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DPS pursuits skyrocketing on border


McALLEN � On a quiet November morning, trooper Johnny Hernandez patrols the dusty back roads along the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County. In the back seat, his M4 rifle sits within arm's reach. In the trunk, he stores a bulletproof vest.

The 15-year Department of Public Safety veteran has been in so many high-speed pursuits that he can't remember the first one, and, to be honest, he says he doesn't even think of them in terms of which one is scariest.

�There's just so much� going on, he says. �Your thoughts are going 100 miles per hour.�

Often, so is his car.

Hernandez is one of about 60 DPS troopers on the Texas-Mexico border in Hidalgo County, who together over the past five years have logged far more high-speed chases than DPS officers in any other region of the state....

For troopers who spend their days and nights patrolling the interstates, highways and meandering caliche roads of South Texas, the reason is simple. �We're the first line of defense out here,� Hernandez said. �We're going to have pursuits.�

DPS troopers say smugglers are becoming more active and brazen, taking desperate measures to avoid being caught.

The database also reveals troopers use aggressive pursuit tactics � including firing guns and setting up roadblocks � that many other law enforcement agencies prohibit.

�We've got families, too, and we want to go home to them,� trooper Hernandez said.