Bloomington records record-low serious crimes for 2nd year

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (AP) - Police say Bloomington had a second consecutive year of record-low numbers of serious crimes in 2015.

There were no homicides last year - the first year without one since 1997.

Police Chief Brendan Heffner tells The (Bloomington) Pantagraph (http://bit.ly/1TOkVCO ) that "we will keep working hard" to keep the number low.

The percentage of serious crimes in 2015 was 11.6 percent lower than a year earlier. There were 232 fewer reports of serious crime than the 2,001 in 2014.

The 2014 decrease was 13.3 percent from 2013.

Heffner will present a report on the city's 2015 FBI uniform Crime Report to the City Council on Monday.

FBI statistics cover homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault and battery, burglary, theft, motor vehicle thefts and arson.

___

Information from: The Pantagraph, http://www.pantagraph.com