How Safe is Murrieta? Annual Crime Rankings List Released

For the first time in several years, Murrieta did not appear on an annual list of the 10 U.S. cities with the lowest crime rate rankings.

Previously, Murrieta ranked seventh on the 2011-2012 list published by CQ Press as part of its "City Crime Rankings." In 2010-2011, Murrieta placed eighth on the list among cities with a population between 100,000 and 499,000. In 2009-2010, it held the sixth spot.

The 10 cities with the lowest crime rates among populations of 100,000 and 499,000 in 2011, according to CQ Press, were: Naperville, Ill., Amherst, N.Y., Irvine, Calif., Simi Valley, Calif., Cary, N.C., Thousand Oaks, Calif., Gilbert, Ariz., Surprise, Ariz., Frisco, Texas, and Glendale, Calif.

CQ Press compiles the rankings using prior calendar year statistics submitted to the FBI, meaning the publication’s 2012-2013 list was taken from 2011 statistics, the 2011-2012 list used 2010 figures and so on.

Murrieta, the 258th largest U.S. city, has a population of 104,682. It was ranked 37th for lowest crime rate in 2011 among CQ Press' list of cities of all population sizes, while neighboring Temecula was 35th.

The rankings are based on six violent crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.

When asked whether the Police Department agreed with the newly published rankings, Murrieta police Lt. Rob Firmes explained the department uses a more comprehensive metric to grade itself.

“We include all part 1 crimes—murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, arson and larceny (theft greater than $400)—they are not including arson and theft. We grade ourselves based on all the crimes,” Firmes said.

“They are using the 2011 data, which we used in June 2012 when we figured out we were the seventh-safest city in the U.S., fourth in California and first in Riverside County, when you include all part 1 crimes.”

The city had 105 violent crimes in 2011, according to data it submitted to the FBI. This included two murders, 13 forcible rapes, 34 robberies, 56 aggravated assaults, 348 burglaries, 1,031 larceny-thefts, 116 motor vehicle thefts and 10 arsons.

Firmes said for a lot of law enforcement agencies, thefts number the highest among part 1 offenses.

“It’s a quality of life issue,” Firmes said. “We actually collect touch DNA on thefts and put that in the criminal database, so there are a lot of things we think are important.”

CQ Press has been publishing the rankings for 13 years, and states: “The methodology for determining the city and metro area comparison crime rankings involves a multistep process in which the reported crimes per 100,000 population rate are compared to the national reported crimes per 100,000 population rate and then indexed to create a summary score and ranking across six areas of reported and violent crimes.”

Firmes noted that using CQ Press’ methodology, Murrieta would have come in with the 13th lowest crime rate in 2011 for cities of similar population.

Law enforcement agencies are currently compiling their 2012 data, which will be submitted to the FBI. The federal agency will then release its annual Uniform Crime Reporting later this year.

Mayor Rick Gibbs, in his recent State of the City address touted Murrieta as the fifth safest city in the U.S. based on the most current statistics.

“One of the things that probably gets lost in the metrics of ‘How safe is my city?’ is that any city in the top 100 in the U.S. should be proud,” Gibbs said. “Any city in the top 10 has to consider themselves lucky. With our good demographics and policing, any time we are as safe as the statistics say we are, we ought to be proud of our Police Department.”

He spoke highly of the work done by the Police Department, giving “a tremendous amount of credit” to Chief Mike Baray and the more than 80 sworn men and women.

“As your population grows, and with the state and federal changes being dealt, you have to have more community-oriented policing,” Gibbs said. “You have to be out there and have a presence. Your chief has to look at all the neighborhoods and say, 'Where do my resources need to be?' and then make those increases.”