The Knoxville Police Department has released its 2020 statistics. Chief Aaron Fuller tells KNIA/KRLS News that the COVID-19 pandemic played a role in not only the numbers, but how officers responded to incidents.

“Obviously, with COVID, our call volume decreased by about 10 percent from last year, as did our cases. However, once we learned about the virus and how to keep ourselves and others safe, with proactive policing, our traffic stops actually went up for the first time in several years. Even though our traffic stop number increased, our citation number went down, our warning level went up. I attribute that to our officers’ empathy for what everybody is going through.”

View the complete statistics here. Chief Fuller will give his end of year report at this Monday’s Knoxville City Council meeting.