PolitiFact questions claim El Paso is “Safest City of its size”

Is El Paso really the safest city of its size in the United States?

El Paso leaders, including Congressman Beto O’Rourke often use the claim, basing it on CQ Press lists and FBI Unified Crime Statistics.

While confirming his candidacy for a Senate run last month in El Paso O’Rourke called the city “the safest city in Texas, the safest city in the United States.”

Later the same day in Dallas, O’Rourke told a crowd: “El Paso, Texas — safest city, safest city in the state of Texas, safest city in the United States. And listen, lest you think that it’s due to walls or drones or aerostat blimps or militarization of the border — we’ve been either the safest or one of the top three safest cities in America since 1997. We are a safe city.”

But is El Paso really the safest city of its size in America?

PolitiFact determined this statement to be “half-true,” pointing out that there are “factual flaws” in such a proclamation.

PolitiFact says the statement is usually attached to calculations by CQ Press linked to crime data published by the FBI that the agency strongly counsels against using to compare communities.

The FBI said in 2011 “despite repeated warnings against these practices, some data users continue to challenge and misunderstand this position.

Data users should not rank locales because there are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place.

FBI Unified Crime Statistics (UCR) include only jurisdictional population figures along with reported crime, clearance, or arrest data. Rankings ignore the uniqueness of each locale.”

O’Rourke admitted to PolitiFact that rankings aren’t “a perfect way to assess a city’s relative safety. There’s got to be a better way to do this. Until there is, I’ve only got what the FBI reports. If you’ve got a better source, I’m all yours.”

El Paso Police told ABC-7 the best way to judge a city’s safety is by talking to its residents.

“Those are just numbers. Truly, the feeling of the citizen and how we feel in our environment is what’s important,” EPPD Sgt. Robert Gomez said. “In our opinion, El Paso is one of the safest cities in America. We can tell that by the statistics and also by engaging and talking to the community.”

County Judge Veronica Escobar said she used to call El Paso “the safest city.”

“I know that the FBI has said ‘please don’t use our stats to do rankings’ … because things change from city to city and they’re right,” Escobar said, “In order to avoid any criticism or to avoid or any charge that we’re not being absolutely, completely accurate, I now say we are among the safest cities in the country and that is factually accurate.”

Gomez said the department now says El Paso is one of the safest cities based on statistics.

“Safety is a perception. We feel, as a police department, that our citizens feel they are safe. T FBI statistics are just statistics, the overall feeling, how a person feels living in El Paso, is the priority.”