Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau "extremely pleased" with a top safety ranking. | Courtesy Photo
Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau "extremely pleased" with a top safety ranking. | Courtesy Photo
A safety.com reported found that Orland Park is the safest city in Illinois.
The website rated each city in all states based on two primary categories, as well as the data collected from FBI crime reports and the Gun Violence Archive.
Orland Park rated 97 out of 100 for public safety and 71 out of 100 for financial security.
Safety.com evaluates public safety factors to determine the safest spaces to live in. Then it looks at other socioeconomic and financial factors.
"Orland Park was named the safest city in Illinois for the first time by safety.com," Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau said in a February Facebook post. "This is the first time that we have been number one. I am extremely proud of the entire Orland Park Police Department."
Safety.com ranked the city second for total violent crime, third for aggravated assault, ninth for property crimes and 12th for both hate crimes and officer incidents. The city was ranked first for mass shootings — there were none in 2020.
In terms of financial safety, the website ranked Orland Park seventh for annual rent, third for household income, 12th for unemployment, 12th for poverty, eighth for uninsured employed and first for uninsured, unemployed residents.
In the State of the Village address from the Orland Park Police Department to the Village Board of Trustees meeting in January, Police Chief Joe Mitchell said that the community had seen a 29% decrease in crime in 2020, compared to the previous year, the local Patch site reported.
Safety.com also ranked 14 other cities in Illinois, including East Peoria, Bartlett, Normal, Willow Springs, Crete, Evanston, Marengo, Plainfield, Skokie, Rolling Meadows, Romeoville, Addison, Quincy, and Champaign.
The website also ranked the State of Illinois on Natural Disaster Safety 25th and for Health Safety 26th.
The full report is available on the safety.com website.