CMPD: Crime Up 4 Percent This Year

After several years of double digit drops in crime, Charlotte Mecklenburg Police report an overall increase of 4 percent since the start of this year. CMPD credits much of the recent improvement in crime rates to a focus on putting repeat offenders behind bars. Now, Deputy Chief Kerr Putney says new people are taking their place. "We're getting a lot better about how we go about capturing them, but the spike is because again for three, four years we've been trending down so significantly that we're starting to hit a point where we're getting diminishing returns," says Putney Since the beginning of the year, violent crime in the Charlotte area has seen a 15 percent increase. There have been 25 homicides this year, compared to 18 last year. The number of robberies also increased by 17 percent.