DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Each week Captain Blake Chow, Commanding Officer of LAPD's Central Division, sends out an email to the community. Captain Chow has agreed to let blogdowntown bring his emails to our readers.

As of April 18, 2009 Central reported the following crime numbers. All numbers are YTD unless otherwise noted.

• Violent Crime up 4 percent. (or 12 crimes more than last year)
• Homicides are up 100 percent (more on this below)
• Rapes are down 26 percent
• Robbery is down 2 percent (This has been trending down for the last 6 weeks )
• Agg Assaults are up 13 percent (11 more crimes this year vs last)
• Total Violent Crime is up only 12 crimes from last year.

There are no patterns with respect to violent crime this week. Most of the Agg assaults were east of San Pedro and South of 5th street. Even then, there were only 4 for the week. No agg assaults were west of Spring Street.

Robberies were spread out. Interestingly there was only ONE Robbery East of Spring Street. Most were scattered.

• Property Crime is down 19 percent
• Burglary is down 24 percent
• Grand Theft Auto is down 25 percent
• Burgl from Motor vehicle is down 16 percent
• Personal Theft is down 17 percent

There was a pattern of 4 burglaries South of Pico and East of Broadway. however, in one of them three suspects were arrested. And in another we are trying to identify a suspect.

Total Part I Crimes are down 13 percent for the division.

OTHER

Homicide

Last week double homicide occurred at the Lamp Lodge.

Around 5 AM Sunday morning, persons called police, reporting “shots fired” at the Lamp Lodge, 630 S. Stanford Street. Police officers found two bodies at the hotel.

Paramedics pronounced both men dead at the scene. Neither man was identified. One man was estimated to be in his mid-fifties and the other in his mid-twenties. Detectives are actively working this case and I will release information when it becomes available. Many resources have been expended to identify the suspect.

Officer Ramsey

Thank you to those that were able to attend Officer Ramsey's son's fundraiser. Bill Ramsey's son was killed in Kabul last week. In all we raised about 7 thousand dollars for Bill. He is going to take the money and donate it to widows of servicemen killed in the middle east who don't have such a great support network like we do here. Again, thank you.

FYI

On May 1st, there will be two major demonstrations that will impact the downtown area. The first is a march from Olympic and Broadway to 1st and Broadway. We expect the 3 groups to begin assembling around 10 am and starting the march at 1200. Expect the streets to be closed until about 4pm. Crowd estimates vary, but expect anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000.

A second march will begin in Echo Park and terminate at Olvera Street. This march will proceed down Sunset Blvd at about 2 pm and reach Olvera Street by 5pm. Crowd estimates are around 10,000.

I will send out more information as it becomes available.

OTHER

The Central CPAB meeting is Weds, April 28th at 930am. Pico House.

Please check out our new CPAB website at http://www.centralcpab.org/

Blake Chow