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With all the public outcry over securing the U.S. Mexico border, you'd think people would be happy that troopers from the Texas Department of public Safety have been dispatched to border areas to "beef up" the presence of law enforcement in the hopes of stemming the illegal drug trade and human smuggling. But the relocation of DPS personnel has the Texas Department of Public Safety struggling to hire hundreds of state troopers to fill vacancies where the troopers previously patrolled across the state.
The disparity in manpower from North to South has some critics saying that the "surge" on the state's southern frontier is shortchanging law enforcement efforts in more northern locales. "We see dissatisfaction from troopers who feel they are not allowed to actually do their enforcement jobs," Claude Hart, executive director of the Texas State Troopers Association told the Monitor newspaper's Jeremy Roebuck recently. "Rather, they just ride around maintaining a presence."
In a recently completed audit, a state commission found that Operation Border Star has contributed to DPS' "critical personnel shortage, weakening its ability to protect the public." The politically popular initiative that was started in 2007 by Gov. Rick Perry temporarily re-assigns troopers from their normal duty stations to the border. The goal is to boost manpower in the state's ongoing fight to stop drug smuggling, human trafficking and other types of border crime. DPS officials would not say how many troopers are assigned to Border Star duties at any given time.
But according to the audit the redeployments "causes a loss of personnel available to focus on traditional law enforcement duties." Right now with roughly 314 current vacancies for commissioned officers, DPS can't afford to continue dispatching troopers for vague border security projects, an Austin-based trooper complained to his superiors in a memo made public earlier this year.
In a document dated May 28, 2008, Sgt. Adam Kinslow, who was assigned to security detail at the state Capitol, warned that operations like Border Star had compromised his ability to ensure protection of visitors and state property. Ten days after his memo was sent, arsonists set fire to the Governor's Mansion. That building is normally guarded by DPS troopers.
"Not only do we not have the manpower to spare, many of the troopers we are sending to the border lack current training and recent experience in patrol procedures, which is unsafe for them and the public," Kinslow wrote. "By sending troopers to Operation Border Star, security is weakened at the Capitol." Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
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