A truck of this type has been used in a string of recent robberies in the Fashion District.

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 May 2, 2009 Central reported the following crime numbers. All numbers are YTD unless otherwise noted.

First, Central in terms of total numbers of crimes is the lowest in the City by 200 crimes.

• Violent Crime up 9 percent. (or 30 crimes more than last year)
• Homicides are up 100 percent (1 more than last year)
• Rapes are down 25 percent
• Robbery is up 4 percent
• Agg Assaults are up 17 percent (25 more crimes this year vs last)

Of significance was that there were only 2 robberies in skid row, down from 7 last week. Agg assaults: only 2 in skid row last week. There were no patterns with respect to the robberies or agg assaults last week.

• Property Crime is down 15 percent
• Burglary is down 23 percent
• Grand Theft Auto is down 19 percent
• Burgl from Motor vehicle is down 13 percent
• Personal Theft is down 14 percent

There was 1 burglary in the Fashion District where 45 thousand dollars in clothing were taken. This in the same area where three instances of thousands of dollars of perfume were taken. The vehicle used is very unique (pictured above).

Total Part I Crimes are down 10 percent for the division.

Next Community Police Advisory Board Meeting is May 19 at 830am-Pico House. The CPAB in August will be held in the evening.

We have also recently deployed a Hype Car to impact quality of life problems in the division. This as well as the aggressive pan handling taskforce will be directed at the chronic locations where quality of life problems are impacting peoples residences, businesses and other establishments.

Captain III Blake Chow