Crime in San Diego is down slightly despite a shortage of officers in the San Diego police department. New crime data collected by the city shows a downward trend over the past 10 years. KPBS Radio's Andrew Phelps has more.
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders calls the city's lack of trained officers a "crisis" but he says the shortage does not make San Diego less safe. Crime fell nearly 3 percent overall this year. San Diegans are half as likely to be victims of violent crime as they were a decade ago.
Mayor spokesman Fred Sainz says San Diego's police force is one of the smallest in the country but that's not an obstacle to cutting crime.
Sianz: "I'm definitely in no way shape or form representing there's not a crisis having to do with staffing shortages. It's the community policing efforts that our officers have been involved in for the past 10 years."
The number of murders shot up 56 percent. Robberies also went up. For KPBS, I'm Andrew Phelps.
