San Jose still the safest big city in U.S.

For the fourth year in a row, San Jose is the safest large city in the United States.

There was one of the worst alleged serial molesters in the country and that chili finger case, but San Jose is still safer than Honolulu (No. 3) or Austin (No. 5) or Louisville, KY. (No. 7).

Detroit ranked as the most dangerous city with a population over 500,000, Baltimore, the second most dangerous city and Washington, D.C. was the third most dangerous.

The safest and most dangerous cities lists are compiled by Morgan Quitno Press, a private research company in Lawrence, KS that began ranking cities and metropolitan areas in terms of crime in 1995.

Only one local city, Sunnyvale, made the top 25 of the safest U.S. cities, regardless of size, with a rank of 17 out of 369 cities. Richmond, in Alameda County, ranked the 11th most dangerous out of the 369 cities and Oakland ranked 21st most dangerous.

Researchers looked at six basic crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicles and used a formula to determine how a particular city compared to the national average.

Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quito Press, said perceptions of crime can sometimes be harder to change the crime rate. ``The classic example is New York City,'' Morgan said, noting that Gotham ranks as the fourth safest city with a population of 500,000 or more.