Frankford Gazette

Philly Blotter

Chris Sawyer, guru of Philadelinquency has done it again.  I have been using his Courtwatch data since he started offering it on the web site.  Courtwatch made court and arrest information for the first time in a usable way to the public.  It became possible to find out if an arrest had been made for a particular crime and the status of the case.

Now here he comes with an app for the iphone or android called Philly Blotter that puts it all in one place in the palm of your hand.  If you want to know what is going on around your house, you can customize a zone for yourself and it will give you the information.  If a burglary hits your street you can followup to see if an arrest has been made.  You can filter in or out any number of crimes.  One of the best features is that it gives you the definitions of the various crime categories and the possible penalty for each.  It is not free but at $4.99 it is a bargain.  Take a closer look at this link.

Frankford Crime Report for PSA1 for October

The crime report for October thanks to date from OpenDataPhilly shows continued drop in major crimes with a slight upturn in crimes using firearms.  Increased police presence may be the key.