A man was robbed earlier this month in the 3800 block of Shipping Avenue – the first robbery of the year in the Coconut Grove area, police said.
Be careful what you wish for – or report on – when it comes to crime. That was the message Coconut Grove Police Commander Daniel Kerr delivered earlier this month at the Coconut Grove Ministerial Alliance meeting in the West Grove.
Kerr routinely provides a monthly update on crime at community meetings in the West Grove. Two weeks ago, Kerr delivered back-to-back reports. The first report, on a Monday, was pretty upbeat. “I talked about how crime was down,” Kerr said.
By the end of the week, Kerr was walking that back. “I’m never going to say that again,” he joked. “Talk about how good we’re doing. I’m always going to say we’re doing bad.”
The difference?
“I had a robbery last night,” Kerr told the Ministerial Alliance on May 3. The robbery occurred in the 3800 block of Shipping Avenue, behind the Douglas Road Metrorail Station on U.S. 1, near the Avalon Merrick Park apartment building.
Kerr described the robbery as the first of the year in Coconut Grove even though, technically speaking, the crime didn’t happen in Coconut Grove.
“A man waiting for his car in the morning, he was approached by a guy, who robbed him. The first robbery in the Grove this year,” Kerr said. He did not say whether the assailant was armed.
“To give you some context, when I started here… 25 years ago or so, we averaged probably 200 robberies a month in Coconut Grove,” Kerr added.
The difference? The chronic offenders who committed many of those robberies were targeted by police and removed from the neighborhood, Kerr said. Last year, there was one robbery in Coconut Grove, he added.
“Now, we have equaled the number from last year,” Kerr said. “What it is, it’s a testament to the removal of those chronic offenders. Back in the day, we had these guys who were just chronic offenders.”
Going further back in time, to 1982, Kerr said there were an average of 60 robberies a month just at one intersection in the West Grove – where Grand Avenue meets Douglas Road (SW 37th Avenue).
“It almost seems like it’s not possible, right?”
The Spotlight asked Miami Police to provide the incident report for the robbery described by Kerr. As of May 12, the police had not provided the report.
