Area law enforcement agencies are banding together to help exchange information and strategies to help solve dozens of vehicle burglary cases that have plagued Brown County over the last few months.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Texas Rangers, Brown County Sheriff’s Office, Brownwood Police, Early Police and Bangs Police gathered in a joint intelligence meeting Friday morning to discuss how their agencies can pool resources as well as information to help each other solve these and other crimes in the area.
At a press conference Friday afternoon, Brown County Sheriff Bobby Grubbs, Brownwood Chief of Police Mike Corley, Early Chief of Police David Mercer and Bangs Chief of Police Butch Lawson discussed the need for the public’s help in solving crimes.
“Some people hesitate to call us because they don’t want to bother the police or they don’t want to be too much trouble.” said Chief Corley. “We’d rather come out when we don’t need to be there sometimes than not be called when we really do need to be there.”
All agreed that citizens can do several simple things to assist law enforcement and help protect their property:
- Keep homes and cars locked. Remove valuables such as cell phones, GPS units and laptops, etc. from cars when unoccupied. A large majority of recent burglaries are of unlocked vehicles.
- Report any suspicious behavior or activity.
- Call police with vehicle descriptions, license plate numbers or descriptions of suspects that may have been seen.
- Record serial numbers of valuables, such as electronics, bicycles and etc. This greatly increases the possibilities of recovering stolen property.
34 overnight cases of criminal mischief and vehicle burglaries were reported in Bangs which were a major topic at this first joint meeting. The investigation into these cases is ongoing, but police feel that these crimes may be related as witnesses describe common suspects as young white males.
Chief Lawson stated, “We were hit last night between 2-4am with 16 criminal mischiefs and 18 vehicle burglaries.”
He also noted that two individuals may have come in contact with the people committing these crimes and failed to contact law enforcement. Lawson further stated that he felt the investigation could make more progress with the public’s help.
The rash of vehicle thefts in the last few months has covered an area including Ballinger, Zephyr, Lake Brownwood, Brownwood, Early, and most recently the cases in Bangs.
Sheriff Grubbs expressed he believed the Bangs crimes were most likely related and could be further tied to some of the recent storage building burglaries as well, noting they were within the same time span and in the same areas. Law enforcement officials doubt that the vehicle buglaries of the past several months were committed by any large group or ring of thieves working together.
Chief Mercer pointed out the importance of the joint meetings explaining that one agency may have information that is relevant to another agency’s case and not know that they are looking for the information. By gathering together to discuss crimes and resources, they feel more crimes can be solved.
“By pooling information, the agencies will be able to arrive at a common denominator to solving crimes,” Sheriff Grubbs said.
Officials believe that ongoing joint meetings between the county’s law enforcement agencies will be an effective means to slow these types of crimes.
Chief Corley said, “I was impressed, I think we made a lot of ground, we immediately set in motion plans for the next meeting…that’s how successful it was.”
Pictured above from left to right are Early Police Chief David Mercer, Brown County Sheriff Bobby Grubbs, and Brownwood Police Chief Mike Corley.
