Border Patrol, Laredo Police Working Together

Posted: Mar 15, 2012 6:08 PM
Updated: Mar 15, 2012 7:18 PM

LAREDO - A new way of policing the border is happening three hours away in Laredo. The goal is to catch the cartels and their criminal activities on the U.S. side of the border.

A federal and a local officer are on this mission. They're working together side by side to catch the cartel criminals. This isn't a routine, random call.

"They're following up leads on an investigation on narcotic activity or illegal stash houses; sometimes they are the same," says Joe Baeza with Laredo Police Department.

Two law enforcement officers, two different colors are working together.

"The localized intelligence and federal intelligence is very crucial to both of us," says Baeza.

They've got a common mission. They're going after guns, drugs and cartels.

"They're here, they're in the United States; anybody who is telling you any different is lying to you," says Baeza.

"They're well intricate cells. Those drugs are coming across the border; they have to be received, distributed. That funding collected then brought back into Mexico," says Baeza.

Baeza says the Border Patrol agent will quickly be able to get information on a bad guy who's here illegally. The police officer can get intelligence about criminals operating in the neighborhoods.

"These kinds of opportunities for law enforcement along the border is extremely helpful," says Baeza.

The agencies are testing out the partnership for now through a federal stone garden grant. Baeza knows people who live along the border may not see this partnership as a good thing.

"That's where the lines need to be defined. I don't think law enforcement and immigration enforcement are one and the same," says Baeza. "Law enforcement needs to stay away from enforcing immigration issues because you wind up alienating and fracturizing the relationship crucial to citizen police relationship."

If black and green equal the color of success in Laredo, they could team up along other parts of the border.

A Border Patrol spokeswoman in the Valley told us the agency is not teaming up with local police departments the way they are in Laredo.

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