City Council discusses suspending Cite & Release ordinance

Sierra Martin | Managing Editor

SAN MARCOS – The San Marcos City Council discussed suspending the cite and release ordinance during their Tuesday, May 18 meeting due to speculation that it may be leading to an increase in crime.

The cite and release ordinance went into effect on May 31, 2020, and mandates that the San Marcos Police Department officers release suspects with a ticket and court summons for certain low-level crimes, as opposed to arresting them.

Councilmember Shane Scott brought the agenda item to the council’s attention, saying that he was concerned that SMPD Chief Stan Standridge was having trouble implementing cite and release while adjusting to his new position, which he has held since Nov. 16, 2020.

“I can’t pinpoint it, I can’t say it’s because of cite and release, I can’t say it’s because of any specific thing, we can’t say it’s just a pandemic, there are no givens,” said Scott. “But what I can say is that we did hire a new chief that has been bombarded with all the elements that I just said. And he has to fit that into a community that he’s just learning about. And my concern is that he hasn’t had enough time on his own to implement all the stuff that we’re pushing on him.”

Many of the other councilmembers, such as Alyssa Garza and Maxfield Baker, said that the conversation was incomplete and unfounded due to the lack of data or prior conversation with Chief Standbridge.

San Marcos City Manager Bert Lumbreras voiced his support for both Chief Standbridge and cite and release, saying that his time working with the new chief has been constructive.

“It’s a little bit concerning that council has certain aspects of opinion without having the benefit of understanding what his (Chief Standbridge) vision and his plan is,” said Lumbreras. “And I think the bigger discussions should be more around the concerns that we all have. And we’ve had quite extensive discussions around the crime and the issues that are causing it.”

Chief Standbridge, who was watching the live-streamed city council meeting, was able to join the conversation and add his perspective of the rising crime rates and effectiveness of cite and release.

Chief Standbridge said that he unequivocally supports cite and release and wants local leaders to focus more on helping the victims of crimes in San Marcos. Additionally, he said he was shocked to see that the city has a 20-year-old Computer Aided Dispatch and Records Management System (CAD), comparing it to someone having a 20-year-old laptop.

“I am fully supportive of cite and release as long as we do what councilman Gleason just said…we introduce some focus on victims,” said Chief Standbridge. “Victimization in this city of San Marcos is significant, and I think we are missing a larger narrative when we as the elected leaders, you as the elected leaders of San Marcos, aren’t recognizing many, many victims that we have within the city especially related to violent crimes. So, I would encourage all of us to have a victim-centric focused conversation.”

The chief and council members discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced and possibly skewed the cite and release data but has ultimately shown success.

According to Standbridge, San Marcos has a “remarkable” statistic of being almost 50/50 with violent crime and property crime, with property crime leading by only 8%. Violent crime includes aggravated assault, robbery, murder and rape.

Additional data Standbridge provided included no change in the past year to possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana under four ounces. 

Crimes that have shown a decrease since passing the cite and release ordinance include disorderly conduct, driving with an invalid license, violation of city ordinance, criminal mischief, and theft of service.

Ultimately, the city council decided to wait for Chief Standbridge and City Manager Lumbreras to complete a report focusing on their vision of policing in the community.

Agenda item 28 concerning cite and release was discussed around midnight, near the end of the sixth hour of the city council meeting. Consistently, the city council meetings have been running past midnight. The May 18 meeting adjourned at 12:40 a.m. on Wed. May 19.

“None of us are making good decisions at this hour at a certain point,” said Derrick in an attempt to move the remaining discussion items to their next scheduled meeting. 

The San Marcos City Council meets at 6 p.m. every first and third Tue. of the month. More information on reading agendas and watching the meetings can be found here.