Related story: Safety in numbers

Assault is down, but auto theft is up sharply

Overall crime decreased less than half a percent in Tulsa in 2007, but there were notable increases in burglaries and auto thefts compared to the previous year.

Many things can affect the crime rate, including the economy, crime sprees by repeat offenders and even the weather, Officer Jason Willingham said.

Catching career criminals was one of the goals of the Safe City Initiative, a police task force that was launched in August. The initiative also focused on crime hot spots in the city.

‘‘When you start targeting criminals who are repeatedly committing crimes, that is when you see a difference,’’ Willingham said.

Last year, 28,603 crimes were reported in Tulsa, a decrease of 0.47 percent, according to the Tulsa Police Department’s statistics.

The crime total includes the categories of homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, larceny and auto theft.

The statistics released Tuesday do not include unfounded crime reports, Willingham said. Those

Based on those numbers, homicides in Tulsa increased 12.7 percent, going from 55 in 2006 to 62 in 2007.

Auto thefts increased by the highest percentage in 2007, at 16 percent. However, Willingham said 2006 ‘‘was an absolute low for auto theft in the city. It was an anomaly.’’

Auto theft detectives tried to analyze what caused the dip in 2006 but couldn’t find a pattern, he said. The number of auto thefts reported in 2007 was more consistent with the number in other years.

Burglaries increased 10 percent last year compared to the year before. One reason could have been the opportunists who took advantage of power outages during the ice storm in December. Willingham said 626 burglaries were reported that month, compared with 497 in December 2006.

‘‘People were without lights, without alarms, and the burglars knew that,’’ Willingham said.

But the police knew it, too, he said, and officers made several burglary arrests during the storm’s aftermath.

Aggravated assaults decreased by the highest percentage at 8.7 percent, while larcenies went down by 6.9 percent.

Nicole Marshall 581-8459 nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com