Missouri Attorney General’s office issues correction on Columbia police vehicle stop data errors
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Missouri Attorney General's office has issued corrections on Columbia police vehicle stop data that came from input errors.
Chris Nuelle, spokesman for the attorney general, said, “Due to data errors that occurred in the production of the 2021 Vehicle Stops Report, vehicle stops data for the Columbia Police Department was regrettably published inaccurately. Those errors have been fixed, and accurate data has been entered into the 2021 Vehicle Stops Report, which has been uploaded to the Attorney General’s website."
The data changes that were corrected include the total number of vehicle stops is 6,414, which is still correct, but the number of resident stops is listed at 6,515, which is incorrect. The accurate number of resident stops is 5,152.
Also corrected was the disparity index for White, Black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, and Other are incorrect. The disparity index for White drivers was changed from 0.79 to 0.81, the disparity index for Black drivers was changed from 3.37 to 3.18, the disparity index for Hispanic drivers was changed from 0.59 to 0.73, the disparity index for Native American drivers was changed from 1.3 to 1.61, the disparity index for Asian drivers was changed from 0.3 to 0.31, and the disparity index for “other” drivers was changed from 0.11 to 0.13.
Other changes in search statistics, stop outcome, location of the stop, driver gender and age, and reason for stops were also made and are reflected in the updated report.
Columbia police issued the following statement on the vehicle stops reporting error:
While reviewing the report published by the Attorney General’s office on May 27, we noticed some errors and brought them to their attention. We discovered one error of our own in reporting the duration of stops. We also saw that the data published on May 27 did not match what we had provided to the Attorney General’s office. The AG’s staff has worked with us over the last few days to assure the integrity of the data being entered and the results that were produced.
Toni Messina
Officials say the report is scheduled to be discussed in greater detail at the Monday city council meeting.
The Attorney General’s office said in the statement it apologizes for the error and inconvenience.
