Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks Nation’s Safest Big Cities

Simi Valley ranked as the safest big city in the nation last year with Thousand Oaks coming in a close second, according to FBI statistics released Sunday.

For the sixth time in nine years, cities in Ventura County have topped the list for the most crime-free cities over 100,000 in the United States.

Thousand Oaks, which ranked first in 1995, was closely followed by Amherst Town, N.Y.--a college community in suburban Buffalo. Amherst Town was ranked as the safest in the nation for the three years between 1992 and 1994.

The 1996 crime statistics come just as both Ventura County communities were shaken by episodes of violent crime--a Thousand Oaks bank teller slain in a robbery and an entire Simi Valley family gunned down by a distraught father.

“When you’ve just had something like the murder of [teller] Monica Leech or the senseless killings in Simi Valley, you don’t place a tremendous amount of weight on crime statistics or your city’s national ranking,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Bob Brooks, who oversees police services in Thousand Oaks. “But we’re always proud that we do well, and it really reflects well on the whole community and not just the department.”

Leech, 39, was shot execution-style April 28 in a takeover robbery. Her two assailants are still at large.

Last week, Ahmad Salman of Simi Valley shot his wife, Nabela, and the couple’s three young sons, before killing himself in the bloodiest killing spree in the city’s history.

Tuesday’s killings were deeply disturbing for residents, officials said, and shook the sense of safety for some in the city that had only one homicide in 1996 and four in 1995.

“It is kind of ironic that we had both of these things happen in the same week,” said Simi Valley Police Chief Randy Adams, of the murders and the crime statistics. “It just serves as a reminder . . . that even in the safest city in the nation we are not immune to crime. We cannot say it will never happen here, but we are proud to say that it rarely does.”

Adams attributed the continued reductions in crime in part to the strong support of his department by residents and by the City Council.

“And I have to give credit to the men and women on the force,” he said. “I’m very proud of what they do day-in and day-out.”

The national rankings are based on a ratio of city population to crime reported in eight categories--homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, auto theft and arson. The FBI compiles the statistical data but does not rank cities, officials said.

According to the agency, all crimes reported declined by 3% in 1996 across the nation.

Those declines are attributed to changing demographics--particularly an aging population, according to experts who follow crime trends.

The downward trend both in the nation as a whole and in Ventura County will probably reverse itself in the late 1990s as teenagers and young adults begin to make up a greater proportion of the population, officials said.

Crime trends in Ventura County mirrored the national decline, officials said, with crime rates dropping to levels not seen for almost 30 years.

With the help of neighborhood patrols and a beefed-up gang enforcement detail, Simi Valley police reduced crime by about 17% in 1996 over the previous year. Thousand Oaks had about a 5% reduction in crime in the same year.

Despite the overall declines in crime, several local departments saw some anomalies in the numbers.

The Sheriff’s Department reported earlier this year that it saw a big jump--over 40%--in the number of arsons in 1996.

Officials are attributing the jump to a handful of serial arsonists. For example, one arsonist is believed responsible for as many as 15 fires in Thousand Oaks in one month last year.

The other cities in the top five nationally were Santa Clarita, which grabbed the fourth spot, and Sunnyvale, a San Francisco Peninsula community, which was ranked fifth.

Two of the nation’s 12 largest cities, San Jose and Honolulu, were also among the safest of the more than 200 cities compared.

Oxnard, the only other Ventura County city included in the large-city comparisons, did not make the top 20 listing but its crime rate continues to be well below the state and national average.

Officials in Simi Valley--which has consistently had one of the lowest crime rates in the nation--said the city’s success in suppressing crime in 1996 was due in part to citizen patrols and local support for the Police Department.

“I think we’ve built a reputation that prevents people from coming here to commit crimes,” Mayor Greg Stratton said. “They know if they do, they’re going to get caught.”

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Nation’s Safest Large Cities

Statistics reflect eight categories of violent and property crime of cities with at least 100,000 residents. Crime rates are derived by dividing the number of crimes into population figures taken from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report released in 1996.

City: Crimes per 1,000 residents

Simi Valley: 22.6

Thousand Oaks: 23.5

Amherst Town, N. Y.: 25.7

Santa Clarita: 26.5

Sunnyvale: 29.2

Irvine: 32.6

Livonia, Mich.*: 33.9

Orange: 35.1

Sterling Heights, Mich.: 38.2

Huntington Beach: 38.6

* Livonia omitted arson from the total number of crimes in 1996 reported to the FBI.

Source: 1996 FBI Uniform Crime Report