Police Chief Luna Tells Council's Public Safety Committee: Managing 100+ Protests With LBPD's Thinned Resources Invited Increases In Violent + Quality of Life Crimes Citywide

+ Police Chief Luna Tells Council's Public Safety Committee: Managing 100+ Protests With LBPD's Thinned Resources Invited Increases In Violent + Quality of Life Crimes Citywide

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Police Chief Luna Tells Council's Public Safety Committee: Managing 100+ Protests With LBPD's Thinned Resources Invited Increases In Violent + Quality of Life Crimes Citywide .

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(Sept. 17, 2020, 5:25 a.m.) -- On Sept. 16, just over a week after the City Council voted 9-0 to adopt a FY21 budget that defunds 48 sworn officers on top of 180+ officers not restored from a previous Council defunding (2009-2015), LBPD Chief Robert Luna told the Council's Public Safety Committee (Price, Supernaw, Austin) that managing 100+ protests since May 31 with LBPD's thin staffing level is "taking a toll every day" that impacts "every corner of our city."

During the Committee agenda item ("receive a report on Police Department overtime costs") Chief Luna referred to but didn't quote recently released LBPD crime stats (detailed below) and suggested the Committee might want to agendize the issue and related issues for future discussion. (No Committee member dove into the increased crime stats or indicated a future agenda item on the issues suggested by the Chief ).

Chief Luna told the Committee that LBPD has logged-in about 109 protests of various types and crowd sizes since May 31. and the cost to handle those protests (not including roughly 6-8 hrs of May 31 civil unrest) was $9.8 million in regular time inclusive of roughly $2.9 million in overtime...and Chief Luna continued:

Chief Luna:I do want to make another point that I think the Public Safety Committee needs to look at ways and maybe even ask questions in another meeting about, and that is managing these protests takes a lot of time, effort, as you see money and resources. So as we prepare for each individual protest depending on the dynamics of the size and we anticipate, we always have to have a contingency of officers who are on standby.
As you know, we don't have an over abundance of resources so the managers here have to find a balance between our regular calls for service, our crime patterns, which incudes quality of life challenges from division to division, and just to give you an example.
In our last crime meeting which just occurred yesterday, each division Commander, which represents the Council disticts that all three of you represent, were having challenges in some of their crime management because a lot of these resources are dedicated to managing these protests.
So it is taking a toll every day, and unfortunately for some they may say, well, question how we're managing protests or why we're putting people in one part of town compared to the others, but I'm here to tell you it's impacting every corner of our city and I think unfortunately it's impacting specificlly violent crime in some our under-represented neighborhoods which I think is very sad.

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LBPD's most recently released crime stats at this link, referenced by Chief Luna (but not detailed by him) show that while totaled violent crimes are down, aggravated assaults (the violent crime category that includes shootings) July 2020 compared to July 2019 are up in all four LBPD divisions and property crimesa increased by double and sometimes triple digit percentages. .

In South Division: aggravated assaults July 2020 compared to July 2019 up 40.9%, with property crimes up 105.8% (residential burglarues up 177.8%, auto burgkarues up 257.1%)
In North Division: aggravated assaults July 2020 compared to July 2019 up 85.7%, with property crimes up 57.4% (Grand Theft Auto up 70.2%)
In West Division: aggravated assaults July 2020 compared to July 2019 up 60%, with property crimes up 36.1% (Grand Thefts Auto up 65.7%)
In Esat Division, aggravated assaults July 2020 compared to July 2019 up 25% with property crimes up 88.3% (Commercial Burglaries up 184.6%,, Grand Theft up 117%, Grand Theft Auto up 117.1%.)

The LBPD crime stats linkd above show only "Part 1" (serious) crimes against persona and property; they don't show "Part 2" (all other crimes, not itemized, but referred to by some LB officials as neighborhood impacting "quality of life" crimes.)

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