DETROIT – Grosse Ile residents can continue to breathe easily in the haven of their township that topped more than 100 Michigan cities as the safest city in the state.
Using FBI crime statistics, backgroundchecks.org created a safety index by calculating cities' violent and property crime rates per 1,000 residents as well as the ratio of law enforcement officials to citizens. Cities with populations fewer than 10,000 were filtered out.
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To no one's shock, Grosse Ile Township — with a population of just more than 10,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — took the top spot, earning a score of 0.88 and totting zero violent crimes in 2017.
Second place is shared by Beverly Hills and Grosse Pointe Park, both earning 0.78 on the safety index. Both suburbs reported violent and property crime rates below state and national averages, according to the report.
Berkley, coming in a cool third place, recorded a violent crime rate of 0.46 per 1,000 residents and a property crime rate of 6.79 per 1,000, according to the findings. Similarly, in fifth place Farmington recorded four violent crimes in 2017.
Livonia ranked 19th on the list, with a safety index score of 0.39.
"These rating reaffirm what we know," said Livonia Mayor Dennis K. Wright in a statement. "Our community is among the safest anywhere, thanks to the hard work of the men and women of the Livonia Police Department. We also know that our citizens make it a priority to support public safety in so many ways."
On the other, bleaker side of the index comes Flint, ranked in absolute last place of the 124 cities on the index with a safety score of -2.91. Detroit accompanies Flint, coming in 121st place with a -2.4 score. Also at the bottom are Saginaw, Highland Park and Muskegon Heights.
Grosse Ile Township is no stranger to the top of safety lists, last year it ranked sixth on a similar list compiled by Safewise.
To see where your city fell on the safety index, check out Background Checks' complete list of safest cities in Michigan.