COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus Division of Police announced Friday that some reports over the past 10 years were not making it to the state for statistical purposes, meaning crime statistics for the city have been inaccurate.
Police say that more than 150,000 incidents that happened since 2013 have not been reported to the state. Those crimes include murder, rape, felonious assault and theft.
10TV's Lacey Crisp sat down with Columbus Deputy Chief of Police Tim Myers about how the cases did not make it to state and what the real numbers look like.
The pending reports that were not included in crime statistics from the city over the past 10 years include:
- 18 murder counts
- 2,384 rapes
- 2,137 robberies
- 4,869 aggravated assaults
- 7,470 burglaries
- 19,254 larceny/theft cases
- 5,987 car thefts
There were approximately 77,000 other offenses as well.
"I think we need to be transparent with what we find, even if it gives us a black eye. We are committed to improving ourselves. We are not going to hide from the fact that we have issues," Myers said. "Because this has been going on since 2013 to varying degrees, the number is significant and we didn't want to just fix the issue and not tell people about it. We wanted to make sure those of us who are paying attention to crime in Columbus have all the information about the impact."
The software system that Columbus police uses now was put in place in 2013. From that year through 2015, police reported that violent crime was down. Using the pending reports that were newly found, police found that violent crime was actually up during that time.
"This did not affect case work. This is purely a statistical issue, not an operational issue," Myers said. "The cases we are talking about were reported, were investigated, and people were charged with crimes, people went to prison."
Founder of Mothers of Murdered Columbus Children Malissa Thomas St. Clair has studied statistics from police and said that it is crucial for the division to accurately report what is happening in the community.
"When you are talking about victims, and numbers, families have the right to have that reported. Whatever prevention happened or intervention that needs to happen," St. Clair said.
Columbus police are not facing any penalties for not accurately reporting the statistics, but Myers said the division may have lost out on grants from increased crime rates.
In 2022, Columbus police reported that they solved 63% of the homicide cases that happened that year. It increased to 75% last year. This year, police said that detectives have solved 77% of the total homicide cases so far.
Police reported just this week that there have been 115 homicides this year, compared to 147 at this time last year, and 132 the year before.