The calm behind the storm

As college students from across the country invade South Padre Island and Cameron County beaches for Spring Break, law enforcement officials are prepared to keep the weeklong vacation as safe as possible.

“We hire in lots of extra personnel everywhere,” SPI Police Chief Randy Smith said. “At the police department, we’re hiring more police officers, more jailers, more dispatchers, more call takers, more traffic control people. … We do some unified command planning meetings, strategic planning meetings with local, state and federal partners.”

Smith said the SPI Police Department will also deploy aerial drones to monitor beach activity from a bird’s-eye view.

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said his department’s officers will work overtime “just about every day” during Spring Break.

“When Spring Breakers are here, usually there is more traffic. So, what we do is we increase not only our patrol division, but also our traffic division,” Lucio said. “We travel very heavily on the main highway, especially Highway 100 and Highway 4.”

More than 50,000 people are expected to visit South Padre Island during Spring Break, law enforcement officials say.

Smith advises beachgoers to not leave valuables in plain sight, avoid leaving windows open and to lock up their vehicle.

“What we try to do is educate people through social media and fliers we hand out,” he said. “Travel with a friend, try to keep one person sober, a designated person, not just for driving but just to keep an eye on the group. Don’t ever drink from drinks that are passed around or you don’t know where they came from.

“If you’re at an event and you set your drink down to go to the restroom, have someone watch it or don’t drink from it again when you come back if you can’t validate that nobody slipped something in it.”

Lucio said even though his department will try its best to avoid any casualties, it can’t be everywhere.

“The only way to prevent [casualties] is by high visibility by the patrol division,” Lucio said. “You can’t be everywhere and you can’t be at every traffic stop or every traffic light, but once they see the strength of the law enforcement … we start cutting out some of those problems.”

Smith said most of the crimes that occur during Spring Break are alcohol-related or disorderly conduct.

“Most of them are what we call Class C charges, drunk and disorder-type of charges,” Smith said. “Class C’s are always around a couple hundred bucks or so. One of the big mistakes that people make is they say, ‘Well I’m old enough. I can drink on the beach.’ Yes you can, but you can’t have glass containers. We really enforce that heavily. If somebody is going to drink on the beach and they’re going to drink responsibly, that’s fine, but it needs to be out of plastic or aluminum.”

The lowest level criminal offense is a Class C misdemeanor. Class C fines are a maximum of $500 and there is no jail time attached. Although there is no jail time attached, an individual still has the right to a jury trial for a Class C charge.

Lucio said he advises tourists and students who are not from here to respect the Island and local residents.

“Even though [students] are here to have a good time, they need to do everything in a civilized manner,” Lucio said. “[They can’t] assume they can come here and just get drunk and say, ‘Well, because I’m not local and nobody knows who I am here and I’m from another state or whatever.’ … That kind of record can follow you. You can wind up in jail here or wind up going to court here.”

The SPI police chief said he encourages families to come to the Island but to stay alert and be responsible.

“We’re a tourist town; we haven’t lost sight of that,” Smith said. “Coming and visiting is what we’re about, we promote that. But, we also want people to come have clean family fun and be responsible, so they can have a fun time and have good memories of South Padre without winding up on the wrong side of the law.”