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Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said gun violence, drug mixing, and pink cocaine are among the latest crime trends across the county, home to half-a-million residents.
Precinct 4 County Commissioner Tommy Calvert asked the sheriff to describe current crime trends in the county during a recent meeting of commissioners.
He also thanked Salazar for his response to residents in his precinct who saw shots fired into their home for no reason.
Salazar said such incidents are not uncommon and are part of growing gun crimes in the county thanks to gun thefts from vehicles. The sheriff said he is lobbying state lawmakers to toughen the law on those thefts.
"Here recently, I was at the Texas Legislature, trying to get certain burglaries re-classified as felonies, certainly when they involve thefts of guns or the carrying of guns."
He said a sheriff's department violent crimes task force is also working on traffic stops and documenting gang members and confiscating their guns. But he said for every gun confiscated, another 10 are stolen from vehicles.
Salazar added that gun owners need to take action to curb the problem too. "What we also need to do is to continue to bang the drum and let people know, from a public education standpoint, [that] we can't continue to supply criminals with guns through our own carelessness as gun owners," he said.
Salazar explained that when it comes to drug crimes, there seems to a be a lot of mixing going on: "A couple of weeks ago in Precinct 4 we made an arrest where the one suspect was using, believe it or not, a concrete mixer to store and possibly mix heroin and methamphetamine."
The sheriff said pink cocaine is also popping up more in drug cases. The DEA reports pink cocaine is dyed that way and can smell sweet and often contains no cocaine — instead it may contain ketamine, fentanyl, and methamphetamine.
The sheriff said young males between the ages of 17 and 25 are committing most of the documented crimes. Calvert said youth services need to be increased to prevent young people from turning to crime.
Salazar also said the number of domestic assaults in the county are also up.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody urged the sheriff to contract more outside jail beds, since the local jail report this week showed the adult detention center at capacity with more than 5,000 inmates. The jail population was also expected to further grow this summer.
Salazar agreed with Moody that a contract should be done sooner rather than later. The sheriff's department reported this week that there are 70 Bexar County inmates housed in Kerr County and 120 in Burnet County.
Burnet County has offered an additional 96 beds to house more Bexar County inmates — or 216 in total.
The sheriff added that overtime costs to staff the adult detention center have dropped some as detention deputy vacancies have been filled. He said around 90 such positions were vacant at the jail this week.
