Reply to Elrich and MCPD insist crime in Silver Spring isn't THAT bad

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[quote=Anonymous]SOURCE: https://www.mymcmedia.org/elrich-perception-of-crime-in-downtown-silver-spring-is-worse-than-reality/

[QUOTE]Downtown Silver Spring is out of control with shootings, car racing, shoplifting and other crimes.

That is the perception, agreed County Executive Marc Elrich. But it is not reality, he and the Montgomery County Police stressed.

“The perception of crime in Silver Spring is still there. It’s still real,” Elrich said during his weekly news briefing Thursday. “There’s still more crime than anyone of us would like,” but it is not as intense as some believe, he said.[/QUOTE]

And here's the MCPD with their angle:

[QUOTE]According to Commander David McBain from the 3rd District, which covers Downtown Silver Spring, police receive the most calls for Downtown Silver Spring than anywhere else in the county. In 2023, there was an average of 117 request for service calls each day.

In the first two months of 2024, the number of calls increased, jumping from 7,600 in 2023 to 7860 in 2024, McBain said during a meeting with Safe Silver Spring on Feb. 28.

Aggravated assaults are increasing while auto thefts are dropping, he said. Burglaries, both commercial and residential, decreased 24% during the first two months of this year as compared to the same time period last year. “There’s been an uptick in theft from autos” of about 27%, he said.

There have been no homicides so far this year in the downtown area while there were two in 2023, McBain said.

And as for the large crowd gatherings that include car races, police say they have stopped many more before they even began.[/QUOTE]

Even if it's technically true, Elrich and MCPD should know there's a lag effect in the crime statistics going down and the actual intangible [i]feeling[/i] of safety permeating with the general public. This kind of defensive messaging (brought to you by county-funded Montgomery Community Media) is counterproductive. If you're publicly saying it's not [i]that[/i] bad, then you're implicitly implying there's a threshold of crime and chaos that you're comfortable with and that where we are currently isn't [i]ideal[/i], but should be acceptable enough that people shouldn't be talking about it as much as they are.

When will Elrich and MoCo actually get to work solving problems instead of complaining about people who have the nerve to talk about the problems out loud? Those of us talking about the actual crimes happening in our community are not the cause of it. It's not as if we stopped talking about crimes happening that they'd stop happening. So why is their energy and emphasis on the conversation about the problem and not 100% focused on making the source of the conversation (the real crimes happening in our community) go away?[/quote]

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