Over the last 48 hours, the city of San Antonio has seen at least five confirmed shootings and multiple stabbings.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar joined Leading SA on Sunday to discuss crime trends and the impact of new constitutional carry laws.
“We are seeing an increase in violent crimes. And, you know, that was why I fought so hard with commissioners court through the budget process to hang on to every position.... Twelve of my positions were on the chopping block and we just fought it. And thankfully, we won that battle,” Sheriff Salazar said.
On top of violent crimes, Salazar said the sheriff’s office is targeting specific offenses.
“Human trafficking is still on the foreground, along with illegal narcotics, organized crime. You know, we’ve got a very big, organized crime, anti-organized crime effort going. We’ve got to get our gang unit that’s out, up and running. And we’ve got a covert operations group that’s out targeting these organizations that profit off of all these things,” Sheriff Salazar said.
Right now, a big issue BCSO is trying to address is the unmanned border checkpoints, Salazar said.
“Border Patrol checkpoints that don’t have anybody at them. My understanding is that they’ve sent all available Border Patrol agents down to the border to process folks, and it’s leaving those checkpoints unmanned. The problem there is that the dope dealers know it too, the smugglers know it too. And so they’re just running unchecked up into the United States. And so we’re working everybody as hard as we can. And we let our organized crime people know we’ve got drug interdiction deputies that are out on the highways as we speak. We’re trying to stop this flow of illegal substances making it into our country,” Sheriff Salazar said.
On Sunday, the Biden Administration is expected to begin flying Haitian migrants in Del Rio back to their homeland. You can read the latest here.
You can watch the full Leading SA interview with Sheriff Salazar in the video player above.
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