You came to the right place if you’re looking for a snapshot of police activity in Lytle. I’m not sure what percentage of the population fits that description but I bet it’s high. We had 51 calls for service last week and officers issued 25 Class C citations. We made one trip to the county jail and that was the result of a traffic stop where officers located some marijuana. The driver got booked and the passenger was cited for drug paraphernalia so he missed the free ride. The only other arrest was for theft of service, a man was cited and released for dumping trash in a local business dumpster. This can be a real problem as dumpster service isn’t cheap and nothing is more frustrating than going out to put something in your dumpster and seeing it is already full of somebody else’s trash. We had four reported property crimes last week. This included a burglary of a vehicle where about $1,200 worth of baseball equipment in a bag was taken out of the bed of a pickup, this occurred at the Hack Bldg. in the 15000 blk. of Main St. We had one burglary of a habitation reported and it occurred in the 18300 blk. of Wisdom Rd. An unknown person entered a vacant rent house and took off with a ceiling fan, a widow AC unit and a 6’ ladder. Yep it’s that time of year again; window units sure become popular targets of thieves. Window units are like gold around here during a hot Texas summer, everybody needs one and crooks have no problem at all selling them or trading them for drugs. The other two incidents included a damaged door at the Railhead Café (perhaps someone tried to gain entry again to access some of their awesome fried pickles) and we had a report of a possible stolen chainsaw but we weren’t able to confirm there was a theft. Interestingly we responded to seven calls that involved a disturbance of some type; when the temperature starts to rise people tend to have more trouble controlling their tempers and actions. My conclusion is not based on scientific data but it seems to be the case to me. I have no doubt that if we built a dome over our entire town and made it climate controlled we could lower our crime rate. I want to make sure that everyone understands I am talking about a dome, not a wall. Walls are too controversial right now and I don’t want to get dragged into that argument.
It’s not too early to start planning to attend our big Fireworks display on Monday, July 3rd at John Lott Park; I believe the fireworks start at 9:30 PM. With the demise of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey’s Circus our event could become the “Greatest Show on Earth”. Our event is on the 3rd so you can still have the 4th of July free for other activities. We did this because we are thoughtful and didn’t want to interfere with your holiday and maybe because it’s cheaper and easier to find the licensed pyrotechnic people that “shoot” them off for us.