A closer look at West Memphis crime statistics
By JOHN RECH
A Times Editorial
West Memphis Mayor Marco McClendon grossly overstated city crime improvements on a personal Facebook post including the city’s masthead and repeated the faulty claim the next day to city council members during the budget commission proceedings. Now other media too lazy to look at all the police facts repeated the mayor’s faulty claims.
The meeting was held a day after the police objected to to the statistics as deceptive according to city communication director Nick Coulter. Coulter made the graphic used by the mayor on his personal page. Neither the city nor the police department posted the claims.
“The police called me right after the mayor posted and said the numbers were deceptive,” said Coulter. “The said they wouldn’t want to have to answer the media if those numbers got out. The police then sent me spreadsheets called the ‘28 Day Cycle of Offenses’ to show annual projections.”
The mayor told city council members, “I got these numbers straight from the police department.”
The true answer to that claim was, yes but … The police did provide the mayor with raw tallies of a four year rolling annual average for each major crime category. The police also provided the counts of each crime year to date through through June 17. According to Coulter, Mayor McClendon asked him to make a meme showing the numbers through five and one half months against the whole year average, something the police did have on its spread sheet on but only as a step to get to the projected difference against the annual average.
Coulter dumbed-down the math and labels on the meme for the mayor’s Facebook following.
“The mayor asked me to do it,” said Coulter. “I did not use “year-to-date” wording but chose “currently” because I did not think most people would know what that meant.”
The math the junior college educated city communication director employed was as if somebody cut a pie in half and then compared the content to a whole pie. The mayor ran with it. The comparison ordered by McClendon was statistically invalid. Here are some examples.
The city endured two murders year-to-date. The annual average was ten. The mayor touted an 80 percent improvement, while the police projected a remarkable 57 percent annual improvement.
The mayor said aggravated assault was down an astounding 47.69 percent through the first half when compared to the whole year average. According to police reports so far this year 34 aggravated assaults had occurred. Their annual projection came to 73.7 assaults for the whole year. While the mayor bragged assaults had been cut nearly in half, the police actually projected a 13.38 percent increase this year. The mayor created a 61 point spread by comparing half year results to a whole annual average.
The police projections also showed arson more than doubling from nine so far this year to 19.5 by year end for a 121.59 percent jump.
Most categories demonstrated positive trends in crime being down by year end. Certainly the community policing efforts under the department’s police and community together hashtag (#PACT) are delivering results. Police went door to door prior to the COVID-!9 restrictions to meet residents and pass along information about the 9:00 p.m. routine. Community meeting have picked up the last few years. The police adopted a neighborhood app and may source crime video from area residents surveillance. Police added license plate readers to its cameras to help solve crime.Police community outreach efforts in schools with new resource officers put a human face on the department and taught studnets “if you see something, say somethin.”The department joined with a food bank and a local benevolence group to feed the hungry in the city. The police cracked down on major crime with its joint federal task force, operation money don’t sleep one and two, and the development of the violent crime suppression unit.
Thus far city citizen outcry over over national stories of police murdering black suspects has been mild. Thanks to community policing and the citizens response for that. The coronavirus and the mayor’s viral declaration ‘stay your ass home’ certainly resonated with the community and kept some criminals home. The casino lock-down and truck stop tourist slowdown with its its tens of thousands daily visitors and corresponding crime virtually vanished under the coronavirus travel restrictions. A former ranking West Memphis cop said the area north of Interstate 40, busy with casino patrons and and truck stop food and fueling businesses, accounted for more than one third of the crime city-wide.
None the less, hearty congratulations to the community and police. Of the eleven crime categorizes presented by police, eight were projected to have double digit improvements. The police showed six categories that they projected would be cut by around half or better by year end.
One can only hope the numbers hold, that the phones in the busiest 911 center per capita stop ringing in the basement dispatch center at city police headquarters.
Why did the mayor inflate the annual projections? Why did the mayor choose half year tallies to compare to whole year averages? The answer is hype, to hype his popularity with his enthralled constituency. The mayor has delivered enthusiasm and change to the city. What’s not to like about that? Time to spare us all the unneeded hype that only clouds the hard work of the police and community together.
Watch as the mayors posted numbers drop each month as time marches on to the year end. That will prove the invalidity of comparing a half to a whole. Not even the charismatic mayor and his propaganda can stop the calendar to save his numbers.
