A headline in yesterday's Royal Gazette , stating the cases of reported crime had fallen 38 percent should have read 28 percent.

Reported crimes fell by 28 percent in third quarter of this year, although attacks on Police increased as a result of the crackdown on gang-related crime.

The number of recorded sexual assaults and sexual exploitations of minors increased dramatically, but Police said this is due to members of the public having confidence to report these crimes.

There were nine reported sexual assaults in the quarter to September 30 compared to one last year, and six cases of sexual exploitation of young people, as opposed to one last year.

But Acting Deputy Commissioner Jonathan Smith said yesterday that most of these cases dated back years.

Police recorded 687 crimes in the quarter, compared to 962 for the same period last year.

Crimes of violence fell from 78 to 67, thefts from 183 to 83, breaking and entering from 318 to 241, and thefts of cars and bikes dropped from 385 to 296.

Police are particularly pleased with the drop in the number of the crimes of violence, which is two incidents more than the lowest for the quarter in five years.

But Acting Assistant Commissioner George Jackson conceded the rise in attacks on Police officers from five in the same period last year to 11 in this quarter is probably due to the operation to crackdown on gang-related incidents.

He said: "With the increasing Police activities there are interdictions and those arrested sometimes do not wish to be arrested and will vent their anger.

"In crowd situations where we are called to intercede with warring parties, we tend to get assaulted, but it is not an alarming trend.'' In the long-term, however, the number of assaults on officers is falling.

Referring to the gang violence and recent attacks on women, he said they should be "foreign to Bermuda'' but said they were "perhaps symptomatic of underlying social issues''.

Police had set up a special unit to deal with recent violence, resulting in more than 20 people being arrested over the last 20 days, charged with offences such as unlawful wounding and weapons possession.

The major incident room dealing with attacks on women was making "some progress'' although he could not go into details.

Police release crime statistics The number of removals of items from vehicles (296) was the lowest third quarter figure in five years.

Mr. Smith said the annual rate of burglaries is scheduled to be 14.5 per 1,000 houses this year.

Thefts from bikes will be 37 per 1,000, compared to 50 per 1,000, which will mean 330 less bikes stolen -- some $800-900,000 worth of property.

Road traffic accidents are running at 7.5 per day, just under three of them involving personal injury -- marginally less than last year.

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