The City of Cape Coral prides itself for being one of the safest cities in Lee County, but some people who live and work in the area say the figures are a cause for concern.
According to the data available on this interactive crime map found on the Cape Coral Police Department's website, from January 01, 2017 to January 18, 2017 there have been 196 incidents so far. Of those, 119 are categorized under property crimes, 23 under quality of life, and 54 are categorized as violent.
These are the figures for 2016 during the same time period:
Total Incidents: 264
Property Crimes: 186
Quality of Life: 31
Violent Crimes: 47
Many people who live and work in the Cape like Brad Rhodes says he chose to live in Cape Coral because of the low crime in the area, but says he's surprised to see the numbers of incidents reported by the Cape Coral Police Department.
"It's a big surprise to me," Rhodes said. "I'm surprised there are so many violent crimes. I'm interested to know what do they consider violent when it's a violent crime?"
Other people who live in Cape Coral, like Bob Gent, say the biggest question they have is whether CCPD is prepared to handle the crime affecting the area.
"I'm just concerned that we don't have enough coverage of the city to handle all the calls," Gent said.
Four In Your Corner looked over the number with Corporal Phillip Mullen at Cape Coral Police Department. When we showed Corporal Mullen the numbers and asked him if people should be alarmed about the violent crimes, he said not necessarily.
"This is a pretty normal number, we're 160,000 plus people," Crpl. Mullen said. "On the crime map, the violent crimes are considered homicides, robberies, sex assaults, and regular assaults which also includes battery."
Mullen says most of these "violent" incidents listed may not be as violent as the category suggests.
"People hear violent crimes and they think murders, rapes, robberies, almost all of those are batteries. Batteries are obviously a bad thing but just so you know a slap in the face is a battery so all those minor batteries compared to those very, very few murders and violent crimes we have that's what I would tell people to look at."
He also says many of the incidents are domestic incidents, many times involving drugs.
"It's not a random crime where you're walking down the street in Cape Coral where you get victimized," he said.
Four In Your Corner also asked if the Department is prepared to respond to a growing population, he reassured us there is enough man power with an average response time of about 5 minutes.
Crpl. Mullen says Cape Coral would be the safest city in Florida if the number of property crimes went down. "If people just remember to lock their cars, we would be number one in that category. We are already number one for lowest violent crimes per capita for our population."
