City of Erie's Crime Statistics Revealed at Mayor Joe Schember's Weekly News Conference

Mayor Joe Schember's weekly news conference revealed new crime statistics for the City of Erie.

The data was gathered and analyzed by the Erie City Police Department, comparing overall statistics from 2020-2023 in addition to the first quarter statistics from 2023. 

According to Chief of Erie Police Daniel Spizarny, violent crimes are slightly down.

The number of aggravated assault incidents in the first quarter of 2023 is up to 37 compared to 14 in 2022, but this year, shots fired (32) decreased from 2022 (65) and people shot (9) decreased from 2022 (13).

"Not the way we want them to be, but we have a lot of initiatives going," Spizarny said.

The Erie Juvenile Crime Unit, which was implemented back in January, has been one of those initiatives put in place in order to address the growth of youth violence.

"We never saw this before," Spizarny said. "With the addition of the Juvenile Unit and our other strategies, we hope to really turn those numbers around."

Arson and DUI cases have slightly decreased between 2021-2022, going from 114 to 111 for incidents of Arson and 37 to 30 for DUIs.

On the other hand, the number of recovered firearms increased from 286 in 2021 to 308 in 2022. Stolen firearms went from 128 to 148 within the same time frame.

Total sex crimes also increased between 2021 and 2022, going from 133 in 2021 to 280 in 2022.

Mayor Schember expressed, however, that he has faith in these police initiatives and the addition of over a dozen new officers to combat these issues, especially youth violence.

"I think we're gonna see much more substantial decreases and a lot of the crimes over the rest of this year," Schember said. "I'm saying that you hold me accountable for it. We'll see again this year, we'll see where we are."

One looming problem that has been on the rise according to the reports: drugs.

"I call that a real pandemic because anybody's family can get that phone call," said Darryl Craig, member of Erie's Blue Coats.

But with these statistics from the Erie police, Craig says that it's good to be both encouraged and cautious at the same time.

"We want to hear is not a slight downtick but a major downtick, and I think that's what the city of Erie is waiting on," Craig said. "This is a human problem, and it's going to take a human solution."