The Amarillo Police Department Annual Report Is Beyond Interesting

It's something that gets put out every year in Amarillo, and I wonder how many people actually look at it. I know I had never looked at it personally, then I saw it mentioned on Reddit. That's when I got intrigued.

The Amarillo Police Department puts out a yearly summary of EVERYTHING going on with the department, as well as the reported crime in the city, and I have to say it's one of the more insightful looks into the city that I've seen.

Get our free mobile app

One of the things that we rarely hear about is internal affairs. There are things such as excessive force, unlawful arrests, neglect of duty, etc. that we hear about in the news when it comes to a high profile case, but we definitely don't hear about everything.

As you can see from the graphic above, there are far more internal things that happen that we don't hear about. Neglect of duty seems to be the one with the most complaints or investigations. There are several different things that constitute neglect of duty, it's not just one thing.

When it comes to crime in the city, the report compares things year over year and shows us what areas have improved, and which ones have gotten worse. Unfortunately, when you add up all the different crimes committed in the categories they provide, crime in Amarillo rose 2.1 % year over year.

As you can see, larceny is the biggest issue we face in Amarillo, and we saw those numbers rise in 2022. It was the first time the category had risen in three years. Burglary was down for the fourth year in a row, so that is an encouraging trend.

There are two categories that were not encouraging however, and those categories were homicide and rape. Two of the most violent crimes in the city saw increases. Homicides were up again, with 23 in 2022. That is nearly double what it was back in 2018 when the number was 12.

Rape is a very concerning category as the spike in the number of those crimes jumped up nearly 30% from the previous year. There were 145 reported rapes in 2021, with that number growing to 188 in 2022. It's the second highest number since 2018 that we've seen in the city.

The entire report is a very interesting read, and truly does give you an in-depth look into the crime issue within the city. You can find the full report here.