To arrest lawbreakers who have pending accounts with the law, more than fifty officers from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department took to the streets to go to the homes of the fugitives, during an operation that takes place every three months.
Organized into 10 teams, made up of at least four elements, the public servants boarded their patrol cars after a meeting held with their superiors in one of the rooms of the corporation’s Police Academy, located in the eastern end of the city.
“Now we are looking for people with arrest warrants who are facing various felonies – crimes – and what we do is we arrive, we knock and we try to locate them to capture them and take them to jail,” said officer César Rodríguez, while driving his patrol in the Central West area.
According to the authorities, the felony is also known as a felony or major crime that is punishable by more than one year in prison. Committing this crime has consequences for the defendants, especially for any foreigner, including those with a visa or a green card.
People accused of violent crimes, robbery, bribery, forgery, fraud, perjury, extortion or robbery, sexual abuse, rape, among other crimes that maintain their processes in the Courts and have not complied with their mandates, were searched at their homes the morning and Tuesday afternoon yesterday.
During the deployment that spanned the entire county of El Paso, from Anthony to Tornillo, Texas, officers arrived at homes in search of the fugitives, however not all were at home and others did not open the doors.
Officer Rodríguez explained that even though they had arrest warrants, they cannot enter the houses freely unless they are certain that the individual is inside.
“We need to have security and for a witness to confirm that he is inside. We have to be very careful, otherwise they can sue us together with the Sheriff’s Department because technically we would be violating the rights of those people, ”he said while waiting for a man accused of 15 counts of sexual assault against a minor to come out.
“Open the door. Sheriff’s Officer “, was the phrase that was replicated in various neighborhoods of the city. In many there was no response.
In this type of operation, carried out on a quarterly basis, agents must exercise extreme caution as they do not know how they will be received. “There are people who cooperate, but others are aggressive, including women,” Rodríguez said after emphasizing that all offenders are treated the same.
And it is that sometimes there are situations of violence in which the agents themselves can be affected. One does not know how these types of people are going to act, so we must be on guard and cautious, he explained.
It was said that when necessary, support is requested from the special forces, which deal with high-impact situations to face the dangers. “This team known as SWAT is trained for this type of contingency,” said his partner, Officer Ochoa.
Regularly, when it is determined that there is no risk, four officers arrive at the location, two who watch the back of the building and two the front. If someone gets foolish, they call for reinforcements. “We are always cautious and act within the framework of the law.”
“Now we will go in search of a man who faces charges of aggravated robbery with a firearm, so here we have to take our precautions and go around the block before arriving at the house,” said the officer, during a of the searches.
“The intention of the Sheriff’s Department is to remove or remove criminals from the streets so that they cannot harm more people,” said officer Rodríguez, with more than 20 years of experience in the police forces and who has successfully confronted every situation that comes their way.
Faced with crime statistics that are growing every day in the city, the agents say that it is important to remove the largest number of criminals from the streets and at the same time prevent the ranks of criminals from increasing.
“The message for these people is that it is better that they turn themselves in and solve the problems that they have caused to society and above all avoid more conflicts. No matter how much they hide, the more problems they will have when they arrive at the Court, ”she pointed out.
In the next few days, the result of the day, which lasted 12 hours, in terms of the number of arrests and the crimes faced by lawbreakers, will be announced.
