Some city leaders are curious as what some police officers are doing while on duty.
With recent figures in hand, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen recently questioned the ticket and arrest statistics for police officers.
“You continue to have some officers who continue to do a lot of a things,” said Mayor Diane Delaware, to Chief Jeff Curtis. “And some officers continue to do nothing.”
For the month of August, there were officers who issued as many as 102 to 37 tickets. But there were some who only issued anywhere from three citations to none at all.
Concerning arrests, one officer made 11 for the month of August. Two officers only made one arrest each for that same month.
Delaware said the figures surprise her greatly.
“To sit here and look at these numbers all day long, every month..there seems to be no change,” she said. “Do these officers work somewhere else or they don’t work in Yazoo City? It’s just a very odd number to continue to look at.”
Alderman Dr. Jack Varner said he was unaware that such records were even kept at the police department.
“But do you grade them on this or reprimand them,” Varner asked. “There is one (officer) who is just not doing anything. Do you encourage them or discourage them to write tickets?”
Delaware said she knows it’s a touchy subject and won’t call the officers out by name, but she is still greatly concerned.
“I won’t be liked for asking these questions,” she said. “I understand that. But I hope I will be respected for asking these pertinent questions. These officers appear to not run into tickets. They don’t run into arrests. What do they do?”
Curtis said a lot of the figures revolve around job duties and responsibilities within the department. Supervisors who are spending more time focused on administrative issues are not going to be spending as much time writing tickets and making arrests.
“We continue to address this with the manpower, our personnel power,” Curtis said. “But some of the statistical numbers you are looking at are supervisors, which spend the majority on their shifts taking reports. They come to the station. They take reports a lot during the day.”
But Curtis said the patrol officers’ reasonings behind those figures could be from the officer feeling a ticket or arrest wasn’t necessary.
“I would rather not discuss this in the open, but there are some particular reasons on a couple of those.”
Alderman Aubry Brent Jr. said the board cannot go by figures alone.
“Your officers are working, but the stats may not show it,” Brent said. “I know how some of them use their jobs in terms of being a community policeman. When they have to write tickets, they will. But they are not just out there writing them.”
In other police department news:
• For the month of August, arrests increased from 86 to 122 from last year.
• Citations for the month of August increased from 100 to 331.
• Call volume for August increased from 1,050 to 1,464.
