The city of San Bernardino, Calif., is seeing a spike in homicides from the previous year. It has 34 so far in 2006, compared to 58 in all of last year. San Bern isn’t unique; the FBI recently reported a rise in violent crime across the nation.
But the Press-Enterprise reports that the crime spike isn’t adversely affecting the annual Route 66 Rendezvous that’s scheduled for September.
About 1,250 people have already signed up to show off their automobiles, an increase of about 25 percent from the same time last year.
“We’ve never had this many people so early,” Henthorn said.
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Henthorn said event-goers are kept safe by San Bernardino police, California Highway Patrol officers and private security. Plus, the high-priced car buffs who flock to the Rendezvous tend to look after each other and their property.
“We’ve always had a significant presence during Route 66 and we’ve had relatively few problems for the entire history of the event,” said San Bernardino police Lt. Mark Garcia.
I wouldn’t be concerned, either. When you have upwards of 100,000 people in downtown at any one time and cops all over the place for crowd control, I’m not exactly expecting a drive-by shooting.