When Lubbock Police Chief Floyd Mitchell looks at the crime data from 2020, he sees a lot of statistics trending down.
Total home burglaries were down 13% compared to 2019 s totals, thefts from motor vehicles were down 10%, and destruction or vandalism was down 3%. These are all property crimes, and all together, property crimes were down 11% compared to the year prior.
Chief Mitchell says COVID-19 may have been a factor in this. A lot of people were at home, so their houses did not get burglarized, Mitchell said. It s hard for us to pinpoint exactly what caused this 11% decrease right now, but that s what we believe was the biggest cause of that people were at home.