County crime rose slightly in 2017 - Brunswick News

The county’s overall crime rate rose slightly in 2017, with the 2,692 serious offenses reported last year representing a 1.9 percent uptick compared to the 2,642 serious crimes handled in 2016, according to statistics provided by the Glynn County Police Department.

Offenses comprising law enforcement’s serious crimes category include homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, theft and vehicle theft.

Glynn County Police Chief John Powell was in command for the last quarter of 2017, and then only in an interim role that began Sept. 1 following the retirement of long-time chief Matt Doering. County Manager Alan Ours appointed Powell to the role full time in January.

While the crime rate increase in 2017 is marginal, Powell is a veteran lawman who understands the role of law enforcement is to keep crime down. To that end, Powell has quickly established a relationship with Glynn County Sheriff Neal Jump, who runs the county jail.

“The sheriff has guaranteed me he’s got plenty of room to put the bad guys away,” Powell said Thursday. “I want the bad guys to know we’re out there and I want them to know we’re going to be aggressive toward criminal activity.”

The most obvious increase in 2017 came at the top of the serious crimes list, as the seven homicides reported last year represented a 250 percent increase over the two handled in 2016. Of those, five were family related or domestic, including what police said was a murder-suicide in which a St. Simon’s Island doctor shot his girlfriend and then turned the gun on himself last March. Police said a man acted in self-defense in another homicide, the fatal shooting last April of a man in the Arco community. The county’s lone unsolved murder from 2017 is the shooting death of Antoni Zalewski, an Illinois man whose body was found Dec. 8 at the home he was remodeling at 873 Old Jesup Road.

Police continue the search for a suspect in Zalewski’s death, which is the only homicide from 2017 in which the murder victim may have been a random target, Powell notes.

“I don’t think there are any predictive measures we can do that will predict we’re going to have ‘X’ amount of homicides in a year,” Powell said.

Robbery was up 8.1 percent in 2017, from 37 cases in 2016 to 40 cases last year. That includes 18 robberies with a firearm last year, compared to 15 in 2016.

Assaults rose by 6.4 precent, from 794 in 2017 compared to 746 cases the previous year. The majority of the increase, however, was the 668 simple assaults in 2017 that represented 73 more than in 2016. Assault with a firearm dropped by 11.9 percent last year, from 42 in 2016 to 37 in 2017.

Burglary rose by 11.9 percent in the county last year, with 470 reported compared to 420 in 2016. This included a 3.5 percent increase in break-ins, with 233 last year and 225 in 2016.

The bulk of the serious crimes category falls under theft, which dipped slightly last year, from 1,308 in 2016 to 1,250 — a 4.4 percent decrease. Vehicular thefts rose by 3.5 percent in 2017, with 118 reported compared to 114 in 2016.

Powell had served as Glynn County’s Director of Community Services for a year when he was appointed as the county’s interim Police Chief on Sept. 2. Hurricane Irma slammed the county nine days later, putting the county police department in emergency operations mode. Such a destructive storm brought with it a crime-of-opportunity wave, with 35 burglaries and 20 thefts reported in a 10-day period surrounding Irma’s impact.

The following month saw a rash of gunfire, with five people suffering gunshot wounds in a spate of 10 shootings in Brunswick and in the county between Oct. 4 and Nov. 12. None of the shootings was random, police said.

Powell, who previously served as police chief in Dothan, Ala., Hartville, S.C., and Wilson, N.C., reacted quickly. Powell announced the formation of the multi-agency Street Crimes Unit on Nov. 17. The unit consists of county and city police officers, as well as sheriff’s deputies, who are actively targeting gang activity and high-crime areas with high visibility patrols, surveillance operations and intelligence gathering.

Additionally, the county’s long-established Glynn-Brunswick Narcotics Enforcement Team (GBNET) continues its interagency operations against drug dealers in the community.

Early and often, Powell has stressed communication and cooperation with other local agencies in combatting crime. He said he wants to community’s criminal elements to know they are being targeted.

“We’re trying to do away with the boundaries (between agencies) because the criminals do not recognize the boundaries,” he said. “Law enforcement should not recognize those boundaries either, and that includes sharing information and resources and joining together to address the common crime issues that affect our shared communities.”

From ongoing signs of domestic abuse that could lead to tragedy, to suspicious activity witnessed in neighborhoods, Powell urges residents to help fight crime by reporting it, often and early.

“It seems like a worn-out phrase in community policing,” Powell said, “but I want to make sure I drive this home. If you see something happening, something suspicious, report it. It may pan out to be nothing, but it may lead to saving someone’s life, or to preventing crime. Help law enforcement help the community.”

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