Violent crime rises in suburbs, but stats might mislead
On Oct. 6, two men attacked a Henrietta salon employee at gunpoint and forced her to drive to various ATMs to steal her money before taking her to an isolated location and sexually assaulting her and tying her up.
Earlier that day, a man approached an elderly woman in the parking lot of an Irondequoit Rite Aid Pharmacy, threatened her and stole her vehicle.
Also this fall, a Gates hotel employee, a Greece gasoline station and a family-owned market in Irondequoit were robbed in a violent manner in Rochester’s suburbs.
The FBI’s reported crime data for 2008 shows an increase in violent crime in most Monroe County suburbs.
But law enforcement officials and other crime experts say those numbers can be misleading because in small towns, one or two more violent incidents in a year can skew statistics.
“All it takes is one guy to go out on a robbery spree,” said Gates police Lt. Jim VanBrederode.
Some suburban police departments say they expect their 2009 year-end crime statistics to be even higher than 2008 because of some random incidents. However, crime experts insist that there has not been an unusual spike in violent crime — murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault — in the suburbs this year.
But departments have noticed random upticks in crime in their jurisdictions such as sex crimes, home burglaries and most recently armed robberies. And while those crimes might not happen at the level of frequency they do in the city, they are still of concern to many suburban police chiefs.
Richard Rosenfeld, criminology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said the question of whether violent crime is spreading to the suburbs is a “reoccurring theme,” especially when the economy is suffering. But Rosenfeld said he was not aware of any significant move of violent crime from cities to suburbs.
He said perpetrators generally live close to where they commit their crimes and any considerable change from that pattern should be closely examined.
Random incidents
The husband of the woman who was abducted at gunpoint in Henrietta said he was not surprised that such a violent crime would happen in Henrietta.
“More and more you hear about how crime’s moving to the suburbs,” he said. He was just surprised it happened to his wife. “You just never expect it would happen to you.”
His wife had stayed late at the Jefferson Road salon filing taxes on Oct. 6 and when she left at 11:10 p.m., two men accosted her at gunpoint. The men forced her into her car, forced her to withdraw money from ATMs and took her to East River Road, where she was sexually assaulted, according to a felony indictment.
The woman was tied up and left by the side of the road by her attackers, who drove off in her vehicle. She freed herself and flagged down a passer-by to call police. The Democrat and Chronicle does not name victims of sexual abuse.
Devon L. Davis, 24, and Dwight Fowler, 29, both of Rochester, were arrested shortly thereafter. The two men pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging them with first-degree criminal sexual act, first-degree sexual abuse, second-degree kidnapping, second-degree robbery and second-degree assault.
The woman, who is pregnant, has since gone back to work but is taking more precautions when arriving and leaving her workplace, her husband said.
Shortly after the incident, Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O’Flynn said he could not remember the last time such an abduction occurred in the sheriff’s jurisdiction.
In 2006, an Irondequoit couple and their toddler were robbed at gunpoint in their driveway, forced to withdraw money from ATMs, pistol-whipped, ordered into the trunk of their car, and driven around in a 4½-hour ordeal. Both gunmen sexually abused the wife.
Don Peterkin, who was 19 at the time of his conviction in 2007, and his brother Rashad Peterkin, 18 at the time, were each sentenced to 50 years in prison for their crimes.
While such violent incidents do occur from time to time in the suburbs, Monroe Crime Analysis Center director Tim Hickey said they are anomalies and at the end of the year violent crime in the suburbs tends to stay level.
But in smaller towns, those few random incidents can make end-of-the-year statistics look like there’s a crime problem in the town.
Brockport Police Chief Daniel Varrenti said he expects 2009 will be a bad year for the books. Due to the Valentine’s Day slayings at Lakeside Community Hospital, Brockport will show a spike in the number of murders because it will go from zero to at least two. Before Valentine’s Day, the town of 8,000 people had not had a murder in more than five years.
Two people were killed that morning in the hospital parking lot and one person was shot but survived.
This year, Brockport also had a stabbing, a bank robbery and most recently an abduction incident in which a mentally handicapped woman was taken away by a man she knew, raped inside his apartment and then driven back to her home. A suspect, Stephen E. Johncox, 62, of Parma was charged with unlawful imprisonment and first-degree rape.
“Crime has no boundaries,” Varrenti said.
Recent trends
Armed robbery is the latest crime on the analysis center’s radar.
Hickey said there were a few armed robberies in recent months in different suburban towns that could be related. He did not specify which ones.
Webster Police Chief Gerry Pickering said that since the end of August his officers have responded to at least three robberies, one of which was an armed robbery at a small deli on Bay Road. Pickering said “some gang-banger came in with a mask,” to the Bay Road Grocery and Deli store and displayed a gun. The male suspect left with an undisclosed amount of cash. Pickering said his department has not yet made an arrest in that case.
Pickering believes the economic downturn has had an effect on crime rates and is not surprised by the increase in the suburbs.
“The have-nots come to steal from the haves,” he said.
Webster had the highest percentage increase, 35 percent, in violent crime from 2007 to 2008 among Monroe County law enforcement agencies. The numbers were higher in 2008 mostly because of aggravated assaults, many of which were domestic incidents, Pickering said.
In Irondequoit, a man was robbed at knifepoint by two men wearing ski masks when he returned to his home Oct. 8 on Birch Hills Drive. That incident happened two days after an elderly woman was threatened by a man outside of a Rite Aid Pharmacy who then stole her vehicle.
Steven J. Boggs, 28, of Irondequoit was arrested in connection with that incident.
No one has been arrested for the knifepoint robbery.
Irondequoit police Capt. Marty Corbett said those two incidents were examples of how crime can change at any time.
“You can go for a period of time where it’s really quiet and then a few incidents can happen,” Corbett said, which can make it seem as though there is a bigger problem.
Making arrests in such violent crimes is key, Corbett said, in keeping crime down all over the region.
“Who’s in jail makes a difference on the violent crime that takes place,” Corbett said.
