Fewer deaths and assaults this year than last, according to Police studies

SANTO DOMINGO. The latest surveys carried out by the Police showed that in the first five months of the year, the criminal activities were down 4% in relation to 2012.

In fact, last year there were 5,232 assaults in the National District and the province of Santo Domingo and 23 violent deaths committed by criminals that took advantage of their victims in the streets, robbing cell phones, pocketbooks, money and other objects.

In the meantime, in the same period and in the same cities and areas this year, they were only 3,425 assaults and 18 violent deaths in the same conditions as the year before.

"This is due to the measures that the Police have implemented gradually all over the capital and the provinces of the country," said the security expert Nelson Jimenez.

Recently, the Chief of Police, Major General Jose Armando Polanco Gomez, instructed the reinforcement of the most vulnerable areas that are where most of the assault cases take place.

"We are reinforcing the areas where we find the most criminals, we take out agents from the areas that are the most quiet but without getting careless," said the Police spokesman, General Maximo Baez Aybar. He added that the Police are carrying out their role within the National Public Safety Plan that went into effect in March of this year.

At the same time, among the assaults committed this year the greatest number are to steal cell phones, or pocketbooks, or money. There were two car-jackings and several motorcycles were stolen. Contrary to last year when, during the same period, they committed two bank robberies, this year there were none.

Likewise in 2012 there were three robberies in supermarkets, and this year, only one was carried out in East Santo Domingo.

"You have to admit that all of the robberies and assaults committed lately, are less than those that occurred last year and you have to admit that they still bother and make the population uneasy and even fearful to walk in the streets, " said Jimenez.

The Police incorporated two weeks ago more than four thousand members of the force that were on other duties in the private sector, and that in the next few days they will do the same thing with a another large group.

Other measures for the patrols

The entry of members of the Armed Forces into the street patrols had forced criminals to go into hiding. In fact in the first five days of this year, there were five deaths, three of them from family violence and two at the hands of criminals.

During this same period, but last year, there were eleven violent deaths, nine of them at the hands of criminals and two from family violence. The Minister of the Armed Forces, Admiral Sigfrido Pared Perez said that the priority of the members of the Armed Forces is to protect the citizens.

Diario Libre