Auburn Police Chief Bob Lee recently uploaded a “crime map” onto the City of Auburn’s website, where it is available for anybody to see.

To access the site, first go to maps.auburnwa.gov/crimes, click on a particular crime in a neighborhood –  for example, Lakeland Hills or Lea Hill – close in on the desired area on the map and read the crime data for a particular day. A column to the left, “crime search” allows a user to search older data.

For instance,  by clicking on Case Number 14-19493, a simple assault that was reported at 6:07 p.m., Sept. 21, the program takes you to the map, which shows the location on Scenic Drive Southeast, south of the Auburn Black-Diamond Road, where the assault happened.

“So, if a constituent asks what’s going on in my neighborhood,” Lee told members of the City’s Municipal Services Committee Monday afternoon at City Hall, “you could direct them to that website or do it yourself and get them the information.”

The information on the website is distilled from reports put together each Friday by Auburn Police Department Crime Analyst Joe Ryan. Having assembled the crime statistics, Ryan produces a report detailing the number of arrests made that week, the number of Valley Com cad calls, the number of traffic collisions, the number of case reports on domestic violence, and more.

From that, Ryan also creates the two confidential reports.

For the first, Ryan mines data to identify crime trends, auto thefts and burglaries in particular neighborhoods. The information then goes into a report, that is shot out to local and regional law enforcement agencies.

The second confidential report is a daily report specific to auto thefts, burglaries, commercial thefts, thefts from vehicles, etc. This information is then shared with patrol officers at their daily briefings, giving officers an update on the goings on in their patrol districts.

Ryan, Lee noted, is one of two people the Auburn Police Department has trained in the use of facial recognition software.