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Thursday, April 22
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Boerne City Police Report
Chief James Kohler presents annual report to council Christina Ryrholm Hill Country Weekly At the last city council meeting Boerne Police Chief Jim Kohler presented the annual racial profiling report that included the statistical data as required. “The mission of the Boerne Police Department is to work with our citizens to protect life and property, to prevent
crime and preserve the peace in our community, in an open and transparent manner, consistent with the freedoms secured by the Constitution, always treating people dignity, fairness, and respect”. The BPD has a command staff of five with four supervisors of 24 officers and two canines, Tucker and Emma. Six of those are SROs (School Resource Officers) covering both high schools, two of the three middle schools and four of the seven elementary schools in the Boerne ISD. There are seven detectives and four reserve officers. In the communications division there are sixteen individuals. The dispatch is the single centralized source for all emergency calls for the Boerne Police Department, Kendall County Sheriff’s Office, Fair Oaks Ranch Police Department, Fire departments and EMS. There are also four people in the records department. The BPD has an Emergency Response Team (ERT) that consists of a crisis Negotiation team and a Tactical unit. These specialized teams are expected to “perform at higher levels in all aspects of their work. Training includes but is not limited to breaching, entering
buildings, team movements, officer extractions, high risk warrant services, firearms training and general tactics”. Kohler began the presentation by recognizing the awards earned by various officers. These are Detective Micah Binkley (officer of the year), Let Moncada (dispatcher of the year), Detective Lisa Rowe (fit for duty) and Nicholas McWright (top gun). Captain Steve Perez received a Meritorious Award for his leadership of the COVID 19 task force. Two officers were awarded Medal of Valor - Paul Bilotta and James Schmidt. LeeAnn Irvin, Bowen Patton and James Vela achieved Certificates of Merit. A certificate of Commendation went to Officer Van Stavern and Officer Brandon Rowe was honored with a life saving award. There were a total of 24 complaints documented. After investigation eleven were sustained, eleven were deemed unfounded and two were inconclusive. The BPD reported 5136 total stops and in 32 of these situations the ethnicity was known, leaving 5104 times when it was not. The stops were divided into 1939 females and 3197 males. Ten were classified as Alaska Native/American Indian, 39 as Asian/Pacific Islander,
223 as Black, 3619 as White and 1245 as Hispanic/Latino. Of the 5136 stops there were two that resulted in bodily injury - one Black and one White. The biggest change was in the number of sexual assaults (from 14 in 2019 to 23 in 2020) possibly as a result of confined proximity due to COVID. There were also three more burglaries (26/29) and ten more motor vehicle thefts (36/46). While traffic stops and arrests were down over 30% (also potentially attributed to COVID) the total number of 911 calls was up 5% with 31,034 in 2020. The total number of calls handled by dispatch was 64,712 or an average of 177 per day. For the third time in a row (2012, 2016 and 2020) the Boerne Police Department was a “Recognized Law Enforcement Agency” from the Texas Law Enforcement Recognition Program for following “Best Practices”. Boerne is one of 170 out of 2,700 police agencies in Texas with this honor. Additionally this year Chief Jim Kohler was nominated and selected as Region 7 Director for the Texas Police Chief’s Association.
