During Monday’s regular city council meeting, Levelland Police Chief Albert Garcia broke down his departments racial profiling report along with a comprehensive review of the past year’s events.
The report requires collection of information relating to motor vehicle stops in which a warning or citation is issued and to arrests made as a result of those stops, including information relating to: the race or ethnicity of the individual detained; whether a search was conducted and, if so, whether the individual detained consented to the search; whether the peace officer knew the race or ethnicity of the individual detained before detaining that individual; whether the peace officer used physical force that resulted in bodily injury during the stop; the location of the stop; and the reason for the stop. With a total number of stops on the year reaching 4,296, Garcia broke down the numbers by section and race.
There was a total of 3,059 city street traffic stops, 692 U.S. Highway stops, eight county road stops, 501 state highway traffic stops and 36 private property or other stops.
Stops where race or ethnicity were known was 68, while stops where race or ethnicity was not known was 4,228.
Under race and ethnicity, eight stops fell under Alaska Native, American Indian. For Asian and Pacific Islander, there were seven stops. There were 285 traffic stops falling under Black, 1,628 traffic stops categorized as White, and 2,368 traffic stops categorized as Hispanic or Latino.
By gender, there was 1,667 traffic stops in the female category and 2,629 traffic stops for males. Under Hispanic or Latino, there were 909 traffic stops under the female group and 1459 under the male group. For the White category, there was 645 in the female group and 983 in the male group. In the Black group, there were 110 traffic stops for females and 175 traffic stops for males.
For traffic stops under the violation of the law, 47 were Hispanic or Latino, 26 were White and 18 were Black. Under moving traffic violations, 1,541 were Hispanic or Latino, 1,055 were White and 172 were Black. For vehicle traffic violations, 766 were Hispanic or Latino, 531 were White and 88 were Black. Traffic stops with a search conducted totaled 170. Searched stops for Hispanic or Latino were 107, 34 were White, and 29 were listed as Black. There were 4,126 traffic stops where there was not a search. For Hispanic or Latino, there was 2,261, 1,594 White, 256 Black, seven Asian or Pacific Islander and eight Alaska Native or American Indian.
There were 78 consensual searches with 55 being Hispanic or Latino, 12 were White, and 11 were Black. Listed under contraband, there were two under Hispanic or Latino. There were 86 instances under probable with 47 under Hispanic or Latino, 22 listed as White and 17 listed as Black.
There were 113 with discovered contraband. For Hispanic or Latino, there were 69 instances, 27 were White and 17 were Black. There were 57 instances where contraband was not discovered. For Hispanic or Latino, there were 38, seven White and 12 Black.
Contraband dealing with drugs totaled 71, with 42 being Hispanic or Latino, 14 White and 15 Black. Contraband with weapons totaled four with three being Hispanic or Latino and one Black. There was one contraband instance dealing with currency listed under Hispanic or Latino.
There were 24 instances listed under alcohol contraband with 11 Hispanic or Latino, 10 White and three Black.
For verbal warnings, there were a total of 503. Under Hispanic or Latino there were 286, 179 White and 38 Black. There were 2,793 written warnings. For Hispanic or Latino, there was 1,482 instances, 1,138 were White, 165 were Black and eight were Asian, Pacific Islander, Alaska Native or Native American. There was a total of 947 citations with 560 being Hispanic or Latino, 302 were White, 78 were Black and seven were Asian, Pacific Islander, Alaska Native or NativeAmerican.
Written warnings and arrest totaled 30 with 23 being Hispanic or Latino, four were White and three were Black. Citations and arrests totaled 12 with seven being Hispanic or Latino and five being White.
Moving forward with a 2022 Statistical Report, Garcia broke down the years events for the council.
For the department itself, the average age of sworn personnel is 35.5 years. The average years of tenure with the LPD were 7.8 years. The average years of law enforcement experience is 9.64 years and the total training hours of sworn officers in 2022 totaled 2,751. For telecommunicators, the total hours of training totaled 425.
There were seven master peace officers, three advanced peace officers, nine intermediate peace officers and six basic peace officers. Additionally, there were four advanced telecommunicators and four telecommunicators in TFO.
In terms of data, criminal homicide, 2022 saw zero instances of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter or manslaughter by negligence compared to 2021 where there was a case in both categories.
Garcia explained that rape cases have seen a downtrend since 2018 as there were 24 in 2018, 22 in 2019, 20 in 2020, 13 in 2021 and 12 in 2022. In the robbery category, there was one strong-arm instance which includes hands, fist, feet, etc., three instances categorized as other dangerous weapon and one instance categorized as knife or cutting instrument.
For assaults, 2022 saw a considerable decrease compared to 2021 with 236 instances and 148 in 2022. Broken into simple assaults there was 74, aggravated injuries there were 40, other dangerous weapons there were 11, knife or cutting instrument there were 15 and firearm there were eight.
Burglaries saw a slight decrease in 2022 with 80 compared to 88 in 2021. Categorized as forcible entry there were 54, 24 unlawful entry and two attempted forcible entry. For larceny or theft except for motor vehicle theft, there were 180 instances in 2022 which is an increase from 2021 with 165 cases. Motor vehicle theft was included in the data with 18 instances categorized as auto and five listed as trucks and buses.
For arrests, there was a total of 534 with 421 being male, 113 being female, 461 being White, 60 being Black, one being Indian, four being Asian and three being unknown.
Motor vehicle accidents were listed as 230 accident responses, 150 crash reports and 80 accident exchanges. Crash reports with motor vehicle accidents were given by month.
For January there was 14, February had 10, March had 12, April had 16, May had 15, June had 11, July had 11, August had 11, September had 10, October had 14, November 14 and December totaled 12.
Crisis Intervention Team Stats totaled 201 cases in the span of 2022. Broken into categories, 20 were Black, 75 were White and 106 were Hispanic. Male cases totaled 93 and female cases totaled 108.
The telecommunicators totaled 24,261 calls with 5,707 in the first quarter, 6,014 in the second quarter, 6,577 in the third quarter and 5,963 in the fourth quarter.
Animal shelter stats in the city had 822 dogs taken in with 216 cats and three other animals categorized as other. Animal shelter stats in the county had 100 dogs taken in with 3 cats as well.