Grant was given to the city of Lubbock to assist with public safety needs.

KCBD
By Sydney Lowther
Published: Oct. 19, 2023 at 3:35 PM GMT-7

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Lubbock law enforcement agencies will be receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money from the federal government soon.

These funds will benefit the police department, the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office, and the district attorney’s office. This grant was given to the city of Lubbock to assist with public safety needs, so the Lubbock Police Department allocated its portion of funding to facilitate faster and more efficient traffic stops.

“It’s keeping up with technology, as we know the world runs on technology now,” Lieutenant Eric Quijada said.

Lt. Quijada says LPD plans to equip their officers with a more modern system for issuing tickets.

“Instead of hand-writing every ticket, it makes it more efficient and faster to issue citations,” Quijada said.

He says a traffic stop using the handwritten citation system can take anywhere from seven to 18 minutes.

“Our motor officers currently have ticket writers and they can have a traffic stop done from the time they flip the sirens to the time the citizen is driving away in probably five minutes.”

Electronic ticket writers will not only speed things up, but will also allow the department to keep a record of traffic stops and more efficiently distribute officers.

“We can use that information to not necessarily target, but be more effective in areas that are needed.”

And it makes the stops safer. When an officer is writing a ticket by hand, they are constantly looking down; this puts the officer and the citizen in danger.

“With the electronic ticket writers they can scan the driver’s license, scan the vehicle, keep their eyes on the road, keep their eyes behind them, that way if there’s any dangers approaching, a car out of control, they can react.”

Lubbock police believe the electronic ticket writer will keep the community safe as well.

“It will make traffic stops more effective, faster so that we can get people back on the streets and it’ll increase our enforcements on the streets.”

The Lubbock area received almost $229,000 in grants. That money will be evenly distributed between the police department, Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office, and the district attorney.