CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In many areas, the Capital City saw a spike in violent crime in 2015, according to figures released by the Charleston Police Department Monday.
Murders remained the same as 2014 at seven, but there was a spike in rapes, robberies, malicious wounding and motor vehicle theft incidents.
“2015, there were areas where crime was up, particularly at the end of the year, when the last three or four months we had several incidents of violent crime, a couple homicides around the holidays that went into the new year,” said Chief Brent Webster.
Webster said that the drug epidemic is a huge contributing factor to crime, especially in relation to burglaries and robberies.
“Number one, it is the heroin epidemic or any addiction that people are trying to feed,” he said. “They will break in to vehicles, they will steal things off porches. Anything they believe they can pawn they will rob if necessary. We’re seeing that across the country and we’re definitely not immune to it here.”
Since a January shooting in Kanawha City, Webster said that violent crime had been at a lull so far in 2016.
“The last shooting we had this year was Jan. 30 in Kanawha City. Here we are at the end of March, two months later we’ve not had a shooting,” said Webster.
Webster said deterring violent crime was the Charleston Police Department’s primary focus, which is why they introduced two walking beats on the troubled West Side of the city.
“We’ll keep working; we’ll adjust our patrols. The two walking beats we just started, we’ve had incredible reviews on those already,” he said. “We knew we would and it’s all about relationship building. There’ll be some crime prevention come out of that but also relationship building.”
Typically, incarcerations lead to a decline in violent crime afterwards, said Webster.
“When you get some people locked up that are doing bad things, thing kind of level off,” he said. “Most of our violent crimes are solved. All of our murders last year were solved. I’d rather not have the murders to begin with, (but) I believe that speaks well of the department, officers and investigators.”
Larceny crimes, which were well over 2,000 in 2014, decreased in 2015 to nearly 1,900. Statistics released showed that the majority of crimes occurred on Charleston’s West Side.