Noe 8th Grader: Reduce Crime, Root for the Giants

The Chronicle has a fun story about an 8-year-old's science project at Noe Valley's St. Philip School:

A budding young Nancy Drew at Noe Valley's St. Philip School has come up with this finding based on her research for a science fair: Thefts of cars and auto break-ins went down in San Francisco last fall while the Giants were marching their way through the playoffs to their World Series crown.

Eighth-grader Ella Chatfield-Stiehler went on the city Police Department's computerized crime data site, crunched comparisons of October 2009 and October 2010 and found that car thefts and auto burglaries dipped significantly last year when the hometown baseball heroes were doing their thong-panda-beard thing.

Not clear if there's a real link, but it's a great theory. It's also not clear if the crime dip extended to the raucous full day ticker parade on Nov. 3 (above right). But in the words of Ella: "This study also supports another reason to say, Go Giants!"

[SF Gate: Crime fell during Giants' title run, eighth-grader finds]