49.0°,
Fair RVC crime drops to historic lows
In his more than 30 years with the Police Department, Rockville Centre Police Commissioner Charles Gennario has seen it all. But at a village board of trustees meeting last month, he said he was surprised — and hesitant to make the announcement lest he jinx it — that in the first quarter of 2017, crime in Rockville Centre was at an all-time low.
“I had to do a double take,” he said of his reaction as he pored over the department’s crime statistics.
“When I first started, we would have between 300 and 500 burglaries in a year,” he explained. “So far this year, we’ve had zero.”
Despite the good news, Gennario acknowledged the unique challenges his department faces. Describing the village as a transient area, he said the presence of hospitals, train stations, a college, an active downtown, a neighboring high-crime zone — Hempstead — and the geographic size of the village all contribute to a challenging landscape for law enforcement.
“We have it all,” he said. “Instead of telling people we’re a large village, we’re a small city.”
And for a local police force of 54 officers “to keep a low crime rate is quite an accomplishment,” he said, adding that his department responds to about 1,000 calls a month.
The FBI, which processes crime data from departments across the country, divides major crimes into two main categories: property-based and violent crimes. In the first category, Rockville Centre saw 17 grand larcenies, and in the second, the village experienced three assault and one sex offense from January through March. Gennario, who has served as commissioner since 2010, said that in his experience, this year’s violent crime rate was “ridiculously low.”
Nationwide, property crimes, which include theft and vandalism, decreased by 0.6 percent from 2015 to 2016, while violent crimes increased by 5.3 percent, concentrated largely in and around cities, according to the FBI. Despite that jump, violent crimes in 2015 were 0.7 percent lower than in 2011, and 16.5 percent below 2006 levels.
"Rockville Centre remains one of the safest communities in New York State due to the vigilance of our highly trained Police Department,"Mayor Francis X. Murray said in a statement. “I would like to thank our Police Commissioner Charles Gennario and the entire Police Department for their commitment to keeping our community safe. Their dedication is one of the reasons Rockville Centre is the one of the most desirable places to live, work, and raise a family."
After some prodding from the mayor, Gennario made the 2017 information public. He was initially hesitant to do so, he said, “Because what goes down must come up.”
