Romo believes anonymous tips will help combat crime
By Marc Robertson
“I know it sounds weird, but it works,” La Salle County Chief Deputy Armando Romo said this week of a plan to ask the public to provide information on local criminal activity. “It worked in San Antonio and Laredo; it’ll work here.”
The sheriff’s office is headlining its new ‘crimestoppers’-style hotline as “Report Your Competition,” effectively asking local drug dealers to report each other to law enforcement.
“There was a policy, a mission, you could call it, to get people from within the criminal element in a community to basically rat each other out,” the chief deputy said on Monday, March 15. “It worked. When people had been put down by their competition, maybe by having their business taken away, they could literally complain anonymously to law enforcement, and we would know more about what was out there and who was doing it.”
The 24-hour number being offered by the sheriff’s office is (830) 202-1262.
The chief deputy said his initiative is endorsed by Sheriff Anthony Zertuche and constitutes part of a plan in which the sheriff’s office develops improved communications with the general public.
At times, Romo said, that will include persons involved in criminal activity.
“Are you trying to deal drugs in your neighborhood and someone came in and undercut your prices or invaded your territory? Is there a new neighborhood bully spoiling your criminal endeavors? Well, report them,” the chief deputy said. “You will be anonymous. You don’t have to give your name and we aren’t going to ask for it. We just want to know what you know about your competition.”
