The week of April 14-20, 2019 is a week to celebrate YOU and all that you accomplish each and every day. It is a great time to honor and praise the amazing “service above self” work dedication; assisting with the birth of a child over the phone, talking a caller through performing CPR on a family member, calming a victim of a violent crime, reassuring a child that there are no monsters under their bed, texting with a teenager that might be witnessing a crime at their school, or just having a conversation with an elderly caller, who may be confused and not have anyone else to contact.

The simple definition of service is “the action of helping or doing work for someone”. Although being a public safety telecommunicator is never as simple as this definition of service, it is the most important function. In order to effectively serve others, it takes different ideas, skillsets and personalities to assist in being successful; a group of like-minded people coming together to accomplish a common goal, through good times and bad, through sadness and happiness, and through merriment and defeat. Each of us has unique set of attributes that we bring to the profession, but at the end of the day, we all have the same goals, which are to serve our citizens and first responders and ensure to the best of our abilities that everyone is kept safe from harm.

Celebrating the passion, perseverance, friendship, commitment to service, nurturing spirit and teamwork that is shown day in and day out by public safety telecommunicators is the definition of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.

On behalf of the APCO International Executive Committee and APCO staff, we want to express our pride and appreciation for all you do.  We recognize, support and celebrate YOU.

Holly Wayt

 APCO President

Counterfeit prescription drugs are illegal and may be hazardous to your health. They are fake medicines not produced to the pharmacological specifications of the drugs they claim to be. These counterfeit prescription drugs may be contaminated or contain the wrong ingredients or no active ingredient. They also could have the right active ingredient but with the wrong dosage. Don't be fooled by fake prescription drugs masquerading as legitimate medicines, as using them may worsen your health conditions.

Tips for Avoiding Counterfeit Prescription Drugs:

• Be mindful of appearance—closely examine the packaging and lot numbers of prescription drugs and be alert to any changes from one prescription to the next.
• Consult your pharmacist or physician if your prescription drug looks suspicious.
• Alert your pharmacist and physician immediately if your medication causes adverse side effects or if your condition does not improve.
• Use caution when purchasing drugs on the Internet. Do not purchase medications from unlicensed online distributors or those who sell medications without a prescription. Reputable online pharmacies will have a seal of approval called the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Site (VIPPS), provided by the Association of Boards of Pharmacy in the United States.
• Be aware that product promotions or cost reductions and other “special deals” may be associated with counterfeit product promotion.

SAN PATRICIO COUNTY, Texas — With San Patricio County Sheriff Leroy Moody retiring March 31, county commissioners announced Monday who will be filling his shoes.

Commissioners named Oscar Riviera as the new San Patricio County Sheriff.

Riviera has lived in the county for more than 40 years where he served under Moody in 1977 as deputy sheriff. He also worked as a Department of Public Safety state trooper, a Texas Ranger and eventually as chief deputy.

Riviera said he felt honored being chosen as the new sheriff and admires Moody for everything he has taught him.

BEEVILLE, Texas — A Beeville police officer received some well-deserved praise Monday after saving the life of a baby.

It happened a few weeks ago. Police said baby less than a year old was choking when Sgt. Greg Baron arrived on the scene and knew exactly what to do.

It turns out, the baby was choking on a binder clip.

The call came in around 11 p.m. on Feb. 24. baron was only a minute away when it happened, and when he pulled up to the home family members were frantic in the front yard with the child.

Body cam footage showed Baron grab the baby and begin performing a variation of the Heimlich maneuver, patting the child's back and using his fingers to try and grab the object from her throat.

After less than a minute, Baron successfully removed the clip.

Baron said he doesn't consider himself a hero. He was just doing his job like many others.

"The farmer that produces the food that we eat, the rancher that produces the protein, it's no difference for us," Baron said. "We're members of society doing a job."

Baron said the department is proud of the outcome and is happy to know they make a difference.

The baby did go to the hospital for small cuts in her throat but is now home and doing well.

After a career as Sheriff of San Patricio County, Texas, Sheriff Leroy Moody has announced his retirement effective March 31, 2019.  On behalf of ALL of the directors and members of the Coastal Bend Peace Officers Association, we wish Sheriff Moody a happy and fulfilling retirement.  Sheriff, we look forward to seeing you at all of our future meetings.  Thank you for your many years of dedication to law enforcement and to the residents of San Patricio County, Texas.

"Today, I announced that after almost 54 years of service with the San Patricio County Sheriff’s Department I will be retiring on March 31, 2019. With the support of my family I have been truly blessed to serve all these years in a job I love. Thank you to all the men and women of the San Patricio County Sheriff’s Department for your loyalty and dedication and to the citizens of San Patricio County thank you for all the years of support. This has been great ride, but I’m looking forward to spending time with my family and enjoying my retirement. God Bless You All!"

 January 1, 2019

NEWS

Kristine Lofgren

More police officers were killed in the line of duty by firearms during 2018 than during any other year in the past two decades. A total of 144 officers died this year, a 12 percent increase over the previous one, with 52 of those individuals killed in shootings, according to the Boston Herald.

The non-profit National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund tracks the number of officers killed each year. According to this year’s report, 134 men and 10 women were killed in the line of duty, with the average age of 41. Last year, their annual report revealed that 129 people were killed in federal, state, local, territorial and tribal departments. That was a steep drop from 2016’s 159 fatalities.

Craig W. Floyd, CEO of the memorial fund, noted that the increase was a discouraging shift after last year’s improvement.

“The rising number of law enforcement officer deaths in 2018 is disappointing news after a decline in 2017,” he said. “Sadly, this reminds us that public safety is a dangerous job and can come at a very steep price.”

Even more discouraging is the number of officers killed by firearms, which reached its highest number in two decades. During 2017, the leading cause of death was traffic fatalities, but in 2018, 52 people were killed by guns. Of those, two-thirds were killed by a handgun and four were killed by their own weapons after being disarmed."

Yarmouth, Massachusettes police Chief Frank Frederickson said that they have felt the impact of these deaths first-hand. The state lost two officers last year to gun violence.

“Statistics don’t lie. We have obviously become very aware of the increase in violence and more so when it strikes you as one of your own, you see the spiderweb of damage that continues,” Frederickson said. “It’s one thing to read about it when it happens far away but when you see it firsthand, it’s pretty amazing how much this impacts so many people.”

Vehicle-related injuries were the second cause of officer deaths in 2018, with 50 people injured in motorcycle and car accidents. Thirty-two of those involved another vehicle, while 14 officers were struck while standing outside of their own vehicle. The rest of the fatalities were made up of heart attacks, strokes, drownings, cancer, and other illnesses related to officers who served in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Texas, Florida, New York, and California tied for the most fatalities, with 11 officers killed in each state.

Vehicle pursuits, drug trafficking, and dead bodies cast out by human smugglers are common occurrences in Refugio County

BY CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSONDecember 17, 2018 Updated: December 17, 2018

REFUGIO, Texas—An illegal alien must travel through at least five counties beyond the U.S.–Mexico border to reach Refugio, Texas, population around 7,300.

Most illegal aliens nabbed by local law enforcement were on their way to Houston, just 165 miles northeast, said Sheriff Raul “Pinky” Gonzales.

“Houston is like a staging area for them. And from there, some of them go to California, some go to New York, a lot of them go up north to Boston,” he said in an interview on Nov. 8. Vehicle pursuits are a common occurrence in Refugio County, which is just one of 254 counties in the state.

Just that morning, two different groups of illegal aliens were captured. In one instance, a vigilant driver saw a hand sticking out of the bed of a pickup truck and called authorities.

Nine illegal aliens and the smuggler, or “coyote,” were subsequently arrested.

In a second incident on the same morning, a vehicle pursuit from a neighboring county entered Refugio. The chase ended when the vehicle, carrying nine illegal aliens and their coyote, stopped and all 10 tried to flee on foot. Law enforcement scooped them all up.

Gonzales said he also has found the bodies of illegal immigrants dumped by smugglers.

“They put them in trunks in cars, they put them in trucks—where the temperature gets to 130, 120 something degrees—no water, no food, no air. And they die. And they’ll just throw them out on the side of the road,” he said.

On patrol, Sheriff’s Deputy Luis Flores aims for making two vehicle stops per hour—24 in a shift.

With 276 possible traffic violations in Texas, he has a lot to work with. Over several hours, he stopped vehicles that didn’t have a license plate light, or were missing a tail light, or whose plates were partially obscured, as well as drivers who were speeding, and more.

“I look for small violations, which gives probable cause for stopping,” he said. “I have a conversation—see where they’re going and what they’re up to. I look for cues and indications of other activity.”

But his goal isn’t to hand out tickets—most of the time, drivers get a simple warning or citation. The goal is to find the bigger crime—drugs, illegal aliens, warrants out for arrest, and so on.

“I love picking apart people’s stories,” Flores said. He listens for too much or too little detail in their explanations. Flores is ex-military and has spent two years as a deputy in Refugio. One of his most satisfying finds was during a traffic stop of an elderly women driving an old Nissan.

“I felt very victorious when we found $500,000 hidden in her bumper,” he said. “Money is super hard to find—it doesn’t have an odor and it’s easy to hide.”

The deputies patrol alone, but there are usually at least two vehicles out, as well as the local police officer. They back each other up constantly.

Flores said he calls for backup at the first sign of trouble, “ever since a group of aliens that I stopped told me that if my backup didn’t arrive so quickly, they would’ve got in a gun fight with me,” he said.

What the deputies do in Refugio might seem like small potatoes, but considering three of the 19 terrorists involved in 9/11 were pulled over in four separate incidents in the months prior to the terror attacks, a traffic stop could turn into something significant.

Gonzales said that if he wanted to, he could probably round up hundreds of illegal immigrants living in his county, but as a law enforcement officer, he concentrates on illegal activity.

“I don’t care if you come from Mars, if you’re committing a crime here in my state or my county, I’m going to tend to you accordingly,” he said.

On Nov. 8, local Refugio City police officer Tammy Gregory picked up a man for going 50 miles per hour in a 35 zone.

She discovered the man, Jose Carrasco Leon, was from Mexico. He didn’t have a U.S. driver’s license, but had lived in the United States for 16 years and was married to a U.S. citizen.

Gregory said it’s likely the man had not legalized his status, because Border Patrol contacted her to request custody of him once the police had finished processing him.

Gonzales said drug trafficking was common in his county. “We catch a lot of illegals with drugs,” he said. “We caught the cartel No. 2 drug runner here in my county. He was on a train smuggling drugs.”

In May last year, deputies seized 500 pounds of marijuana and a cartel member, after railroad officials noticed three people traveling on a Southern Pacific freight train that had originated at the border.

“They loaded up in Brownsville, heading to Houston. How much of that goes on and how much do we miss?” Gonzales said.

Recently, the sheriff had to deal with the slaying of two of his dogs by illegal aliens trying to evade law enforcement.

The two tracking dogs were trained to find lost children or Alzheimer’s patients, and they would bark once they located the person.

But this time, when the dogs found the group of illegal aliens in the brush and barked to alert the deputies where they were, they were killed.

“They strangled two of our dogs for no reason. These guys that killed these dogs, they could have very well killed one of my deputies or any other law enforcement,” Gonzales said.

“And these are the type of illegals that we deal with. … Not all of them come here in good faith. A lot of them come here to do wrong, get in gangs, and get involved with sex trafficking—they’re not all good.”

Gonzales is all too familiar with illegal activity on the southwest border. Before coming to Refugio County, he spent years as a boat captain on the Rio Grande in Texas—the dividing line between the United States and Mexico.

“We picked up bodies. Like in a week, we’d pick up to 10 bodies,” he said. “A lot of times we’d see kids that had drowned, trying to swim across by themselves. The parents are the ones that sent them by themselves.”

He said he helped a lot of teenage girls and would ask them how they got across, and why they were there without parents.

He was often told, ‘Well, our parents told us to come here.’”

“And they’d tell me horror stories about what they had to go through to come here. They were raped, they were vandalized, a lot of them. They’re used as sex slaves. [The smugglers] bring them across and use them as sex slaves here in the United States,” Gonzales said.

“So a lot of time, these people are victimizing their own people for revenue, for money, and that’s what people don’t understand.”

Gonzales said he would often stop at the grocery store before a shift to buy extra drinks and food for the illegal aliens he would undoubtedly encounter.

“I feel very sorry” for them, he said. “They’re human beings, you know. We’re supposed to love them. But we as law enforcement, we took an oath that we would abide by the law and protect and serve our people.”

He said it’s very hard to do that when you can’t track people who cross illegally and evade law enforcement.

“You know once they blend in with the population, they’re gone,” he said. “They can commit serious crimes, [then] they can just pack up and go back home and we’ll never find them.”

Gonzales said 80 to 90 percent of the illegal aliens he picked up on the river were not from Mexico.

“They were from El Salvador, Honduras, from India, China—we’d catch a lot of Chinese—people from all over the world,” he said. Many said they traveled by boat to Brazil, where they met a smuggler who escorted them through Mexico and to the United States.

“Some people are here to better their lives—and it doesn’t make it right—but not all of them,” he said.

Gonzales said he has caught a lot of gang members, especially MS-13, as well as criminals who had been deported. In one case, two men who had been deported after serving prison sentences were back a week later, illegally, with a group of Hondurans.

“These Hondurans weren’t the type of guys that came to look for work. They were tattooed up, you know. One of them didn’t have an ear, they were just scar-faced. I mean, you could tell they weren’t good hombres,” he said.

Gonzales said he is glad President Donald Trump has enhanced border security and sent active-duty military to help stop illegal crossings.

“We can’t [have] this group of people come and invade our country. This caravan, the majority of them are males—flying their flag,” he said. “To me, that’s intimidating.”

He said he thinks many of the politicians who often side with illegal immigrants are looking for future votes.

“The difference between these [illegal] immigrants coming in now, they’re trying to bring their country into our country,” he said. “We are the United States of America, and I think this oughta be a Christian country the way our forefathers perceived it to be.”

However, Gonzales said the illegal immigrants he catches aren’t as confident as they were during the Obama era.

“When Obama was in office, these illegal immigrants were very cocky with us. They went on about ‘the Dream Act, Obama, the Dream Act,’” he said.

“They were very cocky. Like, ‘hey, we’ve got our rights and we’re going to become citizens because of the Dream Act Obama’s introducing.’”

Gonzales said most Americans don’t understand what law enforcement deals with as far as illegal alien crime.

“It’s very, very hard to do our job,” he said. “We already have thugs that are citizens here, we already have bad people—we don’t need any more.”

“As a sheriff, as a leader in law enforcement, I’m very concerned about my people’s safety. I’d feel horrible if somebody got injured, seriously injured, or killed, because [of]—I don’t care if they’re illegal or not, but especially—an illegal person. They shouldn’t have been here to begin with.”

The sheriff provided a snapshot of what it takes for law enforcement to deal with one vehicle pursuit of an illegal alien.

“It costs a lot of taxpayers’ money chasing these people, [it] costs a lot of man hours. When a county deputy or a DPS state trooper gets on the chase, you get all different law enforcement agencies involved in the chase—you know, we’re trying to back each other up. There could be 12 officers for one chase, for four or five hours. A lot of times, they’ll wreck their vehicles, damage their vehicles,” he said.

“It’s a burden to us, it’s a burden to the people of the United States.”

Follow Charlotte on Twitter: @charlottecuthbo