Fairfax crime dropped 5 percent in 2009; violent crime down 14 percent

Serious crime in Fairfax County decreased nearly five percent in 2009 over the previous year, and the most violent crime -- murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault -- decreased by 14.6 percent, Fairfax police said Friday.

The drop ended a string of two years where crime had increased over the previous year.
Burglaries in Fairfax declined to the lowest total in the county's statistical history dating to 1970, with only 1,385 break-ins reported in a county of more than one million.

Aggravated assaults dropped 20 percent -- from 389 to 306 -- and robberies, which had been plaguing Fairfax in recent years, plunged more than 14 percent, following a 25 percent drop in 2008.

Serious crime, as measured by the FBI, is defined as murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft. Larcenies, which make up the vast majority of the raw crime numbers, declined by 3.6 percent last year after soaring more than 14 percent in 2008.

Auto theft in Fairfax dropped nearly 15 percent, the seventh straight year of declines in that category. Only rape saw an increase, from 95 to 105, among serious crimes in the area's largest jurisdiction.

The number of homicides in Fairfax decreased from 22 in 2008 to 14 last year, and only one of those 14 remains unsolved. The unsolved killing is of Jose Luis Ordones Aguilar, 26, of Reston, on a bike path near Reston Parkway on April 18

-- Tom Jackman