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Chester County Press

Statistics show reports of crime fell in Kennett Square in 2014

02/03/2015 01:40PM ● By Steven Hoffman

Police Chief Edward Zunino recently presented Kennett Square Borough Council with a report about the police department’s activities during 2014.

The Kennett Square Police Department made 270 criminal arrests and 52 DUI arrests, and issued 770 traffic citations during the year. Overall, 2.1 percent of the reported crime in Chester County occurred in Kennett Square Borough's jurisdiction.

The police department handled a total of 7,494 reports of criminal activity in 2014, a slight decrease from the previous year, when 7,759 reports were filed.

As to be expected, there were more reported incidents during the warmer months of the year. In 2014, the number of reports dipped below 600 in January, February, April, and December, with the number of incidents ranging from between 615 and 680 for the other eight months.

The criminal activity was divided almost equally between the days of the week. Sunday had lowest percentage of reports, at 12.98 percent, but the other six days all accounted for between 14.36 percent and 14.88 percent of the reported incidents.

There were no murders or homicides in Kennett Square last year. Four of the county’s 255 sex offenses took place in the borough’s jurisdiction. There were two strong-arm robberies and two robberies where a weapon was utilized. The borough police solved two of these more serious robberies for a 50 percent solved rate.

The borough police solved 42 of the 47 reported incidents of assault. Forty-four of these assaults involved minor or no injuries to the victim, while three of the incidents were determined to be serious-injury assaults. Overall, Kennett Square police solved 89.4 percent of the assaults, including all three of the serious-injury assaults. That compares to the 78.5 percent of the assaults that were solved county-wide.

The borough had 158 property offenses, including 61 incidents of vandalism, 49 thefts, 28 white collar thefts (forgery or fraud), 14 burglaries, and six motor vehicle thefts.

There were 45 drug violations, including 33 drug possession arrests and 12 more incidents of reported drug selling or manufacturing. The borough police solved 84.4 percent of the drug violations, which exceeded the county percentage of 78.2 percent.

There were an additional 75 crimes related to alcohol, including 47 reports of driving under the influence and 28 more reports of public drunkenness. Borough police solved 88 percent of the total alcohol crimes.

Overall, out of the 333 more serious criminal incidents that are grouped together in the Uniform Crime Report, Kennett Square police solved 56.2 percent of the incidents, compared to 47.3 percent county-wide.