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Violent crime dips in Ybor City

Despite incidents such as a recent stabbing, police statistics show a drop of as much as 30 percent.

By JAY CRIDLIN
Published July 2, 2005

TAMPA - Brooks Palmer strolled by Ybor City's Masquerade nightclub Monday night on his way to Centro Ybor.

He'd heard on CNN that a 29-year-old man was stabbed to death during a Corrosion of Conformity concert at Masquerade four nights earlier. But shortly after he and a friend passed the club, where posters from the show still hung in the window, Palmer seemed to think little of it.

"There's crime everywhere," said Palmer, 26, who comes to Ybor City two or three times a week. "People make those decisions wherever you go."

His words speak to a little-known fact. Despite Ybor City's reputation for violence and headline-grabbing incidents like the Masquerade stabbing, crime in Ybor City is on the decline.

Since 1999, violent crime in the heart of Ybor has fallen as much as 30 percent, Tampa police statistics show. According to those stats, 1,203 violent crimes and larcenies were recorded there in 2004, compared with an average of 1,702 in each of the previous five years.

That's still more crimes than at International Plaza, Channelside and Hyde Park combined. But that big of a dip in crime in an area so stocked with young turks and alcohol vendors pleases Tampa police.

"Ybor on a busy weekend could get 20,000, 30,000 people a night," said Tampa Police Department Capt. Russell Marcotrigiano. "For the amount of people that are down there and the amount of crime, it's tremendous."

Those who live, work and play in Ybor City are starting to take notice.

"You put 25 bars in a 12-block radius, and something's bound to happen," said Jason Vogt, 29, who rents a house in Ybor City. "But if you're here at 1 in the morning, this place is covered with police officers."

Ybor City, especially the area surrounding the Seventh Avenue drag, was among the neighborhoods that benefited the most from a citywide downswing in violent crime in 2004.

There have been seven murders since 2001 in and around Ybor's hub compared with eight in 1999 and 2000 alone. Other crimes have plummeted. Simple assaults are down 19 percent from 2001; robberies are down 25 percent from 2000; larcenies are down 20 percent from 1999; and auto thefts and break-ins are down a whopping 52.5 percent from 2002.

Marcotrigiano credits the numbers to a "zero-tolerance" attitude and a heightened police presence. There are about 20 to 30 officers out in Ybor each night on weekends.

"We've had a couple of task forces going where we'd make 100 arrests a weekend down there," he said. "Now, the arrest statistics are probably down to 30 to 40 arrests a weekend, and most of them are drinking violations, some drug violations, some fight calls. The serious crimes are not occurring down there. Only in isolated incidents."

It's those isolated incidents that garner the most attention. The Masquerade stabbing was the most recent.

Earlier in June, two plainclothes Tampa police officers shot four teenagers, one of them fatally, as the teens fled an apparent robbery attempt near the Tropicana Restaurant.

The day after Christmas, 21-year-old Kwane Doster, a football star at Robinson High School and Vanderbilt University, was shot and killed during a fight in the parking lot of a Nebraska Avenue sandwich shop.

In October, a 34-year-old man was stabbed to death trying to break up a fight at New World Brewery. Last June, a 24-year-old preschool teacher's assistant was shot in a dispute over money while driving at 18th Street and 17th Avenue, then crashed and burned inside his car.

Matt Argall of Palm Harbor, who works in Ybor City six days a week, said incidents like those propagate Ybor's reputation as unsafe, pushing many 20-somethings toward South Tampa on the weekends.

But if police and city officials can rebuild their trust in Ybor's nightlife, he said, Seventh Avenue can once again become more than just a weekend college hangout.

"There are good clubs," said Argall, 25. "It just has to become a vibe again, a place where people want to be. And the city has to get behind it."

--Jay Cridlin can be reached at cridlin@tampabay.com

[Last modified July 2, 2005, 01:20:07]