By Andy Sevilla.
A woman who alleges Kyle Police cited her during a traffic stop last year said officers discriminate against Hispanics in the city, according to a complaint she filed with the department.
Authorities, however, say the complainant failed to provide details to support her discrimination claim and was unresponsive during a follow-up investigation, therefore the matter was closed and determined to be “unfounded.”
Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett told Kyle council members during his annual racial profiling report that a race-related complaint had been emailed to his office, but officials question whether Kyle officers were even involved in the alleged incident.
“A lady claimed that she had been given a ticket and that the officer was laughing at the time that she got the ticket,” Barnett said at the March 18 meeting. “When we reached out to recontact her by email, she never would respond to any of our emails, we never could confirm her identity.”
Barnett added that his department “even tried to review all of the traffic stops around the timeframe she seemed to describe (and) we could find no evidence of a traffic stop or citation being issued that in any way appeared consistent with her complaint. So we’re not even certain that was a Kyle police officer.”
Police Captain Pedro Hernandez wrote in an internal memorandum, “The complainant does not provide any specific details to support her allegation. She reports that she was issued a citation for speeding and that the officers were laughing and she found that to be disrespectful.”
Despite the meritless finding, the complaint was included in the state mandated annual racial profiling report because the police department received the email alleging discrimination, Barnett said.
In 2013, Kyle police officers handled 7,491 total motor vehicle stops where they cited or arrested the driver, according to the report. Of those stops, 125 resulted in an arrest alone, 40 drivers were cited and arrested, and the remaining 7,326 drivers stopped were only issued citations.
Caucasians accounted for more than 54 percent of the vehicle stops last year, while Hispanic drivers made up 37 percent of the bunch, the report showed. African-Americans accounted for fewer than six percent of the total stops last year. Asians, Middle Easterners and Native Americans were at one percent or less.
Kyle officers conducted 80 vehicles searches last year, with 59 of them based upon probable cause or incident to arrest, Barnett said. Twenty-one of those searches were consensual.
Barnett said that of the nearly 7,500 stops made last year, officers knew the race/ethnicity of the driver only in 183 of those instances.
According to Kyle racial profiling reports statistics for the past five years, Caucasians have been subject to the highest percentage of traffic stops for years 2009 through 2013 within the city. Hispanic drivers came in with the second-highest percentage.
