Niagara Falls to get federal anti-crime help

ALBANY -- A federal team will be sent to Niagara Falls next summer to help combat crime that spikes with the tourist season, Sen. Charles Schumer said.

Some of the most violent crimes -- shootings, robberies and rapes -- have dropped or held steady. But thefts and assaults are rising and always surge during tourist season.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Niagara Falls will be one of eight cities nationwide to get help from a federal team of mostly forensic analysts and advisers. The crime-fighting task force will help local police analyze their crime problems and advise them on new techniques and resources to attack it.

"It will put some of the federal government's top crime-fighting experts on the job in Niagara Falls," Schumer said.

The city welcomed the federal expertise to fight a rise in crime blamed partly on the struggling economy.

The federal resources won't cost the city anything, said Mayor Paul Dyster.

"We need to find ways of working smarter and working cheaper, and this is a great example of that," Dyster told The Buffalo News.

Police Superintendent John R. Chella echoed that sentiment. "Unfortunately, 2012 is not the greatest year for the City of Niagara Falls as far as crime," he told the newspaper.

"I welcome this opportunity for the federal government to give us new approaches, a new set of eyes, to point us in the right direction and maybe start to get these numbers down."

The state Division of Criminal Justice Services reports 3,521 crimes in the city last year. That included four murders and 31 rapes; 174 robberies and 371 aggravated assaults. The nearly 3,000 lesser crimes included 850 burglaries, 1,934 thefts and 157 car thefts.