Reports show no profiling by police, deputies

Dalondo Moultrie The Seguin Gazette

Seguin police officers and Guadalupe County Sheriff’s deputies make traffic stops on people of different races generally in line with the area’s racial makeup.

Or so it appears in reports leadership complied.

“Our numbers are pretty much consistent with the demographics of both the city and the county,” Seguin Police Chief Jason Brady said. “There’s not a disproportionate amount of stops for one particular race or ethnicity to a greater extent of what would be expected in regard to our demographics.”

Brady presented a powerpoint to Seguin City Council last month detailing the department’s 2022 Racial Profiling and Citizen Contact Report.

Law enforcement agencies in Texas are required to submit traffic stop data to the Texas Commission On Law Enforcement annually, Brady said. The filing period is between January and March each year.

Failure to submit the required report in time could result in “license action against the chief administrator” and/or civil penalties against the agency, according to information on the Texas Commission On Law Enforcement website.

According to Seguin Police Department and United States Census Bureau data, the city’s makeup is roughly 55% Hispanic or Latino, 36% White, 7% Black or African American, and 2% combined Asian, Alaska Native and Native/American Indian.

In 2022, Seguin police conducted a total of 9,510 traffic stops.

Hispanic and Latino people were involved in 4,757 stops or about 50%, according to Brady’s data. About 40% of stops were of white people, 9% Black people and 1% of other races combined.

While the numbers relatively match the city’s makeup, that shouldn’t be his department’s benchmark, Brady said. There’s more to it.

“The folks we’re stopping aren’t always residents,” he said. “In the future as we do more interdiction, more on the highway, our local demographics go out the window. I-10 becomes a busy corridor and as we have a larger presence on the toll road, those numbers could change.”

Agencies submit the annual reports and community members can use them to be assured of agencies’ transparency, Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Joshua Ray said.

But the reports don’t necessarily offer the best depiction of the agencies, he said.

Ray agreed with Brady that people from outside the county increasingly drive through, and to this area, which could weigh on the annual racial profiling report.

“There’s a lot of interstate traffic and traffic from other communities in Texas,” Ray said.

However, the sheriff’s office profiling data resembles that of the county population, he said.

According to census estimates, Guadalupe County consists of about 39.4% Hispanic or Latino people, 48.1% White, 8.9% Black and about 3% American Indian, Alaska Native, Pacific Islander and Asian combined.

Sheriff’s deputies’ stops by race averaged to about 55.5% White, 34.5% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Black and 1.4% for other races combined, according to the county’s report.

Law enforcement officers are trained to identify and arrest criminals, Ray said. The good ones do the job to the best of their ability without keying in on race or other demographics, he said.

If an officer is making a traffic stop at 3 a.m. on I-10 in Guadalupe County, there is very little chance that stop is race-related, Ray said. It’s virtually impossible to see inside a fast-moving vehicle in such circumstances, he said.

“If you find a police officer who is arresting people or stopping people purely based on race, I would tell you they’re a very poor police officer,” Ray said. “We’re looking for the behavior, not what the person looks like.

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