How to resolve AdBlock issue? Clearlake Police Chief Timothy Hobbs presented police statistics for 2024 at the Clearlake City Council meeting on Thursday.
The data shows less crime and fewer traffic collisions in Clearlake. At the same time, police made fewer traffic stops but issued more traffic citations.
In 2024, Clearlake recorded a total of 1,578 crime incidents, a 14.43% decrease from 1,844 in 2023. While crimes against persons decreased only slightly, property crime dropped by 21.5%.
Hobbs also reported positive traffic statistics.
Traffic citations increased by more than 10%, totaling 1,698 cases. However, traffic collisions decreased by 20.43%, from 186 incidents in 2023 to 148 in 2024. Fatal collisions also declined, from six in 2023 to three in 2024.
“The overall traffic collision number is pretty significant. The last time we had that few traffic collisions was in 2016,” Hobbs said during his presentation.
“Hopefully next year they'll remain at this level, or hopefully even get lower,” he added.
“You guys have been doing a great job this year. Crime statistics are down. That's always good,” Clearlake Mayor Russ Cremer commented.
Mayor Russell Cremer said he sees police cars all over the city “to catch unsuspecting drivers like me. Fortunately, they haven't,” Cremer joked, prompting a chuckle from Hobbs.
In a more detailed report Hobbs provided to Lake County News, Clearlake police made 3,468 traffic stops throughout 2024, a 17.66% drop compared to 4,212 in 2023.
Hobbs also reported 34 incidents of use of force in 2024, including 30 incidents that involved the use of physical force and four cases of Taser use. Similar to 2023, none of the cases was required to be reported to the California Department of Justice, according to Hobbs.
In almost every data set Hobbes discussed, he made comparisons between 2023 and 2024, remarking the percentage of change between the two years. However, statistics prior to 2023 were not available.
Chief Hobbs said the department used another reporting system before 2023.
“You can’t look at the numbers and get a comparison because it’s a different reporting system,” he told Lake County News during a phone call, explaining why only two years of data were compared.
Apart from crime and traffic, code enforcement cases declined sharply in property and vegetation cases, while administrative citations were up.
“We were short one code enforcement person about 10 months of the year,” Hobbs said of an officer who was moved to another department as part of explaining the reasons behind the numbers.
He added that for each of the cases, code enforcement officers took more time to do “more focused work on trying to solve and clear up some of these properties versus kind of just targeting places all across the city and not putting that time in work.”
In addition, the Clearlake Police Department made nine new hires in 2024.
“The council has done a lot for the police department in the city as a whole over the last several years, and with that help, we've been able to get a lot more staff hired, and especially retain the staff,” Hobbs said.
Lake County News has put together five most important data sets, drawing data Hobbs provided during and after the council meeting.
To note, the data sets display “change” in percentage from 2023 to 2024. A plus sign marks an increase in value while a minus sign indicates a decrease.
General police statistics
While the number of incidents stayed relatively consistent with the previous year, Clearlake police made 1,830 arrests in 2024 — a 13.6% decrease from 2,118 in 2023.
In 2024, officer-initiated incidents declined whereas calls for service became more frequent.
Response time
The police response time measures the time used from the moment the call comes in till the moment the officer arrives at the scene, according to Hobbs.
In 2024, Clearlake police were 36 seconds quicker in responding to Priority 1 calls, which means “emergency calls that require officers to go to immediately,” Hobbs said.
Crime
Hobbs said Clearlake has been using the National Incident-based Reporting System, or NIBRS, for crime reporting since 2023, which categorizes crimes into three broad groups:
• Crimes against persons, including assault, homicide, human trafficking, kidnapping, and sex offenses;
• Crimes against property, such as arson, bribery, burglary, vandalism, and embezzlement;
• Crimes against society, including animal cruelty, drug offenses, and gambling violations.
While property crimes and crimes against society saw significant drops of 21.5% and 18.24%, respectively, crimes against persons remained relatively unchanged from the previous year.
Traffic-related
In 2024, Clearlake police made fewer traffic stops but issued more citations. In the meantime, fewer collisions occurred, especially fatal ones.
Apart from all the improvement, drive-under-influence offences, or DUI offences, surged by 72.73% from 44 in 2023 to 76 in 2024.
Code enforcement
Code enforcement cases dropped across all types but administrative citations grew.
The biggest changes took place in property and cannabis cases, which declined by 20.94% and 30.23% respectively. Citations grew from 3,199 cases in 2023 to 3,596 in 2024, an increase by 12.41%.
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