GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Three violent crimes in the Triad in just one week. Friday, a traffic stop ended with a Greensboro Police Officer shot and another man dead. Saturday, a gunman shot and killed a High Point store owner. Earlier in the week, an Alamance-Burlington School teacher was charged with raping a 15-year-old.
You might be wondering - what's going on? 2 Wants to Know is digging into crime statistics to find out - is it just this past week or are crime numbers up?
WFMY News 2 pulled numbers from the Triad's largest cities - Winston-Salem, High Point, Greensboro and Burlington.
So far this year in High Point, there have been 4 murders. Compare that to 7 in all of last year and just 3 in 2015. Robbery is down in High Point from 2015 to 2016 but aggravated assaults are up.
In Burlington, there have been 14 shootings so far this year. There were 19 shootings in all of 2016 and 22 in 2015. The city's has also had more robberies, burglaries and assaults than the same time last year. Since January 1, there have been 9 robberies, 40 burglaries and 35 assaults. During the same period last year, there were 5 robberies, 35 burglaries and 30 assaults.
There's been an increase in reported assaults in Winston-Salem, according to crimemapping.com That's a site where law enforcement agencies share it's crime reports. In January of this year, there were 123 assaults. There were just 66 in December of 2016.
According to the weekly crime report in Greensboro, there's been a slight increase in assaults.
There have been 49 so far this year compared to 25 during the same time period last year.
So far this year, Greensboro police have already investigated 3 homicides. During the same time period last year, there had only been 1 homicide.
This is just a snap-shot of crime happening in our area but what's the context? For example, the High Point Police chief says crime can increase or decrease depending on holidays, school being out, even the weather.
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