9/11 raised emphasis, federal resources for border security

September 11, 2011 12:43 AM



By Jared Janes and Gail Burkhardt


Built to withstand armor-piercing rounds, grenades or roadside bombs and potentially equipped with a battering ram and a machine gun, the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office’s B.E.A.R. appears to be more in place in a war zone than the streets of McAllen, which is, statistically speaking, one of the safest cities in the state.

The Lenco Ballistic Engineered Armored Response vehicle – or B.E.A.R., for short – was purchased two years ago to offer the Sheriff’s Office SWAT team an armor-plated vehicle to quickly end hostile situations. Tagged with a price of $346,000, the B.E.A.R. didn’t cost the county government a nickel because it was paid for from Operation Stonegarden, a federal program established in 2004 to enhance local law enforcement’s border security operations.

Hidalgo County has received $5.6 million to date from Stonegarden to strategically double its manpower on the streets, improve its crime-fighting technology and purchase big-ticket items like the B.E.A.R. that aren’t financeable through county general funds.

But for all the new, post-9/11 emphasis on border security, which paved the way for Stonegarden and programs like it, Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said he sees no difference in the types of crimes committed along the border since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“Even though border security has always been a concern for all local law enforcement, it was never a priority,â€