SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

The team at Spotcrime would like to thank the Baltimore Crime blog for using our crime maps on a weekly basis. Here is the map shootings that Spotcrime made for Baltimore Crime this week: http://www.spotcrime.com/crimelist/1764177,1747278,1747276,1752373,1752372,1753721,1803869,1760461,1760579,1771148,1772128,1772875,1795785 Thanks again to Baltimore Crime for using our maps!

Spotcrime's sister site, UCrime, has been getting some mentions in university related press recently. University of South Carolina wrote an article about the site this week and the public safety director was quoted as saying he would look into the site to see if it could be utilized for the university. To see the article go to http://media.www.dailygamecock.com/media/storage/paper247/news/2008/08/26/News/Web-Site.Lets.Students.Track.Nearby.Crime-3404262.shtml . A Seattle blog discussed the website in relation to Seattle's University district. To see the blog, go to http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/schoolzone/archives/147016.asp?from=blog_last3 . Another blogger is also a fan of UCrime. The blog is all about campus security at Kansas State and other universities. UCrime received a mention on it today- http://campusecurity.blogspot.com/2008/08/ucrime-gets-more-press.html .To see this blog go to: http://campusecurity.blogspot.com/ .

The link here to the map of the six women found strangled in Baltimore this year. http://www.spotcrime.com/crimelist/1686925,%201420070,%201687422,%201687423,%201687424,1709859

The following link contains the map of the two most recent stabbings in the UK. SpotCrime Map link here. A 16 year old boy outside Manchester and a 17 year old in Croydon were murdered early this morning. Addtionally, the Croydon stabbing was very close in proximity and time to another stabbing on July 21st.

Shootings Mapped in London by SpotCrime.com

Zoomed in view

Within the past week, three cabbies have been robbed at knifepoint in the UK. All three cabbies picked up their passengers, took them to their destinations and then were robbed. Two of the robberies took place in Hatfield and the other was in St. Albans. All of the crimes took place relatively close to each other. For more information and to see these crimes mapped, go to http://www.spotcrime.com/crimelist/1688972,1688974,1688973

In the past six months, five prostitutes have been killed in Baltimore. Four of these deaths have taken place in the past three months. Yolanda Brown, Elizabeth Garrett, Amanda Bishop, Nicole Sesker and Brenda Hatfield were all found naked or partially undressed by the police. Police are having a hard time solving these cases and have few clues. To see SpotCrime’s map of these crimes, go here . To read more about this story, go to http://www.examiner.com/a-1534373~Who_is_killing_the_prostitutes_.html .

A man walked into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters yesterday in Little Rock and shot Chairman Bill Gwatney. The shooter, later identified as Timothy Dale Johnson, 50, shot Gwatney multiple times in the chest and he died a few hours later. Police later in the day got into a chase with Johnson and shot and killed him. Johnson had been fired from his job earlier in the day at Target. Police are investigating if there is a link between the two men. For more information on this story, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303753.html and to see this crime mapped, go to http://www.spotcrime.com/crime/1683239-0a28b19ff2955e4843eb0e03749e1508 .

Two men were arrested today in association with the ice cream parlor shooting in Germany that took place earlier this week. On Tuesday, two men and a woman, the owner of the ice cream shop, died and another man was seriously injured. A disagreement of a personal nature was started between two groups of men and then the violence began. The owner of the ice cream shop was the only casualty that did not have a record. For more information about this story, go to http://www.iht.com/articles/ ap/2008/08/13/europe/EU- Germany-Multiple-Shooting.php and to see it mapped on our website, go to http://spotcrime.com/crime/ 1680977- c897e7c3fc96a5b20816c277d16268 3b .

Eight shootings reported in Baltimore this week as of Wednesday August 13 th. Link here.

The above crime map is from SpotCrime 's Boston Mashup. It contains all the shootings we've been able to map in Boston this year so far.

The stabbing of an American tourist at the Drum Tower in Beijing has been mapped. Link here .

The above crime map shows incidents we have pulled from the Buffalo media. http://spotcrime.com/ny/buffalo

The map above details the reported shootings SpotCrime has captured for the time period of January to August 6, 2008.

Examiner article here It would seem the marginal cost of sharing data once a police agency has formated their data for one outlet would be very small. SpotCrime is capable of converting most any data format. Additionally, SpotCrime has already been called more accurate by an independent technology expert. We are encouraged by any police department that is taking steps to make their data more public. We caution that with the decreased cost of technology and free tools provided by Google that they do not overspend for long term consulting agreements. An alternative approach would be distribute the data publicly through the internet allowing multiple organizations to map and analyze the data. Many cities in the US are following this example including Washington DC, Oakland, Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas. SpotCrime contends that there are potentially many more benefits to making crime data fully public. New discoveries and platforms for this data are only hampered when data is held hosta...

We've changed our assault icon on SpotCrime . Above is a snapshot of our London maps. Most of the assaults shown are stabbings. The red target icon represents shooting.