Crime in Evanston was up during the first nine months of 2022 partly due to an “underlying angst in society” as people emerge from COVID-19 and an increase in “porch pirate” package thefts among other things, the North Suburb’s roaming interim police chief Richard Eddington said recently.
“We’re not just sitting here saying ‘woe is me,”‘ said Eddington, who left the department earlier this month to serve as interim chief in Kenilworth. “We’re trying to fix it.”
The number of “simple assaults” in Evanston jumped from 361 in the first nine months of 2021 to 486 in the first nine months of 2022, according to crime statistics recently released by the department.
“That to me portrays a lot of aggression, a lot of pent up anxiety. People get to shouting, screaming and threatening much more quickly than they use to,” he said. “That’s a big chunk of what we’re talking about. That aggression goes all the way from panhandlers fighting over a corner to more serious interactions, road rage and other types of things. I think that underlying angst in society is a big driver to that number.”
During the same time period, “burglary and breaking and entering” crimes increased from 129 in 2021 to 183, “larceny and theft” offenses went up from 994 to 1,112, motor vehicle thefts rose from 74 to 105 and fraud offenses jumped from 214 to 322.
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In total, “crimes against persons” jumped from 524 in the first nine months of 2021 to 680 in the first nine months of 2022, stats show. At the same time, “crimes against property,” shot up from 1,828 during the same period in 2021 to 2,213, stats show.
Eddington, 70, served as Evanston’s police chief between 2007 and 2018, when he retired, only to return in December 2021 to serve as interim chief. He held that position until earlier this month when the city hired its new chief, Schenita Stewart.
Eddington said a spike in thefts can be directly traced to an increase in “porch pirate” thefts, which he said is the theft of delivered packages left on the front porch of homes.
He also said police departments across the nation are struggling with similar increases in crime for the same reason Evanston is, the stress and social economic inequities created by more than two years of COVID-19, which has left some people desperate.
“I think in a post pandemic world, everybody is frazzled and people get too threatening much more quickly than they would have pre-pandemic,” he said. “Everybody’s cranked up, not really completely recovered from the pandemic and you have these interpersonal eruptions.”
The problem is compounded by the fact the Evanston police department is struggling to fill job vacancies created by retiring cops or officers moving to other suburban departments, Eddington said. He said staff shortages are hampering the department’s ability to practice community and preventive police because officers in those roles have been transferred to patrol.
“If we’re proactively engaged in activities that result in the finding of illegal guns, when we take that gun off the street, we’re probably preventing three or four shootings,” he said. “It’s difficult to manage those proactive investigations when you don’t have enough people.”
But he also said the department is proactively recruiting officers from the Chicago Police Department and other departments and is trying to place more candidates in police training.
“It takes us a year to build a cop,” said Eddington. “By the time the sergeants are comfortable with that officer handling calls, knowing when to call for help, knowing when to call for a boss. It takes a year to build that knowledge and skills base. The ‘pirating’ of other experienced officers seems to be our best way out of this.”
Eddington also said changes at the Cook County level are leading to an increase in the number of guns on the street.
“I think we’re not doing a good job of holding gun offenders accountable and I think that ‘catch and release’ program for multiple time gun offenders is absolutely foolishness,” he said. “That’s one reason why the Evanston police department takes as many gun cases as it can Federally.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.