A recent front page story in the Napa Valley Register described two walk-in robberies at apartments in old Napa town.

The two incidents were 11 days apart, and neither story seemed to ring true to this retired cop who had been down that road before — but that’s another story for another day.

However, the article did remind me that, thanks to my contacts in the NYPD, I’d recently received a copy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Crime In The United States — 2007 report for cities with populations of more than 100,000 residents.

The report zeroes in on what your chances are of becoming a crime victim in America’s 243 biggest cities. In short, you don’t want your city to be at or near the top of that list.

The so-called index crimes used in the report are homicide, forcible rape, robbery and assault, plus burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.

Unless you track index crimes year by year, your perceptions of what you might consider safe cities are in for a jolt.

In 2007, St. Louis, Mo., headed the Big Cities list — which the Mound City has done for the last several years — with 11.934 index crimes per 100,000 population. Orlando, Fla., Little Rock, Ark., Springfield, Mo., Birmingham, Ala., and Memphis, Tenn., round out the big six, with more than 10,000 serious crimes per 100,000 people.

As you dig deeper, you’re in for some sad surprises.

One-time playlands and Gardens of Eden including Orlando, Fla., Atlanta New Orleans, Dallas and even South Bend, Ind., home of the Fighting Irish, have seen better and safer days.

I’m often asked by fellow Napans about to make their first visits to New York City if the Big Apple is a safe place to visit.

Well, no city, village or hamlet in the world is crime-free — but New York City comes close. In a town of more than 8 million people, New York falls to near the bottom of the chart in crime frequency, 230th out of 243.

“How do they do that?” people ask.

They do it with 36,000 well-trained officers and bosses, led by a fine police commissioner in Ray Kelly and mayors, from Rudy Giuliani to Mike Bloomberg, who permit the boys and girls in blue to do the jobs they are paid to do.

There really is no comparison in terms of safety between the Big Apple and Orlando, Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, Miami or even South Bend.

In terms of the odds of a person becoming a crime victim, those cities outpace New York by a margin of 3-1. Unbelievable, perhaps, but true.

What about our chances of becoming a crime victim right here in old Napa town? For that information I turned to the Napa PD.

Using the statistics I got from Napa, it appears Napa would have been assigned 137th place on the FBI list, with 4,646 index crimes per 100,000 residents, almost twice the rate in New York. Not great, but not bad, either, and exceedingly good when you consider that Police Chief Rich Melton’s department is stretched paper-thin.

Try covering a city of about 77,000 people, 24 hours a day, seven days a week with little more than 70 sworn officers. That doesn’t factor in regular days off, vacations and sick leave. In fact, I’m surprised and grateful for the omnipresence of Napa PD I see on our streets and highways, both day and night.

While Napa PD’s total index numbers in 2007 rose 2.7 percent over 2006, the good news was that violent crime was down. But property crimes, which we citizens can help Napa PD in lowering, was up nearly 6 percent. That’s something we all have to work on.

Napa PD would be first to admit that law enforcement in this town is aided greatly by Napa parents who teach their children right from wrong and a marvelous school system that continues our children’s education.

But we parents and grandparents can and must do better in terms of preventing property crime.

You would have to be blind not to notice how we folks set ourselves up to become crime victims here in Napa, and for that matter in any town in the nation on any given day.

• Shoppers who leave their pocketbooks and purses in shopping carts as they examine products on the shelves. Why, those purses might as well be wearing signs saying, “Come and get it!”

• Men’s wallets stuffed in unbuttoned back pockets — not too smart.

• Windows left open, and not securing sliding glass back doors.

• Folks stepping out for an evening of dining, leaving their homes in total darkness and silence when a few cents worth of electricity — a few lights left on and a radio playing — could save a great deal of anguish and future fear. Remember, the last thing a burglar wants is company.

The list is endless. For a complete list of safety precautions, Napa PD, I’m sure, would be glad to oblige.

If we want a safer city, it’s up to us!

Postscript: My thanks to an old friend, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Phil McGuire and Lt. Dan Scarzzini for their help.

Ev Parker can be reached at evjenpar@mailbug.com or 224-9956.