7-21-14
Today marks my one year anniversary as your Coconut Grove Police Commander. As I thought back on the events that transpired in that short time, I have vivid memories of all the great residents I have met, the new partnership that we have formed, and the many challenges that we have faced together. I took the opportunity to look back and compare our performance to previous years:
Mid-Year
| Thefts, Burglaries, Robberies, Assaults, Sexual Crimes | |||||||||
| Year | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
| Incidents | 938 | 902 | 960 | 796 | 717 | 701 | 713 | 677 | 579 |
So far in 2014, we are experiencing the lowest rate of incidents since 2006, which is as far as our computerized system would allow me to research. In addition to our lower crime rate, our officers have been proactively seeking and apprehending those who would affect our quality of life and violate the law, our mid-year arrest total of 714 is our highest numbers since 2010. Our current numbers are truly a representation of the hard work your grove officers put forth each and every day in conjunction with the continued assistance from our residents and crime watchers. I have been fortunate to have a great group of professionals working with me to provide professional law enforcement services to our community and to have a community teeming with motivated individuals willing to make a difference as part of our crime watch groups.
2014 has been a very an exciting year so far, we saw the Grand Opening of our Coconut Grove Police Office at 3727 Grand Avenue, a testament to the perseverance of our community members to add police presence to our neighborhood. We experienced a renewed and refreshed partnership with Ms. Etta Mills from the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and our All Grove Crime Watch volunteers in our “Court Watch” program. The program was responsible for keeping criminals affecting our neighborhood longer in jail. The Coconut Grove Business Improvement District installed 10 new cameras that allow further coverage within our commercial core.
I am keenly aware that numbers offer no comfort to those few that have been affected by crime. I assure you that we will not “rest on our laurels” and allow our success to deter us from our ultimate goal of completely eliminating crime in Coconut Grove. In an effort to continue our recent success, I will continue to:
- Identify our neighborhood challenges through coordinated community/police assessments.
- Collect and analyze information about the issues affecting the Grove from reports and citizen complaints.
- Develop and implement responses with the potential for eliminating or reducing the issues by implementing crime fighting/preventing strategies.
- Evaluate the responses to determine the effectiveness and ensure desired the effect in solving our issues.
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the members of our community that have assisted in making our neighborhood a better place to live and visit. I am excited to see what the future holds and how much more we can accomplish, especially now that I am not only your police commander, but your neighbor as well. As always, if you see any criminal or suspicious activity call 911 immediately.
Respectfully,
Commander Manuel A. Morales