The 3am gas station receipt that made me question crime stats

I was filling up at a Shell off I-80 in Des Moines last Tuesday and the pump screen said both a 12% theft uptick and a 17% drop in 911 calls for the county. When I asked the clerk, he laughed and pointed out the numbers came from a county report that double-counted the same neighborhood twice. Does anyone else find local data bulletins on store screens are more about looking official than being accurate, or am I just reading too much into a gas station display?

2 comments

2 Comments

brooke_jones2d ago

Grabbed my coffee and almost choked when I read that. Last month I saw a sign at a gas station in Omaha claiming the city had zero car break-ins that week, and then I walked out to find my passenger window smashed. Turns out the sign was from a private security company that only monitored three blocks downtown. I asked the manager about it and he just shrugged and said the company pays for the screen space. So yeah, those little data blurbs are basically ads with extra steps. I wouldn't trust a weather forecast from a gas station pump either, let alone crime numbers.

olivia_white932d ago

Ugh that is SO frustrating, I'm genuinely mad for you. Like who thinks it's okay to put straight up misleading info right where people are just trying to get gas, that's such a dirty move. Hope your window got fixed without too much of a headache, man.