Vacationers Keep Los Fresnos Police Busy

by Tony Vindell/LFN

Each spring break and Semana Santa are usually the busiest weeks of a year for Los Fresnos Police Department.

Gone are the waves of U.S college students going along Texas Highway 100 toward the sandy beaches of South Padre Island.

Holy Week vacationers followed that trend and many of them travel from the industrial city of Monterrey, Mexico, and other cities south of the border to the Island. Some of them have been making their trips via Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican border city in Nuevo Leon State, and Laredo, Texas, because of the incidents of violence in Reynosa and other border towns.

Therefore, Highway 100 is the route for those traveling from Los Dos Laredos to SPI.

And for LF police, that means more work for its patrol force.

“We assigned more patrol officers per shift,” Police Chief Hector Gonzalez said last week just as Semana Santa was rolling in. “We expect a busy week.”

LF police department has 10 patrol officers, three investigators and one code enforcement officer.

Gonzalez, a veteran of the department since 1982 and chief for the last eight months, said traffic during this past spring break was slower compared to years past.

“Spring break is still one of our busiest times,” he said. “This spring break we had several accidents but nothing serious.”

Gonzalez said his officers made a number of traffic and seized THC from three vehicles. THC is an oil extract made from marijuana.

Drug users are known to put the liquid inside a vaporizer or in an electric cigar to inhale THC.

Asked how many traffic stops police made during the busiest part of Spring Break 2018, or from March 10 through March 17, the police chief he will have the exact figures at the end of the month.