CMPD Chief Rodney Monroe delivered the end of year crime statistics on Wednesday. Overall, the number of crimes dropped by 5.5 percent in 2013.
The number of burglaries and stolen vehicles reported decreased, but homicides and rapes increased.
Chief Rodney Monroe rolled off a list of numbers and most of them were negative. Property crime decreased six percent from 2012 and violent crime about three percent.
Commercial burglaries dropped by more than 30 percent and there were 280 fewer reports of stolen vehicles.
On the flip side, there were 58 homicides in 2013, six more than the previous year, 23 more cases of arson and a slight increase in the number of robberies and rapes.
Chief Monroe says overall the numbers are good news for city of Charlotte and the police department.
He says the opening of the Real Time Crime Center last March had a big impact.
"The Real Time Crime Center supports patrol and investigative units throughout the city offering immediate response to crime and crime trends," Monroe says.
It's a room full of TV monitors hooked up to cameras and license plate readers on Charlotte's streets. A security grant for the Democratic National Convention paid for a lot of the technology in the crime center. Monroe says it was used in more than 800 investigations last year and led to 400 arrests.
The most dramatic decrease in crime was in CMPD's Hickory Grove Division in East Charlotte, where crime dropped 14 percent. Captain Chuck Henson attributed that to a big drug and gun bust at the end of 2012 after a three-month investigation.
