On Thursday October 19, 2023, the Brownfield City Council met in a regularly scheduled meeting. One of the items of business was the Brownfield Police Department and Code Enforcement quarterly reports. The new Chief of Police Chris Kotzur showed the reports to the Council. Before he went any further he had this to say,
“There is two things I would like to hit on this morning. One is the recent vehicle burglaries that we’ve had in the city… we have made two arrests on that, one is an adult that was found with some of the property that was taken from one of the burglries. Another was a juvenile. We are looking at several other suspects. I know it’s been a little slow, but we’ve been down to one detective at this point.” The second item Chief Kotzur wanted to highlight was the active shooter exercise that took place last Thursday. “I have to tell ya, that I’m shocked in a good way at the leadership in the city that has gotten together and is working together in order to make sure if we done have one of these incidents happen in our community that we’re prepared for it. I’ve got give a shoutout to Mr. Tackitt, Chief Woolard, Rick over at EMS, Mr. Smith at the school… everybody has really been working together.”
Moving on from there, a couple of council members asked a few questions.
Councilman Leon Pope asked Chief Kotzur, “Who is in charge in the event of a major catastrophe?”
Chief Kotzur said, “It depends… it’s an evolving incident, so in the beginning, it could be just the patrol officer, and that’s why we need to train so much.”
Pope asked, “I mean the hierarchy… go above… go to the top.”
Chief Kotzur then said, “I think in an incident such as that, which we did an active shooter, I think it’s gonna be what’s called a “unified command”, in which the school district would have a representative, which would probably be Mr. Smith, the police department, which would be myself, someone from the hospital, probably the fire chief… putting our heads together to make sure we get the right resources to where it needs to be and so on so forth. Ultimately the City Manager would be, I guess if you wanna look at it, would be in charge of the entire incident and above that, even the mayor. He would be the one to declare a disaster.”
Mayor Tom Hesse chimed in saying, “The county judge too? Then Chief Kotzur sayiung, “Yes”
Councilman Jimmy Garza said, “I think the county judge… excuse me… I think he’s the hierarchy in the emergency response.”
Chief Kotzur said to Pope, “Does that answer your question Mr. Pope?” and Pope said, “Yes it does… thanks.”
Garza then asked Chief Kotzur, “Do you have another report that shows the age and ethnicity of these crimes?”
Chief Kotzur told Garza, “We could get that… I know the racial profile thing that we’re required to do by the state at the end of the year will break down citations, it’ll break down arrests… it’ll break all that down by race. I don’t know about age so much, but definitely by race. If you want that information I can get that to ya.”
Hesse said, “I think that’s one of those reports you have to turn into the state?” Kotzur said, “yes sir, yes sir … it’s required by law.”
Garza then asked, “Would that be too much if we had it quarterly is really what I’m getting at?” ” Chief Kotzur said, “We can do that, absolutely.”
Looking at the quarterly reports, there were over 3200 calls for service in the third quarter. There were 1,088 in July, 1,089 in August, and 1,029 in September. There were two sexual assaults reported only in the month of July. There were 13 assaults reported in July, six in August, and 14 in September. There was a total of 58 thefts reported, with 16 in July, 28 in August, and 14 in September. There were four stolen vehicles in July and two stolen vehicles in September. Animal control callouts were 160 in July, 189 in August, and 170 in September.
In the month of July, there were 116 citations given, 61 in August, and 38 in September. There was a total of 134 arrests and charges in the third quarter, with 60 in July, 39 in August, and 35 in September. The total warrants served for July were 33, 14 in August, and 22 in September.
In July the BPD participated in the Health Fair at the Courthouse, and in July and August hosted Stop the Bleed training provivided by EMS. In August the BPD assisted in the Hope over Dope bike ride, hosted meetings for TDEM in the training room. Participated in Backpack day for Terry County students at Coleman Park and was present at the Suicide Walk at Cub Stadium. Also, members on the BPD assisted in City clean-up. These totals do not include September 29th or 30th
Next was the quarterly update on the code enforcement officer. The former code enforcement officer Andre Jaurez went to the Brownfield ISD police to be a School Resource Officer. With that, the city hired a new code enforcement officer and Chief Kotzur introduced him to the council. He said, “This is Rick Guerra, he’s our new code enforcement officer. He’s not new to the city.” Guerra explained that he is a retired correctional officer, that spent 30 years in the industry. He’s worked for the City of Brownfield for about 16 months in the street department and began working as the code enforcement officer the first week in September 2023.
