Editor’s note: We clarified the crime in this case was a burglary, not a robbery. While the crime is similar to a robbery, it is not classified as the one in the statistics shared by Albuquerque police.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A few days ago, Albuquerque police announced a 51% drop in commercial robberies this year compared to last year at this time.

Some business owners, like Chris Rucker, the owner of self-storage facility in northwest Albuquerque, doesn’t believe this is entirely true.

Back in June, Rucker had an unwanted visitor, if you will. A security camera caught a man smashing a window into Rucker’s front office.

“He was in the office for a little bit of time and rummaged through drawers and things we don’t accept cash in our facility, so there really wasn’t anything in that cash anyway, that he took. He was able to lift off two monitors and take them away with him,” Rucker said of the burglary.

Rucker said he called 911 and waited five hours for officers to come. But, he said they never did.

“I was told I could file a report online. I tried that. There was actually no link there for commercial burglary, only residential. I was told later that, ‘Oh, well, you could have used that one,'” Rucker said.

Rucker says neighboring businesses routinely have break-ins but don’t report them anymore. Now, he’s doubting if crime is really down, like APD announced last week.

“I was very skeptical because of our experience. My belief is people just don’t bother file reports anymore, and it really skews their statistics to the positive side. So it looks good,” he said.

APD reported there was a 33% drop in all robbery crimes across the metro so far this year, compared to last year. Department statistics show that overall, burglary or breaking and entering crimes are up 12% this year. A department spokesman told KOB 4 about 160 fewer commercial burglaries have been reported in 2024, a decrease of 21% over the same period a year earlier.

Rucker will keep reporting crimes.

“I preach to everybody else that we have to file reports just so statistics are accurate,” he said.

And pushing that these break-ins are a side effect of larger issues, such as an uptick in the amount of people in the metro who are homeless.

“My opinion is that every entity seems to have the idea that they’re in it on their own. They’re not working together to solve these problems with the [people who are] homeless and drug addiction and everything else that goes along with this,” Rucker said.