SYCAMORE – Burglaries and aggravated assault offenses last year, when combined, about doubled compared with 2016, according to the Sycamore Police Department’s 2017 annual report.
There were 23 burglaries in 2017 and 14 in 2016, along with 17 aggravated assaults in 2017 and eight in 2016.
Sycamore Police Chief Jim Winters, who took the helm after Glenn Theriault resigned as chief about a year ago, said those fluctuations aren’t out of the ordinary and weren’t because of any organized crime rings.
The department did, however, see decreases in calls about vehicle burglaries and improper parking, according to its 2017 annual report. There were 58 vehicle burglary calls last year, which was less than the 80 calls received in 2016, according to the report.
Winters said the drop in car burglary calls in 2017 is in part because one ring was responsible for about 25 of the 2016 calls. He said the department also started a community awareness campaign last year for people to lock their car doors to help prevent theft. He said several local businesses displayed the slogan “lock it or lose it” on their signs last year and that the department plans to continue the campaign this year as well.
“You might drive by a place and not notice a sign about $1 fries,” Winters said. “But if you see a slogan on marquees and see it on another and on another, it’s going to resonate with people a little more.”
The report included information on several significant police cases in 2017, including a couple being accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old woman, 44-year-old mother of two Lidia Juarez being shot to death in her car by her estranged husband and an armed robbery at 7-Eleven in which the clerk was shot.
There were 318 improper parking calls made in 2017, which was about half the number of 2016 calls. Winters said the decrease in reports can be attributed to a learning curve for officers about the department’s new parking violation reporting system.
“I think whenever you switch to new system, there’s that orientation period where efficiency isn’t very high,” Winters said, adding that those numbers should be better reflected for the 2018 report.
Winters said this year, officers are doing more door-to-door visiting to better familiarize themselves with residents and to further improve community relations.
“Overall, there’s crime,” Winters said, “but Sycamore remains a fairly safe place.”