National Council ranks Vermilion as one of safest cities in the state of Ohio

By Karen Cornelius

The Vermilion Police Department was recently notified by the National Council for Home Safety and Security that its 2018 ranking of the “Safest Cities in Ohio” named Vermilion, Ohio as one of the safest. Vermilion was ranked 23rd out of 166 locations.

The National Council for Home Safety and Security is a trade association comprised of home security professionals across the United States. The council advocates for safe communities and home safety with a strong focus on community involvement. To indentify the safest cities, the council uses the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics along with their own population data and internal research. They removed cities under 10,000. They looked at violent crime which is aggravated assault, murder, rape, and robbery. They also looked at property crimes such as burglary, arson, larcency, theft, and motor vehicle theft per 1,000 people. Violent crimes accounted for 1.5 of the total due to their severity.

Vermilion was noted as having a population of 10,404 with violent crimes at 3; and property crimes at 107. The study showed this working out to 0.29 for violent crimes per 1,000, and 10.28 for property crimes per 1,000 population. These statistics made Vermilion, Ohio the 23rd safest city in Ohio.

The top five safest cities in Ohio were Chester Township in Geauga County as number 1; Olmsted Township as number 2; Montville Township as number 3; Hudson as number 4; and Brunswick Hills Township as number 5. Nearby communities such as Rocky River was ranked as 7th and North Ridgeville as 11th. To compare, Chester Township had not one single violent crime in the latest statistical year and had a property crime rate of just 1.74 per 1,000. The ranking list of cities broke down the statistics to an average of 4.51 vilent crimes per 1,000, and 33.45 as the average property crime per 1,000 across the state of Ohio.
At the Vermilion City Council meeting on Monday night, March 5, mayor Jim Forthofer also announced the honor. He congratulated Vermilion Police Chief Chris Hartung and the entire Vermilion Police Department for their work to protect Vermilion residents.