The Oak Ridge North Police Department will continue sending its officers to train with border law enforcement agencies in South Texas after previous trainings last year were deemed successful by both ORN police and partnering agencies.
So far the ORN PD has sent three officers to train with Rio Grande Valley law enforcement agencies, including the Brownsville Police Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Pharr Police Department and the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office.
Andy Walter, ORN police chef, said the training is designed to give officers a week in different conditions in which they can learn new ways to fight drug and human trafficking at a local level. Walters said the three officers who previously took part in the training program gained new insights, prompting Walters to continue the program.
“We’re now planning on sending more officers out to new and different locations than last time [in] the next six months,” Walters said. “The El Paso County area and the Sierra Blanca checkpoint are some of the places that I’m looking at [sending officers].”
Walters said each location offers a different aspect of training, whether it be making traffic stops to check for drugs or working with Border Patrol agents along the Texas-Mexico border.
“This originally started [with the goal] to bring more information to our community,” Walters said. “There is still some cartel activity in Houston.But we didn’t even know what they looked like. Now we do.”
Police officer Ralph Craig III was one of the three officers who participated in trainings, spending a week in Falfurrias in Brooks County last year.
Craig said working alongside the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office provided him real-time experience through shadowing partnering agencies on calls about undocumented immigrants.
“Sending more officers to more locations in the future is great, any time we can go outside of this department can greatly help us,” Craig said. “I like to help people, and I feel like this is making a difference.”
Walters said he is in talks with the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement to make the program formalized training for police departments in the state.
The ORN PD is also now a candidate for the Texas Municipal League Municipal Excellence Award for public safety as a result of the training program, according to city officials. The award is given to departments that have made efforts to improve the safety of their city. The winner will be notified in August.
“We’ve brought information back from each of these different locations, where officers there are our first line of defense when it comes to trafficking,” he said. “They’ve gone above and beyond as well in this program.”
