The Rio Grande Valley much Safer than the rest of Texas

How I wished I had read Dan Solomon’s story published January 23, 2015 by Texas Monthly online edition before my RGV promotional trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana.  The title of the article is “The FBI’s List of the Most Dangerous Cities in Texas” – as you can imagine I quickly rushed to read it hoping they had the correct information, for we know we live in a very safe area that is often tagged as a dangerous place. The Rio Grande Valley is a very safe place to live and visit. And the story was as correct as expected: Here is an excerpt of Solomon’s story. 

THE BORDER IS PRETTY SAFE

Border cities get a bad rap as violent, but the Rio Grande Valley is extremely safe. Of the 24 Texas metro areas ranked by the FBI, Brownsville comes in dead last, with 240 incidents of violent crime per 100,000 people. Nearby McAllen comes in at #18, with 286 per 100,000. 

Things are closer to the middle of the pack in El Paso and Laredo, which place at #13 and #10, respectively. The murder rate in each city is low, at 1.4 and 1.5 (Brownsville also comes in at 1.4, which is the second-lowest behind Abilene at 0.6). The numbers in El Paso, Laredo, and McAllen are all slanted heavily toward aggravated assault. In Brownsville, meanwhile, though the overall numbers for everything are very low, robbery crimes make up a surprisingly high number of cases, at 58.1 per 100,000, good for almost 25% of the violent crime in the city.  

THE PARTS OF SOUTH TEXAS NORTH OF THE BORDER ARE SOMEWHAT LESS SO

Corpus Christi, Victoria, and San Antonio all place within the top 10 on the list (at #7, 8, and 9, respectively). The numbers for all three cities are pretty similar—although Victoria, like Amarillo, has a surprisingly high number of reported rape cases, at 71.5 per 100,000. The average for all Texas cities listed is 36, which means that, again—either Victoria (and Amarillo) have more than twice as many rapes occurring than the rest of the state, or they’re being reported more frequently in those cities than elsewhere. 

That statistic aside, there’s not a lot to parse about those numbers: Corpus has the highest murder rate, at 5.4, of the three, while San Antonio has a lower robbery rate than the other largest metro areas in Texas, Houston and Dallas. 

WHAT A NICE WAY TO START MY SUNDAY! Local media please start reporting news like these, please add some positiveness to the mix- you might increase your viewer numbers.  Thank you Texas Monthly, for I always find so many good – and positive- stories about the Valley. You recently published an article on our “barbacoa” and another incredibly good on our modern architecture legacy plus a delightful travel account of a trip to South Padre Island.

I highly recommend readers to click on the links above and read the entire story. You will love our Valley even more.