Lubbock Police Department officials say major crime was down more than 20% in the Hub City last year as the city continues to focus its efforts on improving public safety.
Lubbock's Interim Police Chief Gregory Rushin presented his department's annual report to the city council during a Tuesday work session. Year 2023 statistics Rushin highlighted show Lubbock is heading in the right direction in preventing most types of major violent and property crimes.
Overall, about 550 fewer violent crimes — homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — occurred in Lubbock in 2023 compared with 2022, Rushin said, a drop of 20%. Of those, homicides represented the greatest percent decrease, dropping from 26 occurrences in 2022 to 16 in 2023, or a 38% drop.
Year-over-year, rape was down 27%, and aggravated assault decreased by 22%. The number of robberies reported remained about the same with 352 last year — three more than in 2022.
Property crimes — burglary, larceny and auto theft — were down 24% as a whole in 2023 over 2022. Burglary decreased by 29%, larceny by 23% and auto theft by 20%.
Rushin said crime rates continue to fall in 2024, with major offenses decreasing by 20% in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period in 2023. All aforementioned crimes fell in the first quarter except homicide; Lubbock saw three more homicides in the first part of this year compared to last.
Dropping crime rates make Lubbock a more desirable place to live, Rushin said.
"When you look at the safest cities and places to live, for the people that do those articles, public safety comes in very important in all of those considerations," Rushin told the council. "Crime rate is something that they use to look at to compare cities."
Car crashes on Lubbock roads were also down in 2023, Rushin said. Lubbock saw about 7,500 total crashes last year — the lowest number in at least five years — representing a 9% decrease over 2022. The number of crashes resulting in injuries decreased by 2% year-over-year. The city had 35 fatal crashes in 2023, one more than the year before.
Crashes continue to decline in 2024, Rushin said, with total incidents down 18% in the first quarter compared to the same time last year, and injury crashes down 9%. There were, however, six fatal crashes in Q1 compared to last year's five.
"The No. 1 way to get killed in a city is not by a crime; it's by a crash, so traffic safety is a vital role of ours, too," Rushin said.
Lubbock police officers conducted 32% more traffic stops in 2023 compared with the prior year — nearly 78,000. Officers issued 8% more citations and 50% more warnings.
"Everybody's a traffic officer. That's why we have radar guns in all the squad cars," Rushin said. "Tickets are not a measure of success. It's changing driver behavior, reducing those crashes and resulting injuries and death."
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Dispatch and response times were down slightly in 2023 for priority calls, Rushin said. The average total response time for priority one calls, the most critical, dropped by a second. For priority two calls, which are also considered urgent, the total response time dropped by 16 seconds on average, or 4%.
The total response time, from the 911 call until an officer arrives on scene, was 6 minutes on average for priority one calls and 6 minutes 47 seconds for priority two calls.
"We have a very large community; we have 142 square miles. … That's a lot of driving to do," Rushin said. "(Response times are) really hard to get down, because part of it is that driving time.
"We rearranged a couple of beats and did some things to try to reduce that. We're always looking to reduce response time. That's very important, particularly for priority one and two calls."
The department also switched last year from 8-hour to 10-hour shifts, which Rushin said helps to make sure peak times are covered and calls are answered faster.
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