Hoover crime, arrests increase slightly in 2021

Reported crime in Hoover increased 7% in 2021, but the numbers are still very low for a city the size of Hoover, police Chief Nick Derzis said.

Police knew it would be hard to duplicate the very low numbers from 2020 when people stayed home more due to the COVID-19 pandemic and businesses were shut down, Derzis said.

“We knew we would see an increase from 2020, but we’re still very, very pleased with the 2021 stats,” the chief said.

Total offenses in crime categories reported to the FBI rose 7% from 3,749 in 2020 to 4,016 in 2021, but that’s still below the 4,458 crimes in 2019, 4,618 crimes in 2018, 5,195 crimes in 2017 and 4,799 crimes in 2016, records show.

The biggest increases in 2021 were in weapons law violations and thefts of vehicles.

Hoover recorded 95 weapons law violations in 2021, compared to 59 in 2020 — a 61% increase and the greatest number of weapons law violations since at least 2016. Most of those likely were people carrying a concealed weapon without a permit or people possessing a firearm who were forbidden to do so, such as someone convicted of a felony, police Capt. Keith Czeskleba said.

The likely reason for the increase is that police stopped more vehicles in 2021 than they did in previous years, Czeskleba said. “When you stop more vehicles, you’re going to encounter more people carrying guns,” he said.

Derzis said he is absolutely against legislation introduced in the Alabama Legislature this year that would allow people to carry hidden, loaded handguns in public without a permit or background check.

“It makes no sense whatsoever,” Derzis said. “We come across a lot of people that don’t have a permit, and a lot of them — they’re here to commit crime, and it gives us an opportunity to find out who they are and what they’re here for.”

Alabama already has a law that allows people to carry guns openly, but doing away with the permit requirement for concealed guns would be a bad move, he said.

Czeskleba agreed, saying it takes a tool out of the police toolbox to prevent crime.

“If we can intercept somebody that has a weapon and they don’t have a permit, a lot of times these folks — they have bad intentions,” Czeskleba said. “They’re not here carrying guns just simply for protection. Without that tool, that’s going to limit us from getting guns out of the hands of people that shouldn’t have them.”

Getting a permit is easy and inexpensive, he said. In Jefferson County it costs $7.50 a year, and in Shelby County, it costs $20 per year.

“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make in order to ensure the safety of the community,” Czeskleba said.

On a related note, Hoover police say they are very concerned with the number of people who are having firearms stolen out of their vehicles. There were 113 firearms stolen out of automobiles in Hoover in 2021 and 481 firearms stolen out of vehicles in the past five years, Derzis said.

More than 90% of the auto burglaries in Hoover are from unlocked vehicles, he added.

“We talk, year in and year out, about ‘Please lock your cars. Lock your firearms up and take your firearms out of your cars,’” Derzis said. “It just seems like a lot of people are not taking it seriously.”

People often wonder how criminals get their hands on guns that are used in crimes, and this is exactly how, the chief said.

“When someone is taking a gun out of a car, they’re obviously committing a crime, and we can be assured that that gun will probably be used in another crime,” he said.

Vehicle thefts

There were 130 vehicles stolen in Hoover in 2021, a 44% increase from 90 stolen vehicles in 2020, records show. It was also the greatest number of vehicle thefts since 2008, when there were 140 vehicles stolen in the city.

Czeskleba and Derzis said they believe most of the vehicles stolen in Hoover are stolen from car dealerships, often when people take a test drive and don’t return the vehicle or submit bad checks or false information when purchasing a vehicle.

Of course, there also are occasions when vehicles are stolen from people’s driveways or parking lots at apartment complexes, office complexes and shopping centers, but these days, newer cars are hard to steal without keys, Czeskleba said.

There are not as many occasions of people busting out windows and putting a screwdriver to a steering column to hotwire the vehicle, he said.

Sometimes the vehicle thefts are just a matter of people leaving their keys in the car when they exit, Czeskleba said. A thief may just be breaking into the vehicle to steal from it, discover the keys and decide to take the whole vehicle instead.

Last year, one man stole five or six vehicles from gas stations when people went inside to pay or buy something and left their keys in the vehicle, Czeskleba said. The man seemed to just like the thrill of joyriding in somebody else’s vehicle for a while, and “we ended up catching him,” Czeskleba said.

National comparisons

The crime rate in Hoover compares well with cities of similar size nationally, Derzis said.

National statistics for 2020 and 2021 are not yet available, but according to the FBI, cities with a population between 50,000 and 100,000 averaged 75.8 robberies per 100,000 people in 2019, while Hoover’s rate was 31.7 robberies per 100,000 people in 2019, 21.4 robberies per 100,000 people in 2020 and 25.9 robberies per 100,000 people in 2021.

With Hoover’s population being less than 100,000, the actual number of robberies in Hoover for those years was 27 in 2019, 19 in 2020 and 24 in 2021, records show. While the number of robberies ticked up 26% in 2021, the numbers are still significantly lower than most years over the past 20 years. There were 100 or more robberies in 2003, 2004 and 2006.

Assaults were up 13% in 2021 from 749 to 848, the highest since 857 in 2016. Of those, felony assaults were up 34% from 59 to 79. The vast majority of assaults were misdemeanors. Simple assaults were up 45% from 470 in 2020 to 681 in 2021, while intimidation cases (also considered a form of assault) fell from 220 in 2020 to 88 in 2021.

There were two homicides in Hoover in 2021.

The first occurred on Jan. 22 at The Woods of Hoover apartment complex off John Hawkins Parkway when 19-year-old Kristopher Michael Shelley Jr. of Hoover was shot in the head while in a vehicle. Police said 18-year-old Kendall Patrick Langham of Bessemer shot Shelley. Langham was charged with capital murder and is awaiting trial.

The second homicide occurred in March in The Highlands subdivision when a 51-year-old woman was discovered shot to death in her home. Police said they believe her husband from whom she was separated, shot her before killing himself at his parents’ home in Riverchase.

Hoover typically has five or fewer homicides each year.

Community support

Derzis said Hoover has been fortunate to have mayors and council members who have been very supportive of public safety.

“They usually are very receptive to conversations with the Police Department involving our budget and additional tools we need to do our job,” the chief said. “With talk all over the country the last few years of defunding police, I’m very happy to say we certainly don’t hear that from our mayor and council here.”

The mayor last year proposed adding four police officers to the force and having them stationed at the Riverchase Galleria as a regular patrol beat, and the City Council approved the move.

As of early February, the Police Department had not hired the additional officers yet but did have existing officers already working at the Galleria to cover the new beat, Derzis said. Those shifts are being covered as extra duty shifts, he said.

Police started beefing up their presence at the Galleria within the past several years following several shootings there, including the fatal shooting of an 8-year-old boy in July 2020. However, the newly approved positions will put officers there on a more regular basis, and eventually it will be the same officers all the time, which will allow them to implement more community policing strategies as they become more familiar with the mall and its tenants, Derzis said.

“It’s a lot easier sometimes to operate and enforce things from the inside out than from the outside in,” he said. “We want to make sure our community and surrounding communities of people that want to come and shop can come and do it in a safe environment.”

Recruitment of qualified police officers has become an issue across the country and will be a priority for 2022, the chief said.

“We’re still meeting our goals. We’re getting the quality of individuals we want to get with the Hoover Police Department, but it is an issue — more of an issue today than it’s ever been in my career,” Derzis said. “We’re still getting quality candidates, but not as many as we used to.”

The Hoover City Council in 2018 increased pay for police officers as an incentive to retain and recruit officers, but police work is not easy and not for everybody, Derzis said.

Also, increased negative attitudes toward police from the public across the country have reduced interest in the job, he said. That said, “the community here in Hoover is very supportive of us and our mission,” Czeskleba said.

Arrests

One other note of interest in the crime stats is that arrests were up 21% from 2,274 in 2020 to 2,753 in 2021. However, they still were significantly lower than the years prior to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hoover police made 3,119 arrests in 2016, 3430 in 2017, 3513 in 2018 and 3,603 in 2019.

Czeskleba and Derzis attributed the decline in arrests from prior years to fewer people getting out and about during the pandemic, as well as police having less interaction with the public.

“We’re not back to normal, and I don’t know if we’ll ever be back to what we consider normal. It’s still different out there policing,” Derzis said. “There’s just no question we’re still obviously fighting crime to the best of our ability, but we’re still not fighting crime 100% like we used to.”

For example, with social distancing still being encouraged in some circles, some officers may be more lenient on minor offenses and not stop a motorist for an illegal turn, he said.

“We’re probably still not having as much face-to-face contact as we had two to three years ago,” Derzis said.