COLUMBUS, Ind. — Local law enforcement officers have performed fewer traffic stops this year compared to last year due in large part to the pandemic, which resulted in fewer cars on the road earlier this year.
As of Sept. 15, Bartholomew County Sheriff’s deputies had done 3,850 traffic stops, compared to 6,614 as of Sept. 15, 2019 and 9,385 during all of 2019.
The Columbus Police Department had done 2,539 traffic stops as of Sept. 14, compared to 3,583 last year and 3,264 in 2018.
Overall, the two law enforcement agencies performed a combined 6,389 traffic stops during roughly the first 9.5 months this year, just under half the combined 12,968 traffic stops done last year.
“Our traffic stops as a whole are down, but I will directly relate that to COVID,” said Capt. Dave Steinkoenig, road division commander at the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department. “When COVID first came out, there was a time that based on all the things we were hearing from the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and other places like that, contact or interaction was for emergency situations only. …A lot of our guys were reactive during that time instead of proactive. So they were out in the county responding to calls, looking for suspicious vehicles, stuff of that nature, but they weren’t really stopping a whole lot of cars and doing that self-initiated contact with the motoring public.”
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
