Robberies are up in Sacramento. See where they have increased, and why

The number of robberies in Sacramento rose to the highest level in a decade last year, with large increases coming in downtown, East Sacramento, midtown and Land Park, according to a Bee review of preliminary Sacramento Police Department data.

Sacramento Police reported 1,201 robberies in 2022, up about 20% from the previous year. Robberies last peaked at 1,174 in 2015 before dropping to 879 in 2020.

Even with the recent increase, the number of robberies in 2022 was well below annual totals consistently seen in the city during the 1990s and 2000s.

Robbery is a violent crime that includes carjackings, muggings and bank heists. The FBI defines it as “taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.”

The three areas where robberies increased the most last year are each near the central city.

The number of robberies in the police beat that covers East Sacramento rose from 25 in 2021 to 44 in 2022, a big jump for an area where violent crime is traditionally not common. Robberies in East Sacramento primarily took place near Alhambra Boulevard and, to a lesser extent, Folsom Boulevard and J Street.

“We do hear more and more concerns,” said Tricia Stevens, president of the East Sacramento Neighborhood Association. “I don’t think it has gotten to the level of people feeling totally unsafe, but people are taking more precautions.”

The number of robberies in the police beat that covers Land Park rose from 51 in 2021 to 74 in 2022. The robberies were mostly concentrated around Broadway and, to a lesser extent, Freeport Boulevard. Like East Sacramento, Land Park is one of the city’s wealthier neighborhoods, with median household incomes in the 95818 ZIP code nearly 40% higher than the citywide median.

“Things have gotten worse, and people are nervous, and they want change,” said Kristina Rogers, president of the Land Park Neighborhood Association.

In the police beat that covers the downtown core, robberies rose from 50 in 2021 to 123 in 2022. Downtown safety has long been a key focus of city leaders - even more so after a mass shooting left six dead a year ago.

The city has taken steps to reduce downtown crime, including hiring a “nighttime manager” who will help coordinate security at entertainment venues. City officials also ensured residents that police officers in the department’s entertainment unit will work downtown until 3 a.m.

“We do not have our head in the sand, ” Mayor Darrell Steinberg said as he announced the hiring of the nighttime economy manager in October. “Or dismiss the challenges that we face in our city and especially in our central city.”

The downtown core also saw the highest rate of robberies per 10,000 residents, though it has a relatively small population and a high amount of foot traffic. Midtown and Old North Sacramento saw the next-highest robbery rates last year.

Some areas saw robberies decline, including North Natomas and the Pocket. Those two areas also saw the lowest rate of robberies per 10,000 residents.

Sgt. Zach Eaton, a Sacramento Police Department spokesman, said it’s unclear exactly what led to the spike in robberies last year. The department’s Crime Analysis Unit looked at the gathered data and could not identify a reason for the increase.

“It did not appear that more guns were used in (the reported robberies),” Eaton wrote in an email to The Sacramento Bee, “and they could not locate any patterns or series that accounted for such an increase.”

Eaton said detectives did spot a trend in suspects using social media to identify specific groups of people who may be vulnerable potential victims. One investigation last year led to arrests in alleged hate crimes targeting Asian women in robberies as the victims left south Sacramento shopping centers.

The series of robberies in April and May 2022 were reported along the Stockton Boulevard corridor. Police said the suspects assaulted the women, causing injury and stealing thousands of dollars in cash, jewelry and other belongings. In at least one of the robberies, the victim told police the suspect had a handgun. Investigators identified the suspect vehicle, which led them to evidence linked to the robberies and later the two suspects were arrested.

In two high-profile cases last year, attempted robberies in Sacramento led to deadly gun violence.

In October, Charles Starzynski, a 70-year-old former Capital Public Radio executive, was killed in broad daylight in an apparent robbery near the Sutter Lawn Tennis Club in East Sacramento. Detectives have arrested two people in connection with the shooting. Detectives believe suspects followed Starzynski from a local bank to where the shooting occurred.

In April, Giovanni Pizano, a 31-year-old Sacramento music artist also known as DJ Gio, was shot to death during an apparent attempted robbery in the Natomas Crossing neighborhood. Vernon Mulder III, 30, of Vallejo, also was killed in the shooting.

Pizano’s mother has told The Sacramento Bee her son was killed by a pair of men in an attempt to rob him of his diamond jewelry. She also said that one of the two alleged robbers was also shot dead in the encounter. Detectives in June arrested a suspect in the shooting who has been charged with homicide in Pizano’s death. The suspect was not charged in Mulder’s death.

Last year’s increase in robberies occurred as the department saw a rise in organized retail theft. Eaton said organized retail theft often begins as petty theft crime investigations, commonly referred to as as shoplifting. But he said organized retail theft ultimately is listed as a robbery in law enforcement data based on the suspect’s actions during the shoplifting.

Organized retail theft is referred to in legal circles as “Estes Robberies,” in which a use of force or a threat of force was used by a suspect to avoid apprehension and get away with the stolen merchandise.

Eaton said each Police Department substation has Neighborhood Crime Unit detectives. The substations also have Problem-Oriented Policing officers who, along with the detectives, are tasked with investigating and following up on robberies and addressing related crime trends. The Police Department considers it essential to partner these investigators with community groups in reducing violent crime, Eaton said.

Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester, who took over the department in January 2022, wants to focus investigative and crime prevention efforts on the neighborhoods most affected by crime. Her crime reduction strategy — unveiled at a City Council meeting last June — seeks to use gathered intelligence to target those committing crimes rather than flood neighborhoods with broad enforcement.

Preliminary police data shows a decline in monthly robberies in very late 2022 and early 2023, though it is too soon to say if the trend will hold.

In East Sacramento, the neighborhood association has recently encouraged residents to set up community watch groups. The association also recently held a forum on crime prevention.

“I think our main thing would be to work with the police department to increase patrols and work with our citizens to take the necessary precautions,” said Stevens, the association president.

Rogers, the Land Park Neighborhood Association President, believes criminal justice reforms in California such as Proposition 47, which reclassified certain non-violent property and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, have contributed to the increase in robberies and other crimes in her community. She also said that the neighborhood’s proximity to freeways puts it close to areas where street drugs are illegally sold.

“We’ve got people trying to steal catalytic converters in broad daylight,” she said. “We’ve got people in the park, following girls home from school. We’ve had a couple of instances where children have been attacked by drug-addled or mentally ill people in the neighborhood. So, yes, there’s several different populations that have spent more time in our neighborhood in the past few years.”

A 2018 analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California found no evidence that Prop 47 increased violent crime but some evidence that it affected property crime. Several state and local leaders have criticized the proposition as crime has increased, and a poll in 2022 showed substantial support for changing it.

Types of crime other than robbery also rose last year, though the number of murders dropped slightly. According to preliminary police statistics covering the first 10 months of the year, the number of rapes, aggravated assaults and property crimes also increased citywide.

“If things are getting bad here,” said Rogers, of the Land Park Neighborhood Association, “they must be getting much worse for communities of color, lower-working class neighborhoods, and that’s not okay.”

About this story: The Bee used data on robberies from the city’s open data portal. In the past, the number of robberies shown on the portal has nearly matched the official number reported to the FBI. However, official FBI data will not be released until later this year.

The Bee calculated the population of each police beat using census 2020 block-level data. The resulting population data was used to calculate robbery rates.