Mayoral Candidate: Crime Stats Are Skewed

By VALERIE KALFRIN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Feb 3, 2007

TAMPA - Mayoral candidate and former Tampa police Capt. Marion Lewis on Friday accused the police department of cheating on its crime figures and called on Police Chief Stephen Hogue to hire an independent auditor.

At a news conference, Lewis said the "double-digit drops year after year" in the city's crime rate are "unrealistic and, I dare say, impossible to achieve just by good police work."

Hogue called Lewis' claims campaign posturing. He declined the audit request but said the agency's records are open to anyone who wants to examine them.

"Give me the cases that you think are improperly classified, and we'll look at them," Hogue said.

The police department's 2005 annual crime report shows a 16.8 percent drop in Part 1 crimes reported to the FBI between 2004 and 2005. These crimes are murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, aggravated assault, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny and vehicle theft.

The agency's 2006 semiannual crime report shows an 11 percent drop in the number of these crimes reported in the first six months of 2006 compared with the same period the previous year.

Lewis accused the department of misclassifying some crimes as lesser offenses so they are not considered part of the city's crime rate. He referred to a television news report aired Thursday that states the city had 22 murders last year but only reported 20.

"If TPD is willing to cheat on the murder rate, you can be sure auto burglary, muggings, assaults are being underreported and misreported," he said.

When asked to produce a list of misclassified reports, he said he needed more time to compile them and should be available Monday.

Hogue said the television story did not state that one of the 22 deaths was ruled a "justifiable homicide" by the Hillsborough County State Attorney's office. The other was ruled a manslaughter and classified as such, he said.

"It's not as if we swept these under the rug," he said.

City police took in about 25,000 crime reports in 2006, Hogue said. Because of the volume, "there are probably a few of those that are classified wrong," Hogue said, but there are not enough to significantly affect the crime statistics.

Reporter Tom Krause contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800.