Southwestern Berks County was very safe in 2016, but evil and horror did strike

by Steve Reinbrecht

There were no riots, acts of terror, beheadings or kidnappings in Southwestern Berks County, an area of about 20,000 people, in 2016 – although there was a mass shooting and a fatal fire, and a child was raped.

Across Berks County, 37 people died on roads in 2016, though there were no traffic fatalities in Sinking Spring, Lower Heidelberg, South Heidelberg,or Wernersville, according to the Berks coroner’s office.

Berks followed the national trend of rising heroin deaths in 2016. At least 37 people died of heroin in the county, surpassing the total of 27 in 2015, according to the Reading Eagle.

Only two were reported in Southwestern Berks in 2016. One victim died at the Wernersville Community Corrections Center and one died in Sinking Spring.

Mass shootings – unimaginably horrible but statistically very rare – get a lot of attention but little legislative response. One organization counted more than 340 mass-shooting attacks in the United States last year, which killed more than 400 people and wounded nearly 1,400.

And like the result of a terrible lottery, there was one mass shooting in Southwestern Berks. On Aug. 6, Mark Short, 40, shot to death his wife, Megan, 33; his daughters, Lianna, 8; and Willow, 2; his son, Mark, 5, and their dog. He then shot and killed himself. He had bought the gun in Lancaster County and destroyed his family the day his wife had planned to leave him.

In March, a 12-year-old was raped in Sinking Spring. Constables arrested a 27-year-old man from Reading in November.

Over the year, police counted 44 assaults in the four municipalities, according to records they send to state police. I believe most of the violent crime in Southwestern Berks involves men beating up their partners. As far as I know, crimefighters don’t, for their records, distinguish between you getting beat up in a bar by a stranger or in your living room by a family member.

Watching for drunken drivers certainly keeps the area safer. Police in Southwestern Berks reported 29 DUI arrests in 2016, though Western Berks reported zero, which could be a mistake. Officials from Western Berks, which covers Wernersville and Robesonia, were not available.

Smoking pot for fun is legal now in eight states, but not in Pennsylvania. Local police made 18 arrests for possessing marijuana, according to the state police records.

Robberies are scary – somebody taking something from you by force or threat. No muggings were reported, but there were two bank robberies. The man who robbed the M&T bank on Penn Avenue in South Heidelberg in August was captured. The woman who robbed the OneMain Financial in Lower Heidelberg and probably another bank in Spring Township has not been caught.

Burglaries are scary too and more common. Police reported 25 in Southwestern Berks. Five of them were cleared.

A woman died after jumping from the third floor
of an apartment building in Sinking Spring as a fire destroyed it. State police said the cause was undetermined. A local official told me the cause was electrical.

I wonder if anybody wrote a report about how her death could have been prevented.

I feel very confident in saying that we are all about as safe as can be out here. We have honest, competent and professional police officers. Residents who look out for each other and have a lot to lose.

If you fear violence, however, it exists here, mostly in attacks in the closed-off rooms of homes, on spouses, lovers, children and family members.