The Sunnyvale Sun

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Sunnyvale's safety rating slips

By JASON GOLDMAN-HALL

For more than a decade, Sunnyvale has prided itself on an annual recognition as one of the top 10 safest cities of its size in the United States

On Oct. 30, Morgan Quitno Press released its rankings, and Sunnyvale--which placed fifth last year in its size category and 17th overall--fell to 38th place overall.

That fall is matched with a rise in violent crime, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

In 2004, there were two murders, 19 rapes, 52 robberies and 88 aggravated assaults. In 2005, those numbers rose to three murders, 27 rapes, 73 robberies and 129 aggravated assaults.

"Gang activity is increasing in the region, and that definitely has an impact on the murders and aggravated assaults," said Sunnyvale communications officer John Pilger. "But we still have a very low murder rate compared to a city like Oakland."

According to the FBI statistics, Oakland had 93 murders in 2005.

The 371 cities ranked this year were separated into size categories, the largest being 500,000 residents and over and the lowest being 75,000 to 99,999 residents.

The rankings reflect the number of crimes including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft that took place in 2005.

"The rankings don't really show what a city's crime rate is; they just rank the city against others," Pilger said.

In 2005, there were 2,893 crimes in Sunnyvale, down from 3,004 in 2004 and 3,056 in 2003.

"The Morgan Quitno numbers are not really significant numbers except in a marketing sense," Pilger said. "The numbers that really matter are the FBI numbers."

In addition to the six crimes that Morgan Quitno tracks, the city and the FBI also look at the number of automobile burglaries, larcenies and theft.

San Jose was named the safest city in the largest size category for the second year in a row.