San Jose Police Department unveils searchable gang crime dashboard
SAN JOSE, Calif. - In an effort to better respond to gang activity in San Jose, police on Monday unveiled a new dashboard for gang-related crimes. The idea is to help police, policymakers and residents put their efforts where they can help the most. San Jose police say the dashboard is an effort at transparency, and also a way to engage the community and elected leaders to try to find better solutions to gang-related issues throughout the city.
Danny Garza, the president of the Plata Arroyo Neighborhood Association in East San Jose, said gang activity in the area around Mayfair Park is an ongoing problem.
"We have drinking, fighting, stabbings. We have had homicides, and we have had knife attacks," Garza said. Combating gang-related activity has always been – and still is – a top priority and he believes the new dashboard will help get resources where they are needed the most.
The dashboard is searchable and categorizes crimes as either ‘gang-related’ or ‘gang-motivated.’
"It has filters where you can look at it for gang involvement, from time of day, day of week, trending – it has locations within our city of San Jose council districts," said Judith Torrico, with the San Jose Police technical services bureau which designed the dashboard. While the police already had this information, they hope making it easily accessible helps spark discussions about solutions.
"It helps everybody. It helps the community, it helps the police department in general just to identify trends, locations of areas that are of interest – and make sure we are making the best decisions for when we deploy units, when we are planning for specific operations," said Sgt. Jorge Garibay, a spokesperson for the department.
As just one example, sorting the data by city council district five on the east side shows that there have been 46 confirmed gang-related crimes so far this year. Of those 30% were vandalism, 26% were weapons related, 17% involved aggravated assaults and more than eight percent were robberies.
The numbers do not surprise Councilmember Peter Ortiz who represents District 5 and east side San Jose. "I think this is something that will allow us to point to actual hard data to essentially prove what constituents and residents have been saying for a long time. Our community – east side San Jose – needs help. We need resources, we need investment. That is going to be the only way to address the increase of gang activity and the increase of crime," Ortiz said.
San Jose police said all the information in the dashboard is reviewed by the department’s gang investigations unit before it is published. The database is now live and can be reached through the department’s website.
You can find the link right here: https://www.sjpd.org/records/crime-stats-maps/police-dashboards/gang-related-events#!/ktvu.com/tag/us/ca/santa-clara-county/san-jose
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