Photo by Dan Whisenhunt

Decatur Police report that burglaries declined by 46 percent in the first six months of 2014 compared with the first six months of 2013.

Decaturish asked Sgt. Jennifer Ross for an update on uniform crime reports for the summer. The numbers through June show the city was off to a good start in several categories.

Motor vehicle theft was up by 5 percent, however.

Here is the year-to-year comparison:

The numbers for July are still being finalized, Ross said.

“We hope the trend of the burglaries being down continues and we would like to see the motor vehicle thefts go down,” she said. “We’ve recovered several stolen vehicles that are not from our agency using our license plate readers.”

She said after last year’s spike in burglaries, police agencies in the area collaborated to get ready for summer 2014.

“We were meeting with officers from surrounding jurisdictions as early as March, preplanning for the summer because of what happened last summer,” Ross said. “We had saturated patrols in areas that were hit last year.”

Ross said people are also being more vigilant about what’s going on around them.

“Community members paying attention and acting as the directors for us, pointing us in the right direction. I think has made a huge difference,” Ross said.