went down. Those decreases ultimately contribute to the 3 percent drop in crime overall in Seaside.

Seaside Police say they’re using these numbers to figure out how to use their resources better in 2020.