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 June 20, 2009 Central reported the following crime numbers. All numbers are YTD unless otherwise noted.

• Violent Crime up 10 percent. (or 44 crimes more than last year)
• Homicides are even
• Rapes are down 24 percent
• Robbery is up 5 percent ( 12 more than last year or .85 per week )
• Agg Assaults are up 18 percent (37 more than last year or 1.8 per week. Eleven of the aggravated assaults were from the officer involved shooting a few months ago in which the suspect tried to run over citizens and police officers and six of the aggs are from rocks and bottles striking or being thrown at officers during the Lakers game)

Total Violent Crime is up only 44 crimes from last year.

There are no patterns with respect to violent crime this week. During the period we have seen a reduction in agg assaults. In skid row during the period of April 26-May 23 we saw about 25 agg assaults. During this latest four weeks, we saw that number go down to 15. Last week there was only one agg assault in skid row.

As far as robberies are concerned we saw the same pattern. From April 26 to May 23, we saw 26 robberies in skid row. This latest 4 week period we saw 11.

Of the many strategies, we are cracking down on drinking in public in these areas as many of our aggravated assaults and robberies are associated with public drunkenness.

• Property Crime is down 9 percent
• Burglary is down 20 percent
• Grand Theft Auto is down 22 percent
• Burgl from Motor vehicle is down 6 percent Personal Theft is down 5 percent

Total Part I Crimes are down 4 percent for the division. Downtown still has the lowest total numbers or crime in the City. We have been averaging about 70 crimes per week. The same weekly average from 2006 (post SCI), 2007 and 2008.

For a list of the upcomming meetings and events, got to http://centralcpab.org for more information.

Captain III Blake Chow