In the last year, Lubbock Police saw a decrease in calls for service, with an increase in officer-initiated activity. According to Police Chief Floyd Mitchell, that indicates officers are out being seen, which he correlates with reduced crime, particularly in high crime areas.
However, the rate of crime in Lubbock has already been high for the past few years, especially compared to Texas cities of similar size. Mitchell believes there hasn’t been “a large explosion” of crime in Lubbock, but said it has increased incrementally as the city continues to grow.
According to LPD’s report, crimes against people, like homicides, assaults and robberies, totaled 8,495 last year, or 32.5 per 1,000 citizens. Almost 92% of those crimes were simple or aggravated assaults. The total represents a 4% increase from 2018.
“What that tells me is, if you look over those five years, our population has grown and you can see a slight increase in the number of crimes that have grown with that,” Mitchell said.
Homicides increased from 31 in 2021 to 34 last year, with the majority attributed to domestic violence or an established relationship between the victim and the attacker.
“Either they hooked up on some type of app to sell something, they hooked up to try to sell a stolen gun or drug or there's some type of domestic violence,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell referred to a robbery in central Lubbock on March 27 that turned fatal. Two 16-year-olds were arrested the next day and charged with murder. Mitchell said police will be enforcing a juvenile curfew over the summer as part of a City Council initiative, but he’s asking for more attention from families and better opportunities for children in the community, to reduce the number of kids mixed up in violent crimes.
“To see them out there committing these crimes at such a young age, because they're ruining their lives, and you hate to see someone put in jail at 17 and 18 for the next 30 or 45 years,” Mitchell said. “But we just have to have more involvement from our families to keep their kids out of these situations.”
The most noticeable crime increase year over year was property crimes like burglary and theft. Lubbock saw a 9% uptick in property crimes, including an almost 30% increase in vehicle burglaries.
“When you look at the crime in Lubbock, our property crime is really above what you see in the national average,” Mitchell said.
Though they haven’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, Mitchell attributed part of this to people being more active after COVID-19. He said these burglaries often come from “prolific offenders,” who try to hit as many cars as possible in hotel and store parking lots.
Mitchell said the department is setting up towers in parking lots to try to stop them, but he’s asking drivers to make sure and lock their cars, including a reminder for Lubbock gun owners:
“If you're going to be a gun owner, be a safe and smart gun owner and take your gun out of your car,” Mitchell said. “We don't need your gun falling in the hands of these would-be criminals.”
According to police, 526 guns were stolen from vehicles in Lubbock in 2022.
Last year, an online reporting system launched on the LPD website, giving another avenue for citizens to report to police, taking work off of the current shortage of emergency dispatchers.
Mitchell said the system may have played a role in decreased calls for service, but it hasn’t been used as much as he would like.
“We're going to continue to work on really communicating to the people out in our neighborhoods that, hey, if you have something, you don't necessarily have to respond to the police station or call a police officer to take that report,” Mitchell said. “You can file minor traffic accidents in the parking lot via online communication.”
2022 also marked the first full year with each of the active patrol division stations. Mitchell said officers working their assigned communities have contributed to an overall reduction in the average response time over the last four years.
Traffic saw improvement with a 5% decrease in crashes. Seven vehicular homicides were reported, down from 11 in 2021.
See the full 2022 annual report here.