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BSO: overall crime down year-to-date but violent crime up; deputies recover items in suspected cleaning-staff theft scheme
Summary
Acting Captain Palomarra of the Broward Sheriff’s Office reported year-to-date overall crime down 11.7% but a near 40% increase in violent crime, and described arrests using license-plate readers and cooperative responses to business burglaries.
Acting Captain Palomarra of the Broward Sheriff’s Office gave the Tamarac City Commission an April operations update on May 14, reporting year-to-date decreases in overall crime but an increase in violent offenses.
Palomarra said April produced about 3,700 calls for service for the month and nearly 16,000 year-to-date, with deputies initiating 40% of those contacts. The month saw 91 Part I crimes, and overall crime for the year was down 11.7%. Property crime was down about 18%, while violent crime — including aggravated batteries, aggravated assaults and robberies — rose “nearly 40%,” he said; he cautioned that the percentage change partly reflected a small number of incidents that disproportionately shifted the rate.
Palomarra described several notable arrests in April. Deputies used license-plate readers (LPRs) and interagency cooperation to locate a shoplifter who threatened a clerk, and to find an absconded offender from Wisconsin. They also located suspects in a business burglary that had removed an entire cash register and, in another case, surrounded a building after a property owner viewing video coordinated with deputies so a suspect surrendered. Palomarra said city investments in LPR technology have “positive rewards.”
Commissioner Crystal Patterson raised a recent series of thefts in the gated Yardley neighborhood. Palomarra described an active criminal investigation: investigators allege a home cleaner who worked in multiple residences used her access to facilitate thefts and brought others to remove property; deputies recovered a large amount of items, some of which have been returned and others that are still being processed.
Palomarra asked potential victims — particularly in Kings Point and other northwest Broward communities — to contact Detective Danny Polo or the Victim Services Office to check whether recovered property could belong to them. He also reminded residents about several community policing events and crime-prevention programs and said the BSO is holding a Shred-A-Thon and other public events.
No formal commission action followed the update. Commissioners sought further outreach to HOAs and senior communities to raise awareness about the investigation and to examine outreach and vendor-verification options for senior households and gated communities.
