ECPD traffic stops follow city population trends
By SHANNON CRABTREE scrabtree@leader-news.com

El Campo police officers made 9,801 traffic stops during 2007 for a host of reasons, but ethnicity was never a factor.

Zero complaints were filed.

Each of the incidents listed in the state-mandated 2007 Racial Profiling report were initiated by El Campo police - none involved a citizen first calling for help.

The report details the ethnicity of people El Campo police stopped for traffic or pedestrian offenses and the overall outcome of that stop.

The breakdown of stops, El Campo Police Chief Jim Elliott told Council as he presented the report at a recent meeting, closely follows the population numbers in the city limits.

Of the 9,801 people stopped in 2007, 46 percent were white; 41 percent Hispanic and 11 percent black. An additional 182 stops involved people of other ethnic backgrounds.

The 2000 U.S. Census reported the city's population was 51 percent white, 37 percent Hispanic and 12 percent black.

In 2006, El Campo police officers stopped 6,974 pedestrians and motorists. Of those, 11 percent were black, 42 percent Hispanic and 45 percent white. Those numbers are nearly identical to figures from 2005, during which 7,094 pedestrians and motorists were stopped. The racial breakdown that year was 11 percent black, 41 percent Hispanic and 47 percent white.

In the stops last year, warnings were issued 255 times - 68 percent to Hispanics, 21 percent to whites and 11 percent to blacks.

Citations were issued on 333 occasions - 216 to Hispanics, 59 to blacks and 58 to whites.

One white pedestrian and two Hispanic pedestrians were searched.

Of the 628 vehicles searched, 418 had Hispanic drivers, 121 white and 89 black.

Whenever an individual with a vehicle is arrested, the vehicle is inventoried for safety reasons before it is towed, Elliott told Council.

Contraband was found in 116 instances in the 304 vehicles with Hispanic drivers in 2007 - alcohol in 87 cases, drugs in 27, other items in eight, weapons in six, drug paraphernalia and cash in two instances each.

A total of 83 vehicles with white drivers were inventoried last year. Contraband was found in 36 cases - alcohol in 22 of them, drugs in 10, other items in six, drug paraphernalia in four and stolen property and cash in one instance each.

Contraband was found in 16 instances in the 73 vehicles with black drivers in 2007 - alcohol in nine cases, drugs in six and in one instance drug paraphernalia, stolen property and weapons.

Senate Bill 1074, passed in the 77th Texas Legislature, requires police agencies to report detailed information on all traffic and pedestrian stops.