Burrillville Ridge Burglaries Down, Violent Crime Up: Report

BURR RIDGE, IL – Burr Ridge saw a drop in property crimes in 2023, but an increase in violent crimes, according to the police department's annual report.

Last year, the village recorded seven residential burglaries, which was down from 18 the previous year. Over the last seven years, 2023 had the second lowest number of burglaries. In 2019, there were six.

"We have talked about traveling crime tourism," Deputy Police Chief Marc Loftus told the Village Board on Monday. "Crime groups (are) coming in and traveling through the north suburbs – Burr Ridge, towns like ours – in committing burglaries."

He continued, "We've worked with multiple agencies to try and combat this and try to investigate it further, with some success. As you can see, residential burglaries have gone down."

Also in 2023, burglaries to vehicles numbered 18, down from 21 the previous year. From 2017 to 2020, the number of such burglaries ranged from 31 to 46. 2021 saw a low of 14.

According to the report, violent crimes – consisting of murder, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated battery – increased to nine in 2023. That's up from four the previous year. Over the last seven years, the violent crime number has ranged from three to nine.

Last year, the nine violent crimes were made up of one sexual assault, two robberies and six aggravated batteries.

"Aggravated batteries increased because of a lot of road rage incidents, with displays of firearms," Loftus said. "Thanks to the implementation of our Flock cameras, we're catching a lot of these."

Here are the numbers of crimes in Burr Ridge over the last seven years:

Residential burglary
2017: 19
2018: 17
2019: 6
2020: 13
2021: 11
2022: 18
2023: 7

Burglary to vehicles
2017: 31
2018: 36
2019: 46
2020: 43
2021: 14
2022: 21
2023: 18

Car thefts
2017: 9
2018: 11
2019: 13
2020: 11
2021: 4
2022: 11
2023: 10

Violent crime (murder, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated battery)
2017: 9
2018: 3
2019: 5
2020: 8
2021: 6
2022: 4
2023: 9

Source: Burr Ridge Police Department Annual Report