Crime up 6 percent last year in Lincoln

Funny we didn’t hear anything about this during the mayoral campaign: Crime went up 6 percent last year in Lincoln, and rapes hit a 10-year high.

If mayors can take credit for crime dropping 20 percent in four years, do they also take credit for 6 percent rises in one year? Personally, I don’t think mayors make much of a dent in the crime rate no matter what — unless they’re Rudy Giuliani, that is. But they love to take credit when the crime rate goes down anyway. Not so much when it goes up.

I noticed the police chief didn’t release the crime report until May this year — when in recent years he normally releases it in January. Hmmm….. could politics be at play here?

I know for a fact that all kinds of potentially controversial ordinances and policy changes get put on the back burner until elections are over — it happened before the arena election and it happened in the past municipal election — to avoid making the administration look bad. But does this protocol extend to the police department?

I heard the police report on the city lawnmower accident was done before the election, but its release was delayed until after the election. Not sure why: it was inconclusive but did offer a peek at some of the problems plaguing the street maintenance division. I asked the police chief if that was true, but he hasn’t responded. I’ll let you know if he does.