Capt. Roger Gibbens 
During a quarterly community meeting at East Brainerd Church of Christ earlier this month, Capt. Roger Gibbens of the Chattanooga Police Department presented crime statistics pulled from 2014-2016.
The data was compiled from "part 1 crimes" - larcenies, auto thefts, aggravated assaults, burglaries, robberies, rapes and murders - in Chattanooga's District 4, which encompasses East Brainerd, Concord and Summit.
According to the data, the number of part 1 crimes went up in 2015, but almost every number went down in 2016. In total, 1,580 part 1 crimes were recorded in 2015 while 1,481 were recorded last year.
"Which is completely contrary to what everyone thinks," Gibbens said.
The exceptions were robberies and motor vehicle thefts, whose number rose. That is not the case this year.
The police department also compared numbers for part 1 crimes in District 4 from January-May 2016 to those from January-May 2017. Though overall crime is down 4 percent, Gibbens said most crimes are trending upward. He noted, however, that motor vehicle thefts are down almost 14 percent and theft of motor vehicle parts is down almost 24 percent.
"We all thought that's where all the trends were as far as crime in the area," Gibbens said of motor vehicle thefts and theft of motor vehicle parts, "but in District 4, it's gone down. I can't say that for other districts around the city."
Burglaries in the district were also down almost 14 percent from January-May as compared to last year, another surprise given the rise in car break-ins due to unlocked doors late last year.
"I would like to take credit for the fact that we have been focusing on burglaries and thefts for motor vehicles as the reason, but I can't claim that; I don't know why it is," Gibbens said of the recent decrease. "Could be we arrested the right people last year and now they're not out to commit these crimes this year. I don't know."
In order to keep crime rates throughout the city low, Gibbens said he has been encouraging officers and sergeants to fill out their reports while parked in neighborhoods or near businesses that have had high rates of burglaries and car break-ins. The goal, he said, is for the police department to be as visible as it can despite its limited manpower.
The department is planning to add 14 new officers to increase the number of officers from 486 to 500.
The department is further stretched by having several officers on leave, he said, and though officers try to patrol the neighborhoods as often as possible, this makes it difficult for them to be proactive in regards to curbing criminal offenses.
Gibbens said nine of the new hires will be on patrol throughout the city, while the other five will be part of a team dedicated to cracking down on gun violence throughout Chattanooga.
Before any new officers can be hired, however, funding for the new positions would need to be approved by the Chattanooga City Council.
"That's a budgeting thing," Gibbens said. "We can't do that unless it's approved by the city council, and as you know, that's a laborious process."