A rise in property crime in Redmond last year was behind an increase in the city’s overall crime rate, according to a recent presentation from the police chief that noted the number of reported rapes officers recorded in 2015 was “high” despite the violent crime rate dropping.

The presentation, which Redmond Police Chief Dave Tarbet gave during a City Council work session earlier this month, summarized crime report records that the Redmond Police Department collected in 2015. According to the report, a recorded 38.44 property crimes per 1,000 people last year caused an increase in the city’s overall crime rate. The overall rate in 2015, 40.87 crimes per 1,000 people, increased from 37.97 crimes per 1,000 people in 2014.

Tarbet said the increase in property crime was at least partially due to more than 200 reports of shoplifting from Wal-Mart in 2015.

And although the number of violent crimes — 2.43 crimes per 1,000 people — continued a nearly uninterrupted decline from 2008, the 10 reported rapes RPD recorded in 2015 were about three times what Tarbet said he would expect in a city of less than 30,000. In 2014, the number of reported rapes the department recorded was 15, and in 2010 it was 17.

“In my opinion, to be average in statistical terms (the number) should be down to two or three or four a year,” he told City Council at the work session.

The department’s crime rate findings are based on the Redmond’s total 2014 population of 27,733 — the most recent number available when he compiled the report, Tarbet said.

In an interview with the Bulletin on Monday, Tarbet clarified that the recorded rape report average he gave at the work session was only his opinion and not based on an actual average of the crime rate of similar-sized cities to Redmond.

“I would think for a city our size, two or three a year would be a low rate,” he said. “Ten is too many.”

According to the crime report, which the FBI will include in its annual Uniform Crime Report later this year, the number of recorded rape reports in Redmond has fluctuated since 2008, with the 10 in 2015 falling on the low end. In 2008 the department recorded nine rape reports, while in the following three years it recorded 16, 17, and 16 reports. In 2012 and 2013 the number fell to 11, and then rose to 15 in 2014. The 2014 number tends to be higher than other similar-sized cities in Oregon, according to the FBI’s 2014 report, but not always.

For instance, Tualatin, population 27,079, recorded six reported rapes in 2014, and West Linn, population 26,202, recorded three. Meanwhile, Forest Grove, population 22,748, recorded 18 reported rapes. All those cities are in the Portland area.

The FBI highly discourages comparing different cities’ crime rates as a way to measure how effective a law enforcement agency is because of differences between municipalities that can’t be accounted for.

It should be noted that the number of crimes recorded in RPD’s report are complaints the department determined to be crimes — not arrests in connection with those crimes, or crimes charged by the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office.

“Ten is the actual number of rapes that occurred based on the (Redmond Police Department’s) investigation, not based on what was initially reported,” Tarbet said Monday. “A rape could be reported, and an initial reporting officer could have taken it as a rape and recorded it as a rape offense, but then a detective would look into it and finds it to be something else. We wouldn’t report the rape.”

Of the 10 rape reports recorded, six are listed as “open” and still under investigation, according to a case list that RPD provided. Two of the cases fall in more of a gray area — “suspended, pending further information” and “unfounded.” Another two were classified as “exceptionally cleared” — one because the alleged victim refused to cooperate and the other because the DA’s office declined prosecution. That DA-rejected case, which was reported in October 2015, was the only report that has resulted in an arrest so far.

District Attorney John Hummel could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

— Reporter: 541-617-7829,

awest@bendbulletin.com