For today’s Pro vs. Con, we bring back our original “co-founding fathers” of this feature — Anthony Watts and Matt York. Watts takes the “Pro” side of “Does Chico have a Crime Emergency?” while York takes the “Con.”
PRO / Anthony Watts
Let’s look at data first, because without data, the argument is purely emotional. According to the data from all 18,000-plus local law enforcement agencies in the US, Chico does not fare well. Chicoans have a 1 in 219 chance of becoming a victim of a violent crime, and a 1 in 24 chance of becoming a victim of a property crime. Both are higher than the California and national averages.
With a crime index of 6, Chico is safer than a mere 6% of U.S. Cities. Oakland, CA is #1 for crime. Sacramento is #10. LA is #14. Who would have ever thought Chico was more dangerous to live in than these cities?
New York City has a crime index of 30, five times safer than Chico.
Coming here over 30 years ago, I remember remarking to myself that the newspaper and TV station had very little “if it bleeds it leads” type stories; it was refreshing. Chico felt safe to me. It doesn’t any more. Like many others weary of what’s become of our town, I think about leaving daily.
Full disclosure: I’m the victim of a crime in downtown Chico — a carjacking on Park Avenue, near the Jesus Center. Driving, minding my own business this guy in the street starts screaming about a bomb. I stop so I don’t run him over, and in the interest of public safety, ask him “where?” Next thing I know he’s piling into the vehicle’s passenger window demanding my keys. Fortunately, I had the sense to kill the engine, grab the keys, and run. CPD’s Jim Parrott was the arresting officer of just another drug addict so high he couldn’t tell fantasy from reality.
Now, I just avoid downtown. There’s no reason to risk going there anymore. I’m reminded of the first “Star Wars” movie, where Obi-Wan says “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”
The city council seems to want to ignore our public safety issue, perhaps for fear of owning it. Yet they have declared a “Climate Emergency” while deflecting the “Crime Emergency” that’s right in our face every day. We can provide hard data to show Chicoans suffer from crime, but you won’t find one single piece of data showing any Chicoan suffering from climate change.
In my opinion, our city council needs to perform a cranial-posterior extraction maneuver.
(Source for data: https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/chico/crime)
CON / Matt York
Currently, Chico does not have a “crime emergency,” however there is plenty of cause for concern. Violent crime was down 34 percent last year, but property crime was up 48 percent.
While some may experience more anxiety than others, we must resist the temptation to bastardize the word “emergency.” This problem reared its head on a national level during the border wall debate when the President declared a national emergency on the border with Mexico in order to access billions of dollars to build a wall to please his political supporters.
When we misuse a word like emergency we risk reducing its meaning from a higher to a lower state or condition.
In April of 2018, Siskiyou County supervisors declared a state of emergency because their local department was outmanned by the illegal pot farmers. Emergency declarations can provide government officials flexibility to quickly react to catastrophes and natural disasters which may lead to grants and other financial help. In this case, there were too many illegal pot farmers and not enough sheriff’s deputies.
In 2013, a series of gun-related crimes culminated with the the death of a young boy prompting the East Palo Alto police chief to declare a “crime emergency.” Besides the one person who was killed, eight were shot within a two-week period. In the previous months, there were five murders and over 50 assaults with firearms.
These 2 examples were true emergencies.
The World Health Organization defines an emergency in time and space, it requires threshold values to be recognized, and it implies rules of engagement and an exit strategy. Conceptually, it relates best to response. Further, the WHO defines an emergency threshold as having a mortality rate above which an emergency is said to be occurring. Usually taken as a crude mortality rate of 1 per 10,000 per day, or as an under-five years of age mortality rate of 2 per 10,000 per day.
We need to be judicious with words like emergency. If we’re not careful and conditions deteriorate, we’ll be forced to use adjectives before the word like “dire” emergency or “severe” or “acute.” This further muddles our verbal communication.
We all deeply appreciate our police force and are grateful for their service to our city. Chief Mike O’Brien did say that Chico has become “inundated by criminal activity.” But we recently added one sergeant and three officers, dedicated to reducing “quality of life” crimes like bicycle theft, car and home burglaries, as well as drug trafficking. However, he is not declaring an emergency.
Anthony Watts and Matt York are Chico residents who disagree on many things, but remain good friends.
