Oxnard No Longer Has Most Crime in County : Law enforcement: Police chief credits neighborhood patrols and an increase in officers for the historic 4.5% reduction last year. Ventura shows a sharp rise.

The county’s most crime-plagued city for decades, Oxnard escaped that hated designation in 1994 as serious offenses dropped to historic lows and crime surged in neighboring Ventura, officials reported Monday.

Oxnard’s 4.5% crime reduction last year, following a 13.7% drop the year before, meant that there were 1,764 fewer reports of serious crime in 1994 than two years before.

And the city’s crime rate, already at its lowest point since at least 1974, dropped even more to 54.7 crimes per 1,000 residents. That compares to 54.9 per 1,000 in Ventura and the most recent statewide rate of about 65 per 1,000.

The types of crime in Ventura, however, were often less violent. Oxnard’s rate of violent offenses--murder, rape, robbery and felony assaults--was still more than twice as high as Ventura’s last year.

Police Chief Harold Hurtt attributed Oxnard’s recent crime-fighting successes to flashlight-wielding residents who increasingly spread across their neighborhoods at night to report suspected lawbreakers--and to a police budget that now pays for 170 officers, up 22 from three years ago.

Though refusing to gloat, Hurtt said he was pleased that Oxnard is no longer the county doormat when crime is considered.

“Wow!” he said. “But I’m definitely not going to say that’s fantastic, because I know they’re doing a great job over there (in Ventura) too.”

Ventura, in fact, had a 5% increase in 1994 in the eight categories of violent and property crime reported to the FBI for nationwide comparison. But Ventura’s crime rate is still well below a peak in 1991 and is about the same as it was a decade ago.

“I guess I wouldn’t argue over the numbers,” Ventura Mayor Tom Buford responded. “It’s never been a concern of mine to place Ventura in competition with Oxnard. If the truth were known, we have far more in common with Oxnard than is usually recognized.”

Ventura Capt. Randy Adams, head of police operations, lauded Oxnard’s improvements. But he noted that Oxnard’s 1,516 violent crimes are significantly higher than Ventura’s 428. “If you look at that as far as the seriousness of crime, there’s still a difference in the two areas,” he said.

Oxnard police focused Monday on gains, not on comparisons to Ventura. And not all of Oxnard’s statistics were upbeat. Despite sharp drops in murder, rape, robbery and theft and auto theft, home and business burglaries were up 11%.

Felony assaults also increased 18%, mostly because of a staggering increase in cases of domestic violence, officials said. Domestic violence arrests jumped from 239 to 363 in a single year.

“It’s no longer a crime that’s hidden in the home,” Hurtt said. “We added two detectives to deal with domestic violence.”

The rise in burglaries was more difficult to explain. But Hurtt said that the home invasions probably occurred during the day, when residents were at work, because every other indicator suggests a heightened vigilance by Oxnard residents.

Carrying flashlights, two-way radios and cellular phones, volunteers intent on taking back Oxnard’s streets now patrol late into the night in 26 of the city’s 40 neighborhoods.

“I would say a minimum of 1,000 people belong to them,” Hurtt said “Some have hundreds of members and some five or six. And they definitely call us when they see something.”

Eleanor Branthoover, an organizer of the first Oxnard citizen patrol in Rio Lindo, said residents cruise the streets and walk the local park at all hours to make sure the problems of the past do not return.

They even use powerful spotlights that plug into auto cigarette lighters to shine a revealing light on intruders, she said. “The crime is down 90%,” she said.

Branthoover and others credit Hurtt, who became chief in mid-1992, with the turnaround.

“The police chief was instrumental in turning things around,” she said, “by saying publicly that there was a value to what the watch patrols were doing.”

Growing from just one Neighborhood Watch patrol 2 1/2 years ago, the citizen movement has melded well with new enforcement tactics aimed at bringing residents closer to the Police Department, Hurtt said.

Storefront police stations in impoverished La Colonia and the tough Southwinds neighborhood near Hueneme Road resulted in sharply lower crime rates there, although Southwinds has had a spate of violent crime in recent months.

Department spokesman David Keith also credited an anti-graffiti patrol with reinforcing the point that Oxnard residents want a safer, cleaner community.

Even with the recent gains, however, Oxnard accounted for about one-third of Ventura County’s serious crime last year and 43% of its violent offenses, although the city has only about one-fifth of the county’s residents.

The county’s largest city and among its poorest, Oxnard still struggles with gang violence and drug problems, Hurtt acknowledged.

The 152,000-resident city has identified nearly 1,800 people as gang members, Assistant Chief Tom Cady said. Many of those youths have hiked the city’s assault statistics in recent years. The fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy about a block from his home near Oxnard High School in February was the latest in a series of violent incidents that police say are gang-related.

“We still have problems with gangs,” Hurtt said. “But I think it’s really been a year of holding our own. We’ve been more aggressive in doing searches of known gang members and making sure they obey the condition of their probation.”

He pointed to a series of raids on gang members’ homes. Also, police have beefed up their anti-gang unit from as few as four officers three years ago to about 19 today, Hurtt said.

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Crime Statistics OXNARD CRIME, 1992-94

1992 1993 1994 Homicide 17 19 10 Rape 75 55 29 Robbery 569 464 404 Agg. Assault 965 908 1,073 Burglary 2,134 1,615 1,794 Theft 5,145 4,425 *3,924 Auto Theft 1,109 1,148 1,015 Arson 50 56 51 Total 10,064 8,690 8,300

CRIMES PER 1,000 RESIDENTS

1992 1993 1994 Violent Crimes 11.1 9.7 10.0 Property Crimes 57.6 48.5 44.7 Total Crimes 68.7 57.9 54.7

* An approximation by police, due to flawed computer counts of thefts in November and December. Accurate counts for the first 10 months are the basis for the 12-month estimate.

Source: Oxnard Police Department