Property crimes related to vehicles

Hello from Lytle, we started the week out with a nice heavy rain. We hadn’t used our raincoats in so long we were all scrambling around to find them.
Last week was not that exciting. Our snapshot of activity included 50 calls for service and 54 class c charges filed with the municipal court. Can you believe we only arrested one person which was the result of traffic stop. The 2:46 AM traffic stop resulted in an adult male being taken into custody on a felony drug charge warrant out of Bexar County; he was booked into the Atascosa Co. Jail.
Most of our property crimes were related to vehicles this past week. Ofc. Petrash located a motorcycle on the side of the road near the H.E.B. C-Store; he determined the owner lived nearby. He was unable to locate the owner so the vehicle was impounded, a few days later the owner returned and realized it was missing. I guess the fellow who took it got tired of pushing it and gave up, I’m glad the thief came up empty handed. We had two vehicles that were broken into and it looked like somebody tried to steal them. One was a Suburban on Elisa St. and the other was a Mazda at Cortez Auto repair at I.H. 35 and FM 3175. In another incident a Railroad St. resident reported their 2005 Jeep as stolen; it was recovered a few hours later parked at John Lott Park. The owner was able to determine who “borrowed” it and didn’t proceed with any charges. Officers took 2 thefts reports, in one incident $50 was reported missing form a backpack at John Lott Park and in the other case a cell phone valued at $100 was dropped off by Fed Ex got picked up by an “unintended” person.
It’s budget time around city hall, all us department heads come up with how much money we will need to get through the next fiscal year which starts on October 1st. I have to really be convincing and show a need for what I am asking for, there is still no guarantee I’ll get it. If the money “is not there it is not there.” Other times I get shot down for ridiculous reasons like: No police airplane because we don’t even have an airport, No patrol boat because we don’t have hardly any bodies of water, and no daily meal allowance for officers because “an airplane would be cheaper.” The list goes on. The truth this will be my 18th budget year and it’s really not that exciting, in fact it usually is boring.
Hey everybody now is the time to make plans to attend a couple upcoming events in Lytle. The Annual VFW Freedom Walk will be held on Saturday Sept. 9 at 9:00 AM with a start location of John Lott Park. This is a neat event; join us as we remember 9/11. The very next Saturday (Sept. 16) is the Lytle Homecoming Parade (which is held every other year); it will kick off at 10:00 AM and head down Main St. We haven’t had a parade in 4 years, the one two years ago was rained out, so this one should be awesome.