LAWTON – Comparing 2013 to 2024, burglaries here declined by 43.5%, Police Chief James Smith told the City Council recently.
According to Smith’s report, 1,485 burglaries were reported in 2013, compared to 839 reported in 2024.
In 2023, Smith said, 818 burglaries were reported, a per capita rate of 9.1.
Over the past 12 years, the fewest number of burglaries investigated was 411 in 2021 – a per capita rate of 4.5 – at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People are complaining that we’re not responding to burglaries,” Mayor Stan Booker told Smith. “When people are burglarized they feel violated.”
“We do respond when we’re called to a scene,” the police chief said. “But our response time depends on the type of calls we receive, the severity of the offense.”
Booker asked Smith to provide the council with quarterly reports on burglary calls received, burglaries investigated and the number solved.
Councilman George Gill asked whether anyone has been prosecuted from “these fires we’re having” in vacant houses?
Fire Chief Jared Williams said the Lawton Fire Department responded to 171 structure fires last year and “about 30% of them were started by vagrants,” although “it usually wasn’t arson.”
“Are any of them being caught?” Gill wondered.
“Yes, some are,” Williams said, but he didn’t have the figures at his fingertips.