Reported crime in the San Diego area has decreased notably since the coronavirus pandemic led Gov. Gavin Newsom to direct Californians to shelter in their homes as much as possible as a means of slowing the spread of the disease, local law enforcement officials said Thursday.
For the San Diego Police Department, calls for service dipped by 11% over a five-day period ending last Thursday, as compared with the comparable time span the previous week, according to SDPD public-affairs Lt. Shawn Takeuchi.
"It's very calm out there," he noted Thursday afternoon.
While stressing that he could not conclusively tie the trend to the societal restrictions spurred by the COVID-19 emergency, Takeuchi said it was "safe to say that with businesses ... shuttered, with schools not in session, it's reasonable to believe that less calls (would be) made to the San Diego Police Department."
Likewise, officials with the police departments in Chula Vista and Oceanside described significant drops in service calls over the last several weeks, though they could provide no hard numbers.
The California Highway Patrol, for its part, has reported dramatically lessened traffic throughout the San Diego region since the public health crisis began prompting societal shutdowns across the state and nation.
Representatives of other San Diego-area law enforcement agencies did not immediately respond to calls seeking information on the matter.
