By DEANNA BOYD and MELISSA SÁNCHEZ
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITERS
Crime in Fort Worth and Dallas was down last year, while crime in Arlington went up, according to figures provided by police departments.
Dallas was the only one of the three cities to have a drop in homicides.
In Fort Worth, preliminary figures for the first 11 months of the year show that crime dropped about 4 percent.
In Dallas, the nation’s ninth-largest city, crime fell about 5 percent. Crime in Arlington rose an estimated 6 percent.
Slayings in Fort Worth rose to 62 in 2005 from 52 the year before.
Because Fort Worth police switched to a new records management system in August, other year-end statistics are not yet available, officials said.
However, in a report to the Fort Worth City Council on Dec. 20 about statistics through November, department officials made these estimates:
The number of violent crimes reported was up 1 percent, with increases in murder, rapes and aggravated assault.
The city’s overall crime for the year was down 4 percent.
The crime rate declined 5 percent for violent crime and 9 percent for property crimes. The Police Department figures the crime rate as the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.
Because of the record-keeping change, police representatives said, the numbers could change.
Arlington homicides more than doubled, to 25 in 2005 from 11 the year before. Arlington spokeswoman Christy Gilfour said 17 of the Arlington homicides were a result of domestic disputes between two people who knew each other. Police solved 80 percent of the killings, she said, and the department’s new cold-case unit solved 12 homicides.
Crime in Dallas declined in all major categories last year.
“I know we only got halfway to our goal on crime overall, but there is no doubt that we will continue to see our crime statistics drop,” Dallas Mayor Laura Miller said via e-mail Thursday.
Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle said the driving force behind the improvement has been the adoption of policing techniques credited with cutting crime in other cities. Those efforts and others aimed at gangs, guns and drugs helped reduce homicides by 19 percent, to 198 in 2005 from 244 the year before. One-fourth of the homicides were solved. Kunkle’s goal is for Dallas to drop another 10 percent in overall crime and homicides this year.
This report contains material from The Associated Press.
Fort Worth Star Telegram (http://www.star-telegram.com/)