Investigating Prior Crimes and Dangerous Activity: Crime Grid Obtained by Butler Law Firm

Negligent security or inadequate security cases are the result of a business (like a mall, shopping center, gas station, hotel, motel, restaurant, bar, club, apartment complex, or many of the other places you regularly go to) failing to provide reasonable security measures when necessary. As a customer, you probably have little to no personal knowledge about whether the business is safe. Instead, the owner of the business should know about crime and dangerous activity occurring on the property. And, if there is crime or dangerous activity the business should either 1) warn you (so that you know as much as the owner, and can decide whether to leave or stay) or 2) take reasonable security measures in order to protect you the customer.

One way to determine the extent of prior crime and dangerous activity at a property is to obtain a Crime Grid from police. Crime Grids show information about crimes that were reported to police. Below is an excerpt from an actual crime grid obtained by Butler Law and used in a negligent security case against an apartment complex. Our Client was shot on January 18, 2015, and his incident is reported on the Crime Grid as an “aggravated assault (gun)” on that date. As you can see, this particular complex had an overwhelming amount of prior crime.