Springfield Robberies Shoot Up 24%
By: Chris Grogan
Updated: March 4, 2007
From guns to knives, robbers across the Ozarks are arming themselves with weapons to get their hands on your belongings.
The numbers are signficant.
Within the last year, Springfield robberies have shot up 24% becoming the top crime problem this city is dealing with.
Springfield police investigators say they're doing everything they can to combat this, but this year has thrown them some curveballs.
From the northside to the south, cops are responding to armed robberies across the city.
Springfield Police Department Officer Grant Story says, "we see crime all over the city, and for us to really strike a geographical point, would not represent the facts of the situation."
During the last quarter of 2006, investigators say robberies jumped significantly, and that trend appears to be continuing for the first part of 2007.
The locations are varied from banks and convenince stores to strong armed robberies in downtown.
Officer Story adds, "in the vast majorities of these, the suspects indicated that they had a gun or they indicated they had a weapon of some sort."
Officers attribute much of this trend to economic factors, a lack of crime prevention by some businesses, and even perhaps a perception that there may not be a significant police presence in some parts of the city.
Another factor when the ice was falling and power failing two months ago, that's when burglaries and other crimes started skyrocketing.
Officer Story, "when you have an incident of that magnitude, you would about have to have a cop on every street corner, to stop that. Unfortunately, the resources that we have, are just not there."
The department says it is putting resources into crime prevention seminars and education hoping that will help people arm themselves with enough to curb some of this crime.
The problem, officers say the last seminar they held for convenience store owners just wasn't well attended.
They hope to hold more in the coming year and recommend that store owners and workers attend at least one of these.
