Lockhart Police Department releases annual racial profiling report

By Kristen Meriwether, Editor LPR

The Lockhart Police Department released their annual racial profiling report for 2020 at the Feb. 23 Lockhart City Council meeting.

The report showed total stops for 2020 were down by almost half over 2019, but the percentage of stops per ethnic group was within a few percentage points of the previous year. See the graph below for a breakdown:

The number of searches resulting from motor vehicle stops increased from 166 in 2019, to 199 in 2020. The search by ethnicity remained on par with the previous two years.

Consent searches, which is when a police officer asks for permission to search the vehicle instead of using probable cause decreased from 13 in 2019 to eight in 2020. Lockhart Police Chief Ernesto Pedraza, who gave the presentation to City Council on Tuesday, said LPD policy discourages the overuse of consent searches.

Chief Pedraza said the searches productivity rate is increasing due to the officers being more seasoned as compared to 2018.

The City Council had no questions and approved the report 6-0.