Reports Show Crime Still a Problem in La Joya


Reported by: Stephanie Bertini
Last Update: 9/16 6:35 pm

LA JOYA - Reports coming out of La Joya show crime is still a concern. That's something different than we heard from La Joya city officials just two weeks ago.

It all started with questions about a media policy change. That media policy change was implemented months ago. A few weeks ago, CHANNEL 5 NEWS got a statement from the city manager that crime in La Joya was down. We now know that's not true.

CHANNEL 5 NEWS filed a Freedom of Information request and asked for the crime rate for the past six weeks. This is what we learned. La Joya police made 16 drug seizures, took more than 90,000 pounds of marijuana off the street, picked up 100-plus undocumented immigrants and made 15 arrests involving drug and human smugglers within that period.

Interim Chief Lt. Julian Gutierrez admits they were busy, saying the amount of marijuana seized is a high number for the city. The city manager was surprised, too.

City Manager Mike Alaniz is La Joya's media contact. He's the go-to person after a policy change made in April. The contact before that was the police chief. You heard about drug and human trafficking in the La Joya area, regularly. Police released video of high-speed chases, too. That stopped when Alaniz took over.

"I haven't heard that there's been any criminal activity that would be a concern to me, like we did before," says La Joya Mayor Fito Salinas.

That's what Salinas told us two weeks ago. He gets his information from Alaniz. We wanted to know why they'd told us and what we learned was so different. Alaniz insists he's telling the truth to the best of his ability.

Alaniz and the mayor admit they were worried about making their city look bad because of the drug activity and smuggling in their area. That's why policy regarding the media was changed. Even though Alaniz insists he's not trying to keep information away from the public, we still have questions.

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