Learn how the Robstown, Refugio police departments will work together

Robstown police work to fight crime, now those same officers will soon help reduce crime 45 miles away in Refugio through a new inter-local agreement.

“It will help us tremendously, our officers will get hands on training working in Refugio,” Robstown Police Chief Mike Tamez said.

Tamez said their police department along with the Refugio police department will now partner together in effort to help fight crime in both communities.

“If Refugio needs help with undercover officers, with covering drug by’s or anything of that nature,” he said. “Even assistance on traffic stops and searching cars, we will have this MOU in place so that our agencies can do it.”

Tamez said this new partnership can also help fill in the gap when the department is understaffed.

“Some agencies just do not have undercover officers, so we are able to assist them in that way, we do have very seasoned officers, so it is a win-win for those agencies as well if we are able to put people over there to go help them,” Tamez said.

“Whenever he became the Chief of Police for the Robstown Department, him and I sat down and said, let’s help each other out, in efforts to join forces,” Refugio Police Chief Enrique Diaz said.

Diaz said with the struggle to hire in law enforcement nowadays, he hopes this new program will help fill in that gap.

“The main goal is unity, it is partnership, I guess if you have two people together, you have to have a relationship and all you are trying to do is embrace it and keep the relationship going,” Diaz said.

Tamez said this will be a tremendous benefit to the communities of Refugio and Robstown and for the officers.

“There is zero cost associated with it, as a matter of fact, if our officers want to get overtime with this, they can through our grants, one is state funded and the other is federally funded and they are specifically for going after these types of crime,” Tamez said.

Diaz said he hopes his department’s partnership with Robstown police will lead to other partnerships among other agencies in the Coastal Bend to tackle crime.

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