Blair DA details region’s crime trends

Weeks outlines his role in criminal prosecutions for Tyrone Chamber

TYRONE -- Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks outlined his role in criminal prosecutions and addressed many myths about sexual assault and drug-trafficking cases during the Tyrone Chamber of Commerce's monthly breakfast meeting Thursday.

According to Weeks, Blair County has "high incidences of drugs," notably with methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin.

Weeks, who joined the district attorney's office as a drug prosecutor in 2007 and took over as the district attorney in 2020, said one of the biggest myths about drug crimes is that they are isolated, victimless and nonviolent crimes.

"None of that is true," he said, adding drug crimes impact over 90% of cases in the criminal justice system.

Weeks said a lot of people commit domestic violence when they're drunk or high. They also commit burglaries or retail thefts to get drugs, he said.

"We've had several robbery, home invasion murders in this county, all drug trafficking (related)," Weeks said, noting trafficking cases are his least favorite to prosecute because they make him the most angry.

Weeks said he understands why someone growing up in Philadelphia who didn't have the best start in life would turn to drug trafficking or how people can become violent during a dispute.

"I'm not tolerant of that as an excuse, but I understand how that happens," Weeks said. "I don't understand the concept of raping a child. I don't understand the concept of selling a woman for sex and using drugs to make that happen."

When Weeks started out as a drug prosecutor in 2007, "it was like a party" whenever he received a meth case to prosecute because there were only two or three cases a year, and now he has between 300 and 400 active meth cases to prosecute, he said.

Fethynal and meth are prevalent drugs in Blair County because drug cartels learned they could make methamphetamine at a "super lab" in Mexico and sent it this way for "really cheap," Weeks said.

"It used to cost about $200 to make three grams of meth from a one-pot yield. Now you can buy pounds of methamphetamine for pennies on the dollar because they are flooding, flooding America with methamphetamine," Weeks said, adding drug abuse often intersects with other crimes.

"All of this runs together unfortunately and you need a comprehensive, united approach to deal with it," Weeks said, noting Blair County's police officers are "willing to put the time in" to investigate crimes and prosecutors take the cases seriously.

"And you need judges who are going to say, 'I'm not going to let you have six cases in 45 days, sir," Weeks said.

Child abuse

Weeks said Blair County also has more child abuse cases than other counties do, which he attributed to the county's police officers working harder.

"I think we actually investigate more crimes that are serious than you'll see elsewhere," he said. "Not everywhere and everyone is willing to do that work."

In one instance in 2018, Weeks said a police investigation uncovered a situation in which a mother had starved her 3-year-old son to the point of serious bodily injury, thrown him down a set of stairs and locked him in a closet.

The mother received a mitigated arranged sentence because her new husband, who was serving in the Navy, told a judge they had three children together and that the mother had changed her ways, according to Weeks.

Weeks asked chamber members to consider bail and sentencing when they vote for their future judges because "that stuff matters," he said.

"I'm not saying we need tougher sentencing on small amounts of marijuana crimes, but I'm saying we need to have tougher sentences on people who starve and beat their kids and the police officer finds them almost dead," Weeks said.

"Those people, there's a place for them. It's called jail and they should stay there," he added.

Other myths

Weeks also addressed myths about sexual assault cases, particularly that they are conceived from false or fabricated reports.

"Guess what people don't want to do? Come in and report a sexual assault that never happened, go through that process -- go through a preliminary hearing, pretrial hearings, come out to court at all kinds of times that isn't convenient and then come and sit and tell 12 strangers, a couple more alternates, people from the media and a judge part of what the defendant did to you because you can't tell the whole story," Weeks said.

Weeks said sexual assaults are "very, very, very rarely" fabricated because "the juice is not worth the squeeze" for the victim.

According to Weeks, most sexual assault victims never report their assault. It's also common for people to delay reporting it, he said.

Weeks also addressed the myth that people are not always injured in sexual assaults.

"Very rarely do we see children being injured in sexual assaults. We typically see grooming or the exchange of drugs," Weeks said.

Crime rates down

Overall, reported crime rates in Blair County have gone down in 2024 from 2023, which Weeks said he was happy to hear, adding, "I hope crime is down. I hope it stays down."

The Pennsylvania State Police's uniform crime reporting system -- a volunteer program used by law enforcement agencies to report crime statistics -- shows a decline from 3,118 offenses reported in 2023 to 2,794 offenses reported in 2024.

The number of reported rapes decreased from 60 to 50; simple assaults decreased from 1,425 to 1,062; burglaries from 249 to 214; motor vehicle thefts from 106 to 65; and human trafficking from seven reported incidents to two.

Offenses that saw an increase in 2024 were manslaughter by negligence, of which there was only one offense reported; aggravated assault, which increased from 88 offenses counted to 108; larceny, which increased from 1,131 reported offenses to 1,242; and arson, which rose from 13 offenses to 14 in 2024.

Of the offenses that saw an uptick last year, Weeks said, "Those are bad ones to be up."

Weeks declined to comment on trends, stating that many of the cases at the Blair County Courthouse are 18 months to four years old before they're ready to go to disposition.

Tyrone Borough Police Chief Jessica Walk said her department has been "pretty busy" given the size of their town, which has a population of approximately 5,200 people. The department received over 5,000 calls last year, she said.

"I think my guys and girls work very hard, and we try not to let anything slip through the cracks and investigate every report that's given to us," Walk said.

Walk said Tyrone's police officers have seen an increase in drug-related cases, which drives crime rates up, she said.

"There's a lot of people from outside of the area moving into low-income housing, and we're seeing an increase in everything because of that," Walk said.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.