Murder and other serious crimes on the decline in Wilmington, according to WPD chief in 2018 statistics

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - Wilmington Police Department’s Chief of Police, Ralph Evangelous, shared 2018 year end crime statistics at Tuesday’s city council meeting.

“Where we were in the early 2000′s and where we are today is day and night. We are much much safer community than we’ve ever been," said Evangelous.

From 2017 to 2018, there was a 12% reduction in part 1 crimes, which include murder and non-negligent homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson.

“That is an overall record dating back to early 1990s,” said Evangelous.

Murders in Wilmington also “dramatically” decreased from 19 in 2017 to 9 in 2018.

“And a great part of that, although one murder is too many, we had only one gang-related murder for the year, in the year before we had four or five," said Evangelous.

Violent crime has remained relatively unchanged in Wilmington over the last few years, said Evangelous.

“Most segments of violence went down, except for aggravated assaults,” said Evangelous. "And for the most part, they were gang members shooting at gang members, they were retaliatory shootings.”

To keep your family safe, Evangelous recommends locking your vehicle, locking up your guns, and locking up your medicines.

“Don’t leave your guns in your cars. A lot of guns that end up on streets are stolen from people’s cars. Take them in your house and secure them. And then while you’re at it in your house, make sure your guns are locked up. I can’t tell you across the country how many kids get their hands on guns and there’s awful results from that. Terrible. Tragic," said Evangelous.

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