Read 'em and weep, Angelenos: As many of you probably already well know, just because you live far from downtown Los Angeles doesn't mean you're safe from big-city crime.

Some of America's most dangerous suburbs are right here in L.A. County. Real estate website Movoto used FBI police reports from 2012 (the latest data available) to calculate the highest rates of serious crime such as murder, rape, robbery, burglary and theft for metropolis-adjacent communities across the United States.

Three L.A. suburbs made the top 25!
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Santa Monica, of all places, came in at number 24 on Movoto's “America's Most Dangerous Suburbs” list.

Wait, little old Santa Monica, with its Third Street Promenade, beachside property, and multi-million-dollar “north of Montana” real estate?

Yep.

See Also: 2 Students Arrested in Brawl With Santa Monica Teacher (VIDEO)

According to the site's figures, Santa Monica had a healthy 433 violent crimes per 100,000 residents and 4,158 total crimes per 100,000 locals. Its murder rate (2 per 100,000) was relatively low. 

Credit: Movoto

Credit: Movoto

Before you scratch your head, though, remember that Santa Monica is bordered on two sides by big, mean L.A., including the roughest side of Venice. And it has gangs in its “Pico neighborhood” barrio. Summer beach crime probably doesn't help its numbers, either. 

Inglewood, our usually sedate, African American suburb on the Westside, made number 18 with 13 murders and 3,097 total crimes per 100,000 residents. The 'Wood certainly isn't without occasional outbursts of gang crime.

Finally, the top L.A. suburb to make this list is Signal Hill. Signal Who? Yeah, the 2.2 square-mile postage stamp of an oil-drilling town made number 13 on the list.

It has 9 murders and a high 5,171 overall crimes per 100,000 people. But how? We have two words for you: Long Beach. Yeah, Signal Hill is just up the crime-ridden Pacific Coast Highway from the LBC, and the road doesn't really get much prettier as you cross the border.

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