Rochester, N.Y. – Nancy Sung Shelton came home last month to find her back door had been kicked in and house ransacked.
“Television, iPad, my son’s X-Box 360. They were rummaging through my jewelry drawer and took several items,” she said. “It was very, very intrusive.”
Sung Shelton’s burglary was one of 2,950 reported to Rochester police in 2012. That’s down 13 percent from 2011, but still the third-highest burglary total in the last decade.
“One burglary, if it’s my house, we got a problem,” said Chief James Sheppard.
Sheppard believes the city is making inroads on burglaries because of increased neighborhood patrols, crackdowns on truant students and alerts to residents.
“We identify patterns and we put it out on a phone blast to let people know we have a pattern in a certain area and to be on the lookout,” said the chief.
Sung Shelton was so scared, she moved.
“I felt extremely victimized,” she said. “What it made me realize is how vulnerable I am.”
The burglary statistics were part of the department’s 2012 crime review. The data showed a 1 percent uptick in all violent crime, but it remained one of the least violent years in the last 25 years.
To read the city’s 2012 slideshow presentation, click on the link above.
