Houston Area Police Staffing: 13 detectives check workforce data at the Sheriff’s Office for San Jacinto, Galena Park PD

Houston, Texas (KTRK) – The San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office was asked when they responded to a file Killed five times late Friday night.

Francisco Oropeza He told neighbors to stop shooting an AR-15 in his yard because a newborn was trying to sleep, authorities said. He then broke into a neighbour’s home, authorities said, killing five of the 10 people inside, including a child. Authorities said two of the dead women were found in a bedroom lying on top of two alive children.

During a press conference, San Jacinto County Deputy Sheriff Tim Kane said it took a deputy about 14 minutes to get to the scene.

At the time, the responding deputy was responding to a nearby armed robbery call. Deputy Sheriff Kane said that if he had not been in the area, it would take about 30 minutes to get from the sheriff’s office to the crime scene. San Jacinto County is 628 square miles.

“We have bad roads,” said Kane. “We’re understaffed, and welcome to rural law enforcement — that’s how most of the nation lives now.”

The agency has 32 sworn officer positions, excluding prison operations. Of these 32, six are vacant.

“This is not a rich county,” said Kane. “We have three deputies on patrol to cover this entire county.”

The San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office operates with 82% of its total strength. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for 1,118 square miles and employs 88% of them, according to data obtained by 13 investigators. On the much smaller end, the Galena Park Police Department is responsible for 5 square miles. The number of employees in the Galina Park Police Department is 78%.

“One of the things we’ve done to fill in the gaps is if you’re part of the command staff here, you need to be available on calls for service,” Galena Park Police Chief Richard Wagner said. “So if we get extraordinarily busy and all the patrolmen are tied up, we’ll get out of the office for a bit and get to work, which is fine with us.”

Currently, Galena Park PD has 13 full-time employees and eight part-time officers, most of whom are retired from other departments who help fill the gaps. The department has between six and nine vacancies.

Despite being an officer, Wagner said they are there whenever residents need them day or night.

The city doesn’t have too many calls for the service, and it keeps a response time under five minutes.

They don’t often have larger cases hurting their jurisdiction, Wagner said, but when they do, there are other agencies they can contact to provide the additional manpower they might need.

“We start asking for help by location,” Wagner said. “Our first partner to seek help from is the city of Jacinto, which is right next door. We do a lot of mutual assistance back and forth with them.”

San Jacinto County is different. The area is rural, and does not have the smaller law enforcement agencies located throughout the county to provide a faster response or immediate additional assistance.

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