COEUR d'ALENE - Serious crimes are down in the Lake City since Lee White was sworn in as Coeur d'Alene's chief of police.

White had the police department's crime analysts look at offenses the FBI classifies as serious crimes - such as homicide and rape - in its Uniform Crime Reporting Program. According to information provided by the department, there has been an 18 percent decrease in those crimes since White took the job in September.

"I don't want the message to be that this is all because of Lee White, because that's not it," White told The Press. "It's because of the great work that's being done by the men and women in uniform and everybody working together as a great team to reduce crime."

Sgt. Christie Wood said White has held numerous meetings with supervisors, staff and patrol officers to study crime trends. She added that prior to White's arrival, the department was "reactive in nature" to crime in the community and the chief brought experience with him in order to implement programs to start being more proactive.

"Our crime analysts have possessed the tools to present the crime data to us and have done so in the past, but under his leadership this information is studied, disseminated to the patrol and detective divisions," Wood said. "Targeted patrols are then implemented in areas with historically high crime rates and both officers and detectives focus more of their efforts on repeat offenders."

But White is the first one to admit that statistics can be misleading.

For example, in October there was a 67 percent decrease in automobile burglaries compared to September. White said the dramatic drop can be attributed to the arrest of one person responsible for 10 offenses in the previous month.

There were no homicides in Coeur d'Alene in 2013, but in March of 2014, Eldon Samuel III allegedly killed his father and brother at their home in the city. White said crime statistics now show a 200 percent increase in homicide from 2013 to 2014.

"When some of these numbers are relatively small, a couple incidents can blow a percentage out of the water," White said. "You've got to take it with a grain of salt and know exactly what it means because it's not as provocative as it sounds."

For White and his department, the statistics are an indicator of crime trends and areas where a more concentrated effort is needed. Wood said concentrated effort most often involves patrol officers having conversations with residents, which she said rose from two to 80 the first month White was on duty.

"Chief White has asked officers to put an emphasis on establishing relationships with people by spending time contacting citizens. The goal is for officers that aren't busy responding to calls to build relationships with members of our community to build trust," Wood said. "This entire concept is community policing combined with statistical analysis of crime trends."

White said emphasis on communication enables the community as a whole to become better at combating crime.

"And it's working," White added. "We had some huge successes where whole crime trends have stopped as the result of a couple good arrests."