Have drug and gang-related crimes grown in Corpus Christi? Here's what police said
The presentation came about two months after officers from the Criminal Investigation Division presented other data on crime to the council. Mayor Paulette Guajardo and several council members requested additional data to show how local law enforcement is tracking, addressing and preventing crime in the area.
The department's presentation on June 17 broke down crime by all five City Council districts for each of the last five years and delved into specific categories of crime involving homeless people, gangs and narcotics.
According to the data, violent crimes have decreased in four of the districts, dropping from 414 in 2020 to 393 in 2024.
District 2 saw a slight increase in violent crimes, rising from 105 in 2020 to 112 in 2024.
Four districts also saw a reduction in property crime during that period, though property crimes also increased in District 2 from 355 in 2020 to 358 in 2024.
Corpus Christi Police Assistant Chief of Investigations Todd Green noted the department's creation of a Violent Crime Unit in November 2024 under the leadership of Police Chief Mike Markle.
Designed to address an increase in violent gun-related crimes involving young people between the ages of 16 and 24, it has enabled the department to mobilize 13 officers from various units, who employ tactics such as high visibility sweeps of known crime areas, increased traffic enforcement and investigating of crime hotspots.
'They go after both the areas where there's an increase in violent gun crime and they also identify the repeat offenders,' Green said.
The presentation also included a comparison between Corpus Christi crime rates and other U.S. cities with a similar population size.
It reflected Corpus Christi Police Department data that is reported to the FBI indicating that the city ranks high in violent crimes such as aggravated assault.
Corpus Christi, a city where 316,603 lived in 2023, ranked No. 7 out of 19 cities for the rate of aggravated assault. It ranked No. 13 for both murder and rape and No. 7 in the overall violent crime rate.
In terms of property crimes, it ranked No. 8 for larceny, with a total of 6,603 thefts in 2023, or 209 for every 10,000 people.
Green said that while the city's crime rates may be higher than some of the other cities on the list, the city does an excellent job with clearance rates of crimes. The term refers to the percentage of crimes that are resolved, typically through an arrest.
'Although we're similar populations, there's no city on this list that is identical to Corpus Christi,' he said. 'Every one of these cities has different makeups and different factors that impact their crime rate.'
He noted that the number of sworn officers working in some of the other cities was much higher than in Corpus Christi. For example, while Corpus Christi had 458 police officers in 2023, Cincinnati had 916 officers, though it has a population of about 5,000 fewer people.
The police department tracks and compiles the number of crimes involving drugs to observe trends and target drug-related crimes in specific areas.
Hollis Bowers, a deputy chief in the Narcotics and Vice Investigations Division, presented citywide totals on total drug arrests over the last two years.
Bowers noted 1,211 cases involving possession of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin or fentanyl in 2024 — a 3.7% increase in cases due to penalty group 1 drugs, a classification of drugs that tend to carry the highest penalties, since the year before.
There were 837 cases of marijuana possession last year and 429 involving THC products.
Uniform patrol officers arrested 2,598 people for drugs in 2024 compared to 2,522 the year before.
Most of these arrests were made when officers were pursuing people for other crimes and found that they had drugs, he said.
Bowers noted an increase in drug delivery cases, with 67 people attempting to manufacture or deliver penalty group 1 drugs in 2024 compared to 54 the year before.
While the numbers might make it look as if police found more drug dealers, they actually mean the department did a better job of catching drug dealers in 2024 than 2023, the officer said.
The city's Gang Unit, formerly known as the Juvenile Enforcement Unit, arrests people who committed crimes carried out by a gang or on behalf of a gang.
The two main violations that officers see are drug violations due to possession and selling, though weapons violations are more common, said Austin Jochec, a detective within the department's Gang Unit.
In May, the unit had detected more than 2,463 gang members, he said.
Of these known gang members, 1,638 were in a prison gang, 205 drove outlaw motorcycles and 620 belonged to street or hybrid gangs, which often include mixed groups of gang members and which police investigate due to their high level of gang activity and lack of leadership structure.
Two-year data from the police department on homeless offenders showed that 586 homeless people committed crimes in 2024 compared to 594 in 2023.
In 2024, police arrested 164 people for criminal trespass and 106 for drug possession. They arrested 138 for warrants.
Additional data showed that 23 homeless people were victims of aggravated assault last year, while 20 became victims of larceny and 48 were assaulted.
Green pointed out that because homelessness is not a crime, law enforcement agencies do not track it as such or report it to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program.
Police data on homelessness indicates instances in which homeless people were either arrested or victimized by a crime.
More: Corpus Christi's rate of violent crime is high. What's the story?
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: What to know about drug and gang-related crimes in Corpus Christi
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