Crime Levels Off After 2 Years of Jumps : Statistics: Improvement in Oxnard and Camarillo contributes to the county’s 1% overall drop in serious offenses. But acts of violence are up 8.5%.

After two years of steep increases, Ventura County crime fell slightly in 1992 partly because of a sharp late-year dip in Oxnard and an extraordinary yearlong decline in Camarillo.

Despite earlier projections of a small crime increase, final statistics show that serious crime was off about 1% countywide last year thanks to drops in six of the 10 local cities--and the slowing of a three-year crime surge in Oxnard.

Analysts said the leveling off was inevitable since gangs, drugs and out-of-county criminals had already pushed crime totals to unprecedented highs.

“It’s got to stabilize someplace,” said Port Hueneme Police Chief Robert A. Anderson. “I hope this is a trend.”

But the small reduction did not encourage some police officials, because Ventura County became a more violent place to live in 1992.

The number of murders, rapes, robberies and felony assaults jumped 8.5% countywide last year. And the increases were outside of Oxnard--where 83% of all new violent crime had occurred the two previous years.

“The perception we have is that this is bad news,” said Assistant Sheriff Oscar L. Fuller, whose department patrols the county’s unincorporated areas and Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Moorpark, Fillmore and Ojai.

While thefts and burglaries were down 5% in those jurisdictions, violent offenses were up 15%.

And youth gangs became an increasing problem, Fuller said. Gang drive-by shootings tripled to nine in 1992 and gang weapon assaults doubled to 20, Fuller said.

“We’ve had some success in deterring property crime, but what’s alarming is the rise in aggravated assaults,” he said. “I guess we’re losing our small-town atmosphere . . . and becoming an urban community.”

The 1% overall drop last year compares to a 17.3% rise in 1990 and 1991.

In those two years Ventura County, though still one of the nation’s safest urban areas, ended a low-crime era that spanned the 1980s.

While the previous two years were marked by increased crime in nearly every local community--regardless of poverty or wealth--the trend of 1992 was generally one of moderation.

Of the county’s 10 cities, only Fillmore--plagued by a resurgence of gang activity--suffered an increase of more than 3.1%. Most jurisdictions were up or down only slightly.

Still, the county registered 29,739 serious offenses in 1992, up 4,158 since 1989.

Crimes counted are homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, auto theft and arson--those included in the FBI’s annual crime report.

The new statistics show that Moorpark, the county’s richest city, maintained its position as the most crime-free community. And Oxnard was still the county’s most dangerous city.

Moorpark had only 22 crimes per 1,000 residents, and Oxnard had three times as many. One-third of all serious county crime occurred in Oxnard and 42% of all violent crime, although the city has just one-fifth of the county’s residents.

The Moorpark and Oxnard totals reflect the difference in crime rates between the new affluent communities of the suburban east county--Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks--and the older cities of the Santa Clara Valley and Oxnard Plain.

The east county, which has about 38% of the county’s population, had just 27% of its crime and only 21% of its violent offenses.

The west county’s crime rate was 50 offenses per 1,000 residents, compared to 30 per 1,000 in the east. Both areas fared well compared to California’s average of about 67 crimes per 1,000.

Of the three east county cities, crime was down 0.2% in Thousand Oaks and 5.4% in Moorpark, but up 3.1% in Simi Valley.

In the west, crime was down 2.9% in Ventura, 3.3% in Port Hueneme and 8.1% in Ojai. But it climbed 2.4% in Oxnard, 3.1% in Santa Paula and 34% in Fillmore.

Meanwhile, at the county’s geographical center, upscale Camarillo showed how easily crime statistics can shift from year to year in a small city.

For two years, the 56,000-resident city had been stolen from at an alarming rate. Theft and burglaries were up 65% in 1990 and 1991.

Analysts said the city--along with the white-collar east county--had been hit by Los Angeles County thieves who would sweep north on freeways, searching for late-model cars and unprotected homes and businesses.

But last year, felony theft and burglary fell 35%, dropping from 1,021 offenses in 1991 to 660. And Camarillo reclaimed its place alongside Moorpark as the local cities with the lowest crime rates.

“A number of things worked for us last year that got us back down to where we’d been for the last decade,” said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Ray Abbott, who acts as Camarillo’s police chief.

“We didn’t get hit nearly as hard by people from the Los Angeles area,” Abbott said. “We made a number of arrests of our habitual offenders and we got our Crimestoppers (program) going for the first time.”

That combination of police work, citizen involvement and luck helped lower the city’s total crimes from 1,728 in 1991 to 1,316 last year.

Camarillo residents still think they can help stop crime, Abbott said.

“People here are willing to pick up the phone and call us,” he said. “They’ll say they saw something suspicious or they’ll come forward (and testify).”

If Camarillo has demonstrated the ups and downs of thievery, Oxnard is this county’s test of how to cope with young criminals who police say are responsible for nearly doubling that city’s violent crime rate since 1989.

The county’s largest city and among its poorest, Oxnard has about 1,700 gang members, associates and wanna-bes, police said. And many of those youths have hiked the city’s assault statistics in recent years.

“That’s what scares us,” analyst David Keith said. “The victims in virtually all of these new assaults are teen-agers, so what we’re looking at is an increase in gang violence. If you’re a 14- to 18-year-old your odds of being assaulted have gone up dramatically.”

But Oxnard’s felony assaults and robberies plummeted in the last two months of 1992, helping to produce an overall crime increase of only 2.4%.

At midyear, Oxnard was headed for another 10% increase and on Nov. 1 it was 7.3% ahead of the 1991 pace. Then the slowdown started.

Oxnard Police Chief Harold L. Hurtt said crime was dropping at year-end partly because of a ban on Sunday night cruising on Saviers Boulevard, a new storefront police station in high-crime La Colonia and a crackdown on gang members on probation.

But Hurtt said he couldn’t guess whether the slowdown will continue. He said police cannot use aggressive tactics such as more substations and bicycle drug patrols because there is no money to pay for them.

“We’re at a point where I don’t even think we could call it adequate police service,” he said. “Right now we’re providing minimum service.”

Sheriff Larry Carpenter also cited budget constraints in an annual crime report released Friday. Carpenter said requests for deputies’ assistance are up 12% in four years, but it now takes deputies 20% longer to respond to emergency calls.

Noting the increase in violent crime, Carpenter said 20 years ago the chance of a Ventura County crime victim being involved in a violent offense was 1 in 40.

“Today, those chances are 1 in 6,” he said.

The increasing violence was noted by police officials in most jurisdictions.

Violent crime was up most sharply in tiny Fillmore, which for the two previous years had touted its anti-gang efforts and its stable crime rate. In 1992, violent crime was up 96%, from 52 to 102.

Even amid the Camarillo success story, violent crime was up 56%, from 103 to 164. And Thousand Oaks, a third sheriff’s jurisdiction, saw a rise in felony assaults of 17%, from 261 to 304.

“It’s not just gangs,” Fuller said. “There seems to be a propensity across the board. People see violence in movies and on TV. They read about it, and they actually witness it. So it’s not as shocking to them as it may have been five or 10 years ago.”

Violent crime fell last year only in Oxnard, Moorpark, and Simi Valley.

Simi Valley officials said they counted the dip in violence a small victory and the city’s 3.1% overall increase a success, considering the turmoil in Simi Valley last year.

Simi Valley was the site of the trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating motorist Rodney G. King and was also home to two emotional rallies by white supremacists.

“I’m very happy about how things turned out,” Chief Lindsey P. Miller said. “Given everything that happened here, our crime statistics aren’t bad.”

County Crime Trends, 1989-92

CRIME OVERALL Increased 17.3%, 1990-91 Decreased 0.9%, 1992 Context: County still has one of the lowest crime rates in U.S. Crimes per 1,000 residents: 1989: 38.2 1990: 39.6 1991: 43.7 1992: 42.6

VIOLENT CRIME Increased 35.9%, 1990-91 Increased 8.5%, 1992 Context: Oxnard’s share of of county’s total dropped from 47% to 42% in 1992. 1989: 4.0 1990: 4.3 1991: 5.2 1992: 5.5

PROPERTY CRIME Increased 15.1%, 1990-91 Decreased 1.8%, 1992 Context: Camarillo’s 29% decrease in 1992 was most significant. 1989: 34.3 1990: 35.3 1991: 38.4 1992: 37.2

County Crime: A Slight Decline

Aggravated City Year Homicide Rape Robbery Assault Camarillo 1991 0 12 23 68 1992 1 7 39 117 Fillmore 1991 1 3 5 43 1992 0 3 9 90 Moorpark 1991 1 2 14 72 1992 1 5 11 62 Ojai 1991 1 3 6 12 1992 0 3 5 17 Oxnard 1991 7 73 518 1,051 1992 17 75 569 965 Port 1991 0 4 37 124 Hueneme 1992 2 7 46 200 Santa 1991 2 10 59 81 Paula 1992 2 5 50 101 Simi 1991 6 13 63 189 Valley 1992 2 11 75 178 Thousand 1991 1 19 78 261 Oaks 1992 1 16 75 304 Ventura 1991 6 41 146 226 1992 4 35 186 227 Ventura 1991 39 215 976 2,295 County 1992 34 193 1,103 2,506

Crimes Auto Total per 1,000 City Year Burglary Theft Theft Arson Crimes people Camarillo 1991 487 938 188 12 1,728 31.1 1992 319 721 95 17 1,316 23.0 Fillmore 1991 120 190 28 1 391 31.5 1992 158 239 22 3 524 40.9 Moorpark 1991 147 305 47 10 598 22.8 1992 168 258 52 9 566 22.2 Ojai 1991 79 208 30 6 345 44.5 1992 85 195 10 2 317 38.2 Oxnard 1991 2,120 5,025 981 51 9,826 67.1 1992 2,134 5,145 1,109 50 10,064 67.3 Port 1991 262 461 82 3 973 48.9 Hueneme 1992 250 409 57 3 941 48.2 Santa 1991 441 828 127 13 1,561 60.4 Paula 1992 515 852 77 8 1,610 61.3 Simi 1991 751 1,948 452 27 3,449 33.9 Valley 1992 765 2,039 445 40 3,556 34.5 Thousand 1991 982 1,725 333 55 3,430 32.2 Oaks 1992 773 1,860 352 41 3,422 31.8 Ventura 1991 1,275 3,410 474 41 5,619 59.6 1992 1,365 3,201 381 58 5,457 57.2 Ventura 1991 7,323 15,894 2,928 254 30,000 43.7 County 1992 7,084 15,812 2,706 279 29,739 42.6