Austin Crime News
Austin ranked second safest major city in the U.S.
KVUE — Police Chief Art Acevedo just released the 2012 crime stats, revealing both good and bad news for the City of Austin.
The FBI's Unified Crime Report found that Austin is actually the second safest major city in the U.S. It's an improvement over 2011's rank of third.
The study compared Austin to other U.S. cities with more than 500,000 people, analyzing crime in two separate categories.
The study showed violent crimes were down overall by two percent. Rape and robbery is decreasing, but murder and aggravated assault are going up. When it comes to property crime, however, all crimes are on the rise. Burglary, theft and auto theft crimes were up by three percent from 2011.
Chief Art Acevedo says there is still work to be done, but there are things you can do at home to help with the rising property crime rate. He says residents can install solid dead bolts on doors, take time to write down serial numbers of electronics, take pictures of jewelry and be a nosy neighbor.
Read the full story and see the statistics report here.