Giving his quarterly crime report, Lopez said overall crime was down 8 percent in the year’s first nine months, compared with the same period in 2011.

Homicide had the largest percentage drop, 23 percent, from 22 reported cases in the first nine months of 2011 to 17 in the first nine months of this year.

“I appreciate what you’re doing,” said Mayor Bill Bell, “so far.”

Three homicides have been been reported since the end of the third quarter, for a total of 20 total thus far this year. Last year, when he gave his third-quarter report on Dec. 5, 2011, the total stood at 27.

One of this year’s cases has been ruled justifiable self-defense, and 14 arrests have been made in the other 19.

The rate of violent crime – homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – was down 3 percent, according to Lopez’s report. The new eight-member Violent Incident Response Team is responsible for some of the drop, Lopez said, in that its investigations deterred retaliatory crime that might have occurred otherwise.

Like homicides, the number of robberies was down, but reported aggravated assaults and rapes were both up, leaving the violent-crime decrease at 3 percent.

The increase in reported rapes did not necessarily indicate an increase in rapes during 2012, Lopez said, because some of the reports concerned cases from years past that victims had not previously brought to the authorities.

Property crime was down 8 percent, despite a 10 percent increase in vehicle theft, Lopez said, and he mentioned discovery of a major “chop shop” operation in September. The find resulted in one arrest and recovery of 26 stolen vehicles, including four tow trucks.