Last year saw major changes in Lubbock Police Department leadership.
After local reports brought criticism to his management for what they claimed were thousands of “abandoned” 911 calls due to a shortage of dispatchers, the City of Lubbock announced former LPD chief Floyd Mitchell’s resignation in September. City Manager Jarrett Atkinson spoke to the city council at the first meeting of the city's special budget session on July 31, 2023, saying 55% of abandoned 911 calls were found to be accidental.
In October, former Deputy Chief Leath McClure was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of continuous violence against the family. McClure resigned about a month later before pleading guilty to a single class A misdemeanor of deadly conduct in February of this year.
With the new year came a new home as LPD cut the ribbon on the new $27 million, 50,600-square-foot headquarters and 911 dispatch call center; and new candidates to take the job of Lubbock’s police chief.
Lubbock Police's latest annual report, released on April 24, showed a decrease in major crimes last year. LPD hopes to continue that by addressing officer shortages and improving response times.
According to the report, property crimes in Lubbock fell 24% but remain the most prolific part-1 crimes for the city, with over 8,000 cases reported in 2023. The reported number of stolen guns increased from 526 in 2022 to 698 in 2023. Of these, 286 were stolen from vehicles.
LPD recovered 113 stolen guns in 2023, according to the report.
Check subject calls, disturbance calls, domestic disturbances, and alarms continue to top the list of what’s taking officers’ attention but all categories saw fewer calls for service last year.
Keeping up with these calls for service in a timely fashion is a goal of LPD, and a performance measure, according to Interim Chief Gregory Rushin, who met with Lubbock’s city council last week to present the annual report.
Rushin said the new dispatch center in the headquarters is already making a difference.
“We've been 100% callbacks on ‘hang-ups’ I call them, they call them ‘abandoned’ calls in the industry, but I don't call them that, that's not what they are. They're not abandoned,” Rushin said. “They're hang-up calls. And if we know the number, we call back 100% of the time.”
Rushin acknowledged an increase in dispatch times as staff changed buildings, but he said the Department is working its way to the industry standard for answering 911 calls.
“95% of 911 calls have to be answered in 15 seconds, and 90% in 20 seconds,” Rushin said. “We are not there yet. We started out below, we're way up now, but we're really, really close to that.”
The shortage of officers to deal with these calls impacts each measure he’s following, Rushin said, especially response time, which didn’t see much change in 2023. The average total response time for priority two calls fell by 4%, while time for priority one calls fell by only 0.3%.
“We're always looking to reduce response time,” Rushin said. “That's very important, particularly for priority one or two calls.”
On the street, LPD reported a significant increase in traffic stops, climbing 32% for the year. Over 50% more warnings and 8% more citations were issued. Rushin said what he’s looking for is numbers going down.
“Make no mistake, our goal, if we write 10,000 tickets, I'm not going to be celebrating that,” Rushin said. “We celebrate when the crashes go down. That's what citizens want, that's what citizens need, we need a safer community.”
Overall, traffic crashes have gone down steadily, with more than 700 fewer crashes last year. Despite a 10% increase in DWI arrests, LPD’s report showed fatal crashes involving alcohol jumped from 5 in 2022 to 15 in 2023.
Violent crimes decreased 20% in Lubbock last year, with homicides and burglaries showing the most significant drops. The report showed 16 homicides in 2023, compared to 26 in 2022. While many are still early in the judicial process, 10 homicides have already taken place in 2024, according to LPD.
LPD’s report attributes part of the decreased crime rate to the new patrol division stations in North, South, and East Lubbock, which opened with the goal of improving effectiveness in “community policing,” something the report said is evidenced by the drop in crime rate.
To keep that crime rate moving down, Rushin described the Department’s current efforts to address the officer shortages, including a comprehensive recruitment plan and lateral transfer program for experienced officers from outside Lubbock.
These new changes to the lateral program are estimated to reduce the time it takes to bring in experienced officers by more than half.
According to LPD, a new officer can take nine weeks to go through the testing to be street-ready. The latest update to the lateral program raises starting pay for transferring officers based on experience and could cut the average introduction time to four weeks.
LPD Academy Recruiting Sergeant Eric Pizana said what will really bring in new officers is the changes in pay.
“Usually whenever we get a lateral or out-of-state officer, they would start at our cadet pay,” Pizana said. “We've made some changes where we can pay them for experience. So if we have an eight-year officer, we can give them the eight-year salary at $85,000.”
Pizana had six years of experience as an officer in Midland before he moved to Lubbock in 2013. He said other officers are trying to do the same thing.
“Taking that pay cut to come back and starting all the way over makes it a little a little hard to swallow sometimes," Pizana said. "I feel like with these tools out here, you're gonna see a lot more certified officers from different agencies making the move here.”
Around 250 people have signed up for LPD’s next testing class this Saturday, May 4. Pizana said the department could see between 15-20 new officers from that group.
For a complete look at the data from LPD, find a full copy of the 2023 annual report here.