Police and area officials addressed a variety of crime and quality-of-life issues at a Port Richmond Community Group meeting held last week, but noted that overall, crime is down.

The Oct. 2 meeting, held in the Fuld building at Northeastern Ambulatory Care Center, was attended by local police, representatives from the Department of Licenses and Inspection and state Rep. John Taylor's (R-177th dist.) office.

Maureen Burns, victim assistance officer of the 24th Police District, took the stage for most of the event in order to fill residents in on crimes that had occurred in the district throughout the past month.

Burns produced September's crime statistics, which included one rape (although Burns said this instance was later found to be a false report) and 16 robberies, four of which were at gunpoint.

Burns said 11 robbery arrests were made last month.

A few of the robberies, Burns said, could be traced back to the involvement of a husband and wife who were snatching purses from elderly women walking the streets in the evenings.

They also arrested a man who was caught after taking a purse from a shopper traveling along Aramingo Avenue.

When caught, she said, the man admitted to at least three other incidents.

"We caught that guy in a white F-150 (truck)," she said. "He was snatching purses. When we caught him, he gave up the other ones."

The district also handled 11 aggravated assaults, three involving a gun; eight arrests were made for aggravated assault in September.

Prior to the meeting, a number of residents had expressed concern over a belief that there had been heightened instances of burglaries in the neighborhood.

But Burns said throughout the district, burglary totals were no higher than usual, except for the fact that a storage company was burglarized and vandalized early last month.

In that incident, 80 units were broken into, but arrests were made shortly after that crime, she said.

Aside from that, she said, most of the burglaries reported last month were at homes under construction.

Often, thieves target new construction to steal the valuable copper piping, which they can resell at a scrap yard.

"For a while (over the summer) the value of copper was low and you could just see the drop in our burglaries," she said. "That's where most of our burglaries were. We had no incidents in Port Richmond where a place was robbed while the owner was home or while they slept."

In the district, there were 15 residential burglaries last month, six of which were instances of stolen copper piping.

A few of the other burglaries, she said, were simply cases in which a home owner contacted police after hearing a noise, or a resident returned home to find evidence of tampering to a door or window, but nothing had been taken from the home.

Four arrests were made for residential burglaries.

The two most prevalent crimes in the district were thefts from auto and retail theft. Over the month of September, there were 25 instances of theft from autos and 43 of retail theft.

Burns said police made only two arrests in the thefts from auto, but she claimed that often one arrest could take the individual responsible for many of these crimes off the street.

The 24th District also made 37 arrests for retail theft last month.

Overall, Burns said crime was relatively low last month and said the public could help curb crimes like theft from auto by alerting police when they see teens and youngsters truant from school.

"We have a big truancy issue," she said. "Kids tend to break into cars because they are wandering around and are bored. Then they see something they like in a car parked on the street and all of a sudden they have a new GPS or cell phone."

Dan Quinn, of Licenses and Inspections, informed the crowd about the city's 3-1-1 system and how any complaints about nuisance properties should go through that system.

A neighbor asked Quinn about a problem house on the 3000 block of Edgemont St., where residents worry dog fighting might be practiced.

Quinn promised to look into the property in the coming days.

"If you find - in a couple months - that nothing is happening (to address the problem house), I want you to feel free to call me," said Quinn.

He gave his phone number to the audience before the conclusion of the meeting.

As the meeting wound down and residents started filtering out, Maryanne Trombetta of the Port Richmond Town Watch reminded residents about the upcoming Support Our Troops Rally III.

The event will be held in honor of the men and women of the armed forces.

Rain has postponed this event for more than a month and it has been rescheduled. The rally will commence on Wednesday, November 11, at Campbell Square, located at the intersection of Allegheny Avenue and Belgrade Streets.

Dan Quinn, of Licenses and Inspections, can be contacted at (215) 686 2480 for complaints regarding properties in violation of city code.

Reporter Hayden Mitman can be reached at 215-354-3124 or hmitman@phillynews.com