HOUSTON, Texas–Two more volunteer police officers from Hidalgo County are being sworn in this week as reserve deputies to assist the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office. The volunteers are rushing to the assistance of this neighboring Sheriff’s Department in need of help due to the tremendous financial burden the county faces because of the deaths of over one hundred illegal aliens in this county during the past year. This will bring the total number of volunteer deputies to fifteen.
“We have many more police officers wanting to volunteer to help,” Donna Independent School District Acting Police Chief Daniel Walden said in an interview with Breitbart Texas. He described the desperate situation the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office faces with having to cover a county of nearly 1,000 square miles that is regularly being crossed by illegal immigrants eager to bypass the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint located in the southern portion of the county. Cost cutting in the county to offset the funeral expenses of approximately $2,500 per body found has reduced the compliment of full-time paid patrol deputies to four, or about one per shift. These full-time deputies are forced to work without health insurance according to Deputy Luis Reyes who spoke with Breitbart Texas last week.
Walden founded an organization of police officers who are willing to volunteer their time off and put their lives at risk to help their fellow deputies in the neighboring county who often times face working shifts with no backup. The group, Border Brotherhood of Texas, is recruiting and equipping the volunteer police officers to work these extra shifts that are often more than eighty miles from the officer’s home.
“It costs us about $300 to get an officer ready to be sworn in,” Chief Walden said. The cost goes to provide a uniform and ballistic vest for the reserve deputy to wear while on duty. They currently have about ten officers who have passed the additional background checks required to fulfill this extra duty but who are not yet funded to be sworn in by Brooks County.
Walden said his organization is also getting support from the Mission, Texas Police Department who are raising funds to purchase uniforms.
Twelve bodies of deceased illegal immigrants were found during the month of June. Each of these bodies brings additional cost to the county, but also takes a deputy out of service for several hours to process the crime scene. Breitbart Texas reported the finding of four bodies were found last week alone. One of the bodies found is pictured above. Additionally, five illegal immigrants were discovered alive and were rescued by Walden as he was working one of three seventeen hour shifts he pulled last week.
Bob Price is a staff writer and a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.