End of the year data shows that the violent crime rate for the city of Cedar Rapids saw a slight increase in 2018. But, according to police chief Wayne German, the overall crime rate in the city continues to fall.

According to statistics gathered by the FBI, in 2018 Cedar Rapids saw 368 instances of violent crime. That includes crimes like murder, manslaughter, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault. That is a slight increase from 355 cases in 2017. The city's five year average for violent crime actually fell by around 3%.

Domestic violence incident saw the greatest increase in 2018, going up from 66 incidents to 91. Aggravated assaults also saw a large increase from 199 cases to 227. Sexual assault numbers rose by four, going from 28 up to 32. The number of killings in the city fell from 6 to 3.

Chief German says that while the rise in some of the numbers is troubling, he said that they don't always mean there is more violent crime. He said that police are confident that there are a higher number of domestic violence reports because people are more comfortable calling the police and reporting the crimes.

 

[via Gazette]

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