Violent crime in Surrey was up 40 per cent in first three months of 2015

SURREY (NEWS1130) – Violent crime in Surrey shot up through the first three months of the year, leaving some in the city feeling helpless.

The people News1130 spoke with this morning aren’t putting much stock in a positive spin from police.

Statistics released yesterday show more than 1,700 cases of violent crime in the first quarter of 2015, a 40 per cent jump from the same months last year.

The RCMP is quick to point out that the overall crime rate is down. That’s little comfort to Benjamin, who says the city is living up to its bad rap.

“Surrey’s already had a little bit of an issue in that regard. There’s not enough being done but at the same time, I don’t think that there’s a whole lot more that they can do.”

“Really, at this point, if the police were to do more, it would just become more of an escalation.”

One woman tells us she’s concerned for her family in Surrey, some of whom live in a tougher neighbourhood. “My daughter lives in the area, so I kind of worry about it quite a bit.”

But she says in many parts of Surrey, it’s not so bad. “It actually seems to have gone down, I think, the crime rate… They’ve kind of shifted it out into Newton.”

There have been 23 cases of shots fired in Surrey over the past few weeks, mostly scuffles in the street-level drug trade.

Sexual assaults, assaults, robberies and even abductions have all increased year over year.

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