Indy Digest: July 11, 2024
Early one Sunday not quite two months ago, the hubby woke up early. He couldn’t get back to sleep, so he went out into the living room to read a book.
It was about 6 a.m. when he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He turned his head—and saw a man, on our balcony, attempting to steal one of our bicycles. The hubby got up, put on shorts and rushed outside; by this time, the would-be thief had placed the bike on top of a bush below the balcony, and was climbing down. (We live on the second floor, and we’re still not 100 percent sure how the man managed to get onto our balcony—but it took some daring and a lot of athleticism.) The man saw my husband, left the bike and sprinted away, running through our apartment complex’s parking lot and hopping the fence.
“Really?!” the hubby shouted at the guy before retrieving the bike and bringing it back upstairs. The bikes weren’t locked up before—but they definitely are now.
This happened just a couple of days after a man went on an insane rampage in downtown Palm Springs. That Friday night, a man in an SUV unsuccessfully tried to ram “Forever Marilyn,” and then literally drove through Sunny Days, a clothing store, before pushing a vehicle out of his way so he could flee down Palm Canyon Drive. (The suspect was caught a short time later.)
Facebook and Nextdoor are chock full of complaints about the city of Palm Springs being rife with crime—because, well, Facebook and Nextdoor are where people go to complain and opine, often with no facts or figures to back up said complaints or opinions (as we discussed in this space on Monday). So after this adventurous weekend, I decided to actually obtain facts and figures to answer the question: Is crime in Palm Springs actually on the rise?
The answer is … no. Crime is actually down slightly—but as for giving you specifics regarding which crimes are up, and which are down, that gets a little complicated.
To be clear, these complications have nothing to do with the Palm Springs city representatives who provided me with the pertinent data; both police Lt. Gustavo Araiza and public information officer Tamara Wadkins were prompt and extremely helpful. The problem lies within the data itself—and the whole mess shows how government record-keeping can muddle even what one would think are the simplest “facts.”
Through 2022, the Palm Springs Police Department used the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) methodology to track crimes. Using the data provided by the PSPD, I can tell you that residential burglary reports fell from 304 in 2021 to 219 in 2022—quite a decrease—while non-residential burglaries also fell, from 211 to 175.
In 2023 … well, this is where things get muddy. The police switched to a new reporting methodology—the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The switch, in the long run, should be a good thing, because NIBRS reports are more detailed. According to a PSPD graphic: “NIBRS data more accurately reflects the types of crimes addressed by police agencies, like simple assault, animal cruelty, destruction of property, intimidation, and identity theft. The broad scope of information collected in NIBRS will significantly improve the nation’s understanding of crime and public safety.”
That’s great—but the change makes it nigh impossible to truly compare stats up to 2022 with stats from 2023 on.
On the 2023 offense report provided by Lt. Araiza, it says there were 289 burglaries reported in 2023 … but it doesn’t specify whether those are residential, non-residential or both. Given there’s no breakdown into residential vs. non-residential, one could assume it includes both—but assumptions like this often lead to mistakes. I could go back and ask Lt. Araiza about this, but there are a LOT of questions I’d have to truly compare the two different types of reports.
Wadkins said via email that “crime reports are actually on the decrease, with 2,544 crimes in the city in 2021 and 2,330 in 2023.” So, yay, crime is indeed down.
You may ask why I am focusing on just Palm Springs rather than the entire valley. Well, that leads to another issue: There are nine cities in the valley. Four of them have their own police forces, each of whom keep their own stats; the other five contract with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, which also keeps its own stats. Given the difficulty I had trying—without much success—to decipher just one city’s crime stats, it would be a truly herculean task to try to gather and figure out valley-wide stats. Maybe one day I’ll tackle that task, but that day is not today.
Two lessons here: 1. Don’t believe the complainers and opiners on social media. 2. Stats can be confusing.
If you’re a data-loving person, and you want to see for yourself, here are the links to the reports in question—the UCR reports from 2020, 2021 and 2022, and the NIBRS report for 2023. (I’m also including the monthly reports for January, February and March 2024, just for fun!)
—Jimmy Boegle
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The Weekly Independent Comics Page for July 11, 2024!
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July 11th, 2024
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More News
• A group of affiliated LGBTQ+ business/events X/Twitter accounts—including @ILoveGayPalmSprings and @GayDesertGuide—were suspended by X without explanation or apparent recourse. According to Matt Skallerud via Gay Desert Guide: “At exactly 6:30 a.m. Eastern Time (on July 4) over 250 profiles from Pink Media and the #ILoveGay Network were banned on X (formerly Twitter). WTF????? It appears that this mass suspension was based on what they cited as a ‘user report’ claiming we had broken one of the X rules. Which rule we may have violated remains a mystery. Interestingly, our profiles, including ones that were more business-focused and not part of the #ILoveGay network, and a few profiles that hadn’t been used in years, all became suspended at the same exact moment, which can only really be done internally by X. It’s pretty clear that someone inside X had done their homework and this was a well-researched, well-prepared and very intentional takedown of a network of LGBTQ+ X profiles that had well over 1 million followers worldwide. We have also discovered X took down a wide variety of LGBTQ+ tourism profiles, including some very specific to Palm Springs: @GayDesertGuide, @ILoveGayPalmSprings, @OMGPSP, as well as national and international tourism sites like FunMaps, Visit Britain’s GayBritain account and many more.”
• Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court significantly weakened federal agencies’ abilities to regulate. Our partners at Calmatters look at how this ruling may play out in California: “Under three back-to-back rulings, regulations that touch nearly every aspect of the American economy and American life (see: rules on food safety, water quality, overtime pay, medical billing, carbon emissions, fisheries monitoring and housing discrimination, to name a few) may soon be harder to enforce, more convenient to challenge in court and easier to strike down once challenged. For the conservative legal movement and for major business interests who bristle under what they see as an overreaching federal regulatory apparatus, the rulings mark a once-in-a-generation victory against the ‘administrative state.’ But in California, the effects of those rulings may be a bit more muted, legal experts say. California has an administrative state of its own. From worker safeguards to water regulations to LGBTQ-protections on college campuses, the rules enforced by California state agencies often meet and exceed the stringency of their federal counterparts. If judges begin swatting down federal regulations as a result of the recent decisions, California’s own rules could serve as a regulatory backup.”
• Another recent U.S. Supreme Court decision determined it was OK for local governments to ban homeless people from sleeping or camping in public—and at least one Coachella Valley city is taking action. Our friends at the Palm Springs Post report: “The Palm Springs City Council voted 3-1—with one abstention—to approve a controversial ordinance regulating homeless encampments and sleeping on public property Tuesday night, despite concerns from some council members and public commenters. The new ordinance makes it a violation to set up an encampment or sleep anywhere on public property in the city. However, the ordinance comes with several caveats for Palm Springs police officers when enforcing the rule. If there are no shelter beds available in the city, the ordinance will not be enforced in certain situations, like if an unhoused person is on a street, sidewalk, park, or open space. The ordinance will be enforced, regardless of shelter availability, if an unhoused person is in a waterway, within two blocks of a school or shelter, discharging waste, or causing or threatening harm. … City Attorney Jeffrey Ballinger presented the ordinance, emphasizing it is not meant to criminalize homelessness but rather serve as ‘one tool’ in addressing the issue.”
• The Albertsons stores in Palm Desert and Palm Springs, and the Vons stores in La Quinta and Palm Springs, will change hands if federal regulators agree to a merger between Kroger (aka Ralph’s) and Albertson’s (aka Vons and, well, Albertsons). The Orange County Register says: “The companies have started notifying staff at affected locations, Chief Executive Officer Rodney McMullen wrote in a memo to employees on Tuesday. Workers, a majority of them in Southern California, will become employees of C&S Wholesale Grocers after the transaction closes, McMullen wrote, and will remain as Kroger and Albertsons staff until then. C&S has committed to transferring pay and health plans and assuming all collective bargaining agreements, he added. The grocers, which announced their $25 billion merger in October 2022, are sharing the list ahead of a trial expected in August that will decide the outcome of their deal. Kroger and Albertsons agreed to sell a package of stores and other facilities to C&S, boosting the number to 579 from 413 in April after the Federal Trade Commission blocked the tie-up. The divestment sale was valued at $2.9 billion in April.”
• What a horrifying headline: “64K women and girls became pregnant due to rape in states with abortion bans, study estimates.” More details from NBC News: “More than 64,000 women and girls became pregnant because of rape in states that implemented abortion bans after Roe v. Wade was overruled, according to a new research estimate published online Wednesday. The research letter, published by JAMA Internal Medicine and headed up by the medical director at Planned Parenthood of Montana, estimated that nearly 520,000 rapes were associated with 64,565 pregnancies across 14 states, most of which had no exceptions that allowed for terminations of pregnancies that occurred as a result of rape. Texas topped the list, with 45% of the rape-related pregnancies in states with no rape exception, researchers estimated. Ninety-one percent of the estimated rape-related pregnancies took place in states without exceptions for rape, according to the researchers.”
• Today’s recall news involves … BMWs! The Associated Press says: “BMW of North America is recalling more than 390,000 vehicles in the U.S. because they are equipped with airbag inflators that can explode, leading to a potentially serious injury or death. The original steering wheel may have been replaced with a sport or M-sport steering wheel equipped with a Takata inflator, the agency said. If the inflator explodes, it may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants of a vehicle, resulting in serious injury or death, the NHTSA said. BMW has not received any reports of any accidents or injuries in the U.S. that may be related to this issue, according to the latest report.”
• The film/TV industry in the U.S. is in rough shape. The Los Angeles Times reports: “The film and TV production drought plaguing the U.S. entertainment industry appears to be ‘here to stay,’ according to a sobering new report by ProdPro. The tracking company found that production in the United States was down about 40% in the second quarter of 2024 compared to peak-TV levels of filming activity during the same period in 2022. For nearly two years, Hollywood has suffered a stark decline in film and TV shoots that has prolonged mass unemployment and mental health crises among entertainment workers. Globally, production in the second quarter of the year was down by about 20%, compared to 2022.”
• Also from the Los Angeles Times: Another large insurer is requesting a massive rate hike in California: “Allstate is seeking to raise its California homeowners insurance premiums by an average of 34%—which would be the largest rate increase this year amid the state’s insurance crisis. If approved by the state’s Department of Insurance, the rate hike would affect more than 350,000 policyholders and would exceed a 30% increase sought last month by State Farm, the state’s largest homeowners’ insurer. The sixth-largest homeowners insurer in the state, Allstate first filed for a 39.6% rate increase last year and in January amended its request to 34.1%, according to the insurance department.”
• And finally … I blurted out “YIKES!” when I read this USA Today headline: “Are tampons safe or harmful? Study finds that tampons contain arsenic, lead, other metals.” I repeat: Yikes! Some details: “A new study has found that tampons contain several metals, including arsenic and lead. ‘Our findings point towards the need for regulations requiring the testing of metals in tampons by manufacturers,’ the study says. The study, which was published by Environment International on July 3, analyzed 30 tampons from 14 tampon brands and found they had measurable concentrations of (16) metals. … ‘Although toxic metals are ubiquitous and we are exposed to low levels at any given time, our study clearly shows that metals are also present in menstrual products and that women might be at higher risk for exposure using these products,’ said study co-author Kathrin Schilling.”
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