In crime reports for the 2014 year, the Brookhaven Police Department reported noticeable increase in incidents for the city, and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office saw a spike in property crimes. However, both entities reported less than 100 violent crimes during this past year.

It is important to note for each set of data that the actual events upon arrival to the site of a call may be different than what the call was received and categorized as – for example, an aggravated assault call may become a simple assault upon investigation or result in any other alternative complaint, minor or major. Therefore the data represented here may not accurately reflect the exact nature of each event to which the respective offices responded.

Out of 1,183 total incidents, BPD had a total of 99 calls concerning possible violent crimes – this includes child abuse, armed robbery, aggravated assault, assault on an officer or fireman, simple assault, domestic violence, murder, rape, sexual battery and shooting into a dwelling. This translates to 8.4 percent of the total crimes in the city.

Brookhaven Police Department Chief Bobby Bell said 2014’s murder count of four was maybe one different than the year before.

“I’m not pleased with the amount of homicides and murders we’ve had, but it’s hard to control confrontations and arguments you don’t know anything about,” Bell said.

The chief explained the main locus of control they can exercise regarding the issue is being in the streets if and when events leading to homicide or murder happen.

“Presence is the key to policing,” Bell said and contributes the action to the fact that store and business robberies were dramatically down last year.

Out of 8,502 total calls to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, reports show 53 violent calls – including assaults, simple and aggravated, armed robbery, stabbings, sexual assaults and murder. For the county, that’s about 0.6 percent of the total calls made to the sheriff’s office.

“We saw a spike in property crimes,” Sheriff Steve Rushing said. “Those are 90 percent of what we deal with.”

The majority of the sheriff office’s violent crime calls were associated with assaults with 48 calls. However, Rushing said about two or three were actually aggravated, meaning a weapon was used or serious bodily injury was caused, and most of the assault calls were simple assault, which he describes as usually a fight causing no serious bodily injury.

Rushing said his office does not really see a lot of aggravated assaults.

“Many of these assaults are not committed by unknown people,” Rushing said. “They’re usually just people who know each other and have had a disagreement.”

Regarding the reported murder count of zero in the county, Rushing said they have just been really fortune in the 2014 year and that there’s no way to predict what kind of events would result from confrontations or arguments in the county.

Both entities reported spikes in crimes near the end of the year last year.

Sheriff Rushing said 2014’s crime statistics are pretty much “par on par” with 2013’s statistics, but they did notice a slight increase in property crimes around Christmas time when burglaries and such usually tend to increase.

Chief Bell reassures the recent incidents are out of the norm for the city citing that crimes have spiked across the nation, and the department is working to make sure their presence is felt in the community to deter similar incidents in the future.