Violent crime at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront continues to follow a downward trend, although year-to-date crime is up slightly.
Police Chief Paul Neudigate outlined the statistics, as well as challenges to keeping the Oceanfront safe, at a city council meeting Tuesday.
In 2024, police recorded 33 violent crimes at the Oceanfront, including 22 incidents of aggravated assault, seven robberies and four rapes. There were no homicides.
Those numbers are down 32% compared to 2023 and 43% compared to a four-year average.
Violent crime this year through May 14 is up slightly compared to the same time period last year, when nine crimes were recorded as opposed to this year’s 12.
Shooting incidents have also decreased overall, although data shows a slight uptick again for this year.
There have been three nonfatal shootings this year, compared to two in all of 2024 and 2023. The years 2020 and 2021 saw 16 and 12 shootings, respectively, with one fatal shooting each.
In 2020, there was, on average, one shooting every 25 days. In 2024, there was one per 189 days.
Neudigate said Week 17’s designation as “College Beach Weekend” is a misnomer. Many people who come to the Oceanfront that weekend — and during other warm weekends in the spring — tend to be daytrippers from other parts of Virginia, sometimes Maryland, and not college students.
“A lot of the tactics previously involved working with the colleges, the universities, the military when it was a traditional Spring Break crowd,” City Manager Patrick Duhaney added. “But it’s not that anymore.”
Neudigate said it’s difficult to predict when a large influx of people will arrive at the Oceanfront and when the Virginia Beach police need to request backup from state police. The challenge is exacerbated by a depleted local police force.
“Your police department is hurting right now,” Neudigate said. “We were really going in the right direction. We were down to 40 vacancies. That is now up to 80. We are losing officers, unfortunately, at a pretty exponential rate.”
Neudigate did not explain why officers are leaving the force.
Mayor Bobby Dyer applauded the overall downward trend in crime statistics, but remained cautious.
“We got to prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” he said.
