Police Department update - City Council Strategic Planning Workshop 5-31-22

[0:00:00] the first thing frank i want to say is we need to get added to the cip plan the police station the new police station that's one thing missing on the cip plan we need to get it on the plan i'm not sure what number we use but i think we just get a number sort of attached to it and let's get it's not that it's going to hold us up but let's get it on the cip plan it needs to be added to that thank you very much we get started here run through this our current num numbers as foreign officers for 2022 were authorized 180 by council we're currently at 170 officers sworn officers we just lost one uh that was going through training decided he wasn't fit for the job we got seven cadets in the academy right now right now that will graduate september the 30th and we have 32 civilian employees public safety communication we have 14 total dispatchers as of may 9th 8 fully trained 2 in training and 4 in the hiring process i'll do some of this presentation as we all know one of the report cards that a police department gets on on how they're doing is a city's crime rate so that's what some of this presentation is about so a little bit of history chief carter was sworn in in july of 2016. uh 2016 was san angelo's highest crime rate in recent history there were 450 part one crimes per month on part one is that's going to be larceny unauthorized use of vehicles aggravated assaults serious crimes sexual assaults over a four-year period chief carter obtained 15 additional officers by working with city council and city management officers were utilized in areas that we we saw in need anti-crime criminal investigations narcotics and traffic also we were able to appropriately

[0:02:06] appropriately staff the patrol division for the first time in a decade as a result a cumulative part one crime rate in san angelo fell 44 or to 246 part one crimes per month so uh this is just a slide showing our calls for service and and if it all works out we'll have about 90 in the 90 000 range again this year this was april of 2022 some of the some of the things that were done with that increase in manpower we increased the number of narcotics detectives illegal narcotics play a key role in many other crimes violent crime including violent crime narcotics unit has seized approximately 210 pounds of methamphetamine six pounds of cocaine and three pounds of heroin here in this city since 2016. 2017 the sapd started the anti-crime unit it was designed to reduce the number it was a proactive unit to catch crimes as they're being committed they focused on repeat offenders who are continuing to commit crimes and since 2019 that unit has arrested 521 individuals the department increased the number of detectives assigned a criminal investigations division we added child crimes detective and a cold case detective and we did clear two cold case homicides by arrest the traffic safety program [Music] we changed the guidelines for the program officer we looked at hot spots areas of there were serious serious high-speed crashes school zones complaint zones and this this change was made to reduce the number of traffic accidents and from 2016 to present there was a 10 decrease in accidents we implemented a dw where we've revived the dwi step program

[0:04:09] they were trained in new software and from 2019 to 2021 the dwi rests increased 151 percent as a result this is basically a chart of the part one crimes if you look over there to the left column there you'll see what the part 1 crimes are which is murder sexual assault robbery aggravated assault burglary larson and motor vehicle theft these are stats on part 1 reported crimes from 2010 to present not included in that 44 decrease is the four months of 2022 we're tracking 11 decrease right now future goals and needs competitive pay new law enforcement training academy and refurbish the city hall annex and move the entire police department there or a new police building sure it it's there it's been on there for several years yes ma'am but the dollars are different so we just need to update it because it's not that huge big number so much better probably so that's big on my priority list is getting that for um that that building redone and ready for you all i think it's a really important issue it's huge on my list of projects that need to get completed not later soon i do want to point out as well that previously um the the the price tag for the the police department or the the station was uh about 40 million dollars so i know the guys have been working as far as the amount to bring that mountain down to a six million dollar figure which is much more manageable for um for what we as far as the money is that we have so we do we do appreciate that

[0:06:12] as we're doing that i just think the presence of our police department being on boa guard and bryant boulevard is key and you've been living in a facility that i don't think i have an adjective for it but you might have but it needs to be we need to get it done for y'all that's key i think that's huge hugely important questions comments certainly the statistics that you present today the city should be beyond proud of the work the effort the leadership and those numbers speak highly towards the leadership the plan of action for this city in terms of dealing with the crime and in today's world of being a police officer you had a lot of challenges because there have been a lot of national issues out there and you all have done a great job of staying positive keeping focus on the job and getting the job done and i have nothing but highest of regards for the work and effort of your leadership from frank chief howard and tracy chief spencer so thank you for that we appreciate it mayor it's certainly a group effort from these guys down our command staff the first lounge supervisor but the most credit goes to the boots on the ground it does the ones doing the majority of the work both civilian and sworn but they're getting it done and they do it because i think they have good leadership and they're willing they understand the plan and the plan has produced the results that we need to see so thank you thank you ma'am yes please larry i wonder if chief you could talk about the competitive pay aspect of it we you did get a pay raise but i just like to know how it's working with the old guys and whether they believe that we're still uh we got more work to do i believe there's more work to do and i think if uh maybe the next council media may come up

[0:08:14] as far as um compar comparative cities and comparative pay any other questions or comments for these guys they've been around all day waiting for us to get to this point so be good if somebody had a question or comment because they've waited all day to do this good job i will add this it's getting very difficult to find applicants basically probably because the environment we're in and the pay we've had an opening for police applicants civil service tests for about two months and the last time i checked we probably had 20 applicants historically it's been a while back since we did it but there was 250 people that signed up life's changed a lot in so many ways and it's a national trend police officer applications are down 60 nationwide but we're seeing it here and certainly incidents have happened this past week have so yes please someone else had tom frank so when you're trying to get people to apply and come in we're not really structured to bring somebody in laterally correct it's all right so when you come in you're starting at the bottom and coming up that's correct so the ability to get somebody seasoned in that you don't have to train i mean is there a cost when you look at what it costs to train somebody versus bringing somebody in that's already met the requirements i mean is that something are you structured the way you want to be structured or is there something you need to do different that allow you some flexibility to pick up some people the only thing trying to allow us to do the lateral program is basically through meet and confer based on civil service rules a lot of departments are not civil servants or they do have mean conferring the laterals in the contract most of these apartment departments are putting the starting salaries very high because they're not having to invest a hundred thousand dollars in the cadet so that starting salary for whatever department is generally about

[0:10:16] fifteen thousand dollars more than the starting salary here okay answered my question thanks frank sorry you guys had to wait all day thank you very much thank you

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=uGLKwf4xJiU