[Music] [Applause] behind the batch I'm officer Joe re with the San Antonio Police Department Public Information office on today's show we're going to be talking to you about two things we're going to take you out of Patrol with one of our officers and also we're going to talk about a new policy that San Antonio Police Department ply implemented you don't want to miss this show [Music] stay tuned cuz up next after this break we're going to be talking to the men and women who are patrolling our streets day in and day out like I said before you don't want to miss this [Music] during the roll call briefing the supervisor will give each officer their assignment and pass along important information from the previous ship once roll call is complete officers will find their assigned vehicles and conduct a vehicle inspection making sure the patrol units are gassed up and ready to go to begin the tour Duty Officers will sign on to their laptops tomorrow [Music] [Music] progress the first call of the day is for an individual threatening to hurt himself officers take appropriate action approaching the location once outside able to make contact officers will contact a supervisor and get information on how to handle the situation yeah and um I I know the management here but they don't work on weekends but um I've got uh my is my partner um and uh actually my cover and he's looking for the maintenance right now cuz I do know that the maintenance guy lives on property and I'm hoping that maybe he has a key um so we're doing that right now oh okay [Music] yeah unable to make contact with the individual officer Lopez contacts local residents to alert police officer this individual is SE again in the location until completion of the call off relocate to another location ride reports about the situ while taking the time to ride the reports officers still must remain Vigilant of their surroundings and be aware of what's happening around them like we see here this individual caught our attention by spinning his tires erratically into this parking lot officer Lopez makes contact identifies the driver and checks fre wants to war all the individual before writing a citation a routine check of the individual returns clear and officer Lopez continues on with his citation but when asked the suspect does offer up an explanation for his action he said some lady was tailgating him and he got upset so he burned out are you still on Westville 62 over here over here right get myth what apartment number yet 160 what 16 upon completion of the citation officer lope will assign a court date for the individual to answer to a judge for his offense and also sign and date the ticket officer lus advises the driver of the court date and allows him to sign the ticket here's a few tips to follow while being stopped by a police officer [Music] hi Mary hi Kayla come and play oh sweetie sweetie why don't you go play with those kids over there why Imagine The Power of One Voice find yours at Freedom center.org you're at a young age where you want to be free you want to be spontaneous you want to go out and be with your friends you can't do that with a baby my dream is to be a cious Christian cuz I really do want to take care of babies but I'm not ready to have one right now be the next Michael Jordan and just play ball is worth it because I'm worth it because I'm worth it because I'm worth [Music] [Music] it officers are called back out to location for the same individual causing a disturbance earlier this time they're able to gain entry and access to the suspect the suspect will be transported by a Patty wagon to a local hospital for a mental evaluation officers assist the suspect get in the vehicle and await his transport to the local hospital watch your [Music] welcome to Today's Show on this segment of the show we're going to be talking about the non-insured motorist policy that the San Antonio Police Department is implementing my guest today are Lieutenant Scott Bell and officer Mike Tucker gentlemen thank you for being here today would you like toce to be here I'm Lieutenant Scott Bell of the San Antonio Police Department and I'm the unit director for the vehicle storage facility my responsibilities include overseeing the basically the recer operation for the entire city and I have I'm actually in command of two different facilities one of my facilities is the Ninth Street Pound which is located close to the Almo and the second facility is the ground pound which is located off of ground Road close to Highway West Tucker also Mike Tucker I've been Police Department approximately 15 years I work at the N Street to in the rec unit where I oversee the towing contract with the Texas towing gentlemen thank you for being here okay well welcome to the show Lieutenant Bell and officer Mike Tucker uh Lieutenant uh we're talking about this non-insured Motors towing policy that the San Antonio Police Department is implementing can you tell us uh why we're implementing this policy yes Joe the reason we're implementing this policy is to protect all the drivers of San Antonio what I'd like to do is give you some Financial figures to kind of put in perspective exactly what an accident cost first of all if you've got a motor vehicle accident or you have minor bodily injury the average cost cost is going to be about $13,900 if you have a vehicle accident where you have have property damage your cost is going to be about $6,000 and finally your average cost for a vehicle accident involving serious bodily injury or death runs $790,000 plus and that really really illustrates the cost that's associated with an accident and really kind of leads me into an example of why we let go ahead and give you an example I think that will clearly illustrate let me say this this really leads us into to our example of why we do this policy um if we have a family of four who is driving a motor vehicle down a public way in San Antonio and let's say that an uninsured motor is driving another vehicle runs a red light and and hits the uh the family of four that's in their vehicle now for purposes of this example let's say this driver the driver of the family of four is the main bread winner for that for the house he's the one that provides puts food on the table for the family he's the one that pays all the bills now as a result of that accident we're going to say that he's paralyzed okay now because of this because it's uninsured Motors does not have insurance it really puts the family in a precarious position they've got a lot of bills that they cannot pay and this really illustrates the need for having this policy in effect the bottom line of it all Joe really is this is that driving is a dangerous activity and we kind of take that for granted because of the fact that we drive every day however when we get behind the wheel of a vehicle we put not only ourselves at risk we put others at risk as well and this really Bears repeating because this is the essence of the policy not only do we put ourselves at risk we put others at risk as well and that's why it's imperative that we get all of the drivers in San Antonio to be insured also I wanted to ask is there a state law associated with this policy yes there is as most of us are aware state law requires that any time we operate a vehicle on a public way we are required to have liability insurance or proof of financial responsibility also with regards to this policy the other question would would involve the legality of the police and pounding vehicles for no liability insurance and the US this Circuit Court of Appeals has made a ruling in this matter and has determined that police departments are within their rights to impound vehicles for no liability trance um are we the only city that's starting this or doing this no we're we're not the only one doto Texas has been has been impounding vehicles for no liability insurance for about 7 years in addition to that Kirby has a similar policy and also the city of Dallas has also a policy as well although their criteria are somewhat different right now the city of San Antonio is is pretty much leading the state with regards to this policy however I believe that you'll see all the other major cities within Texas follow our lead shortly and I think also National as well you're going to see a trend heading towards this direction in similar manner of of being proactive proactive enforcement um what are the fees associated with Towing and impounding okay first off the bat you're going to have a Towing charge of $69 on top of that you'll have a 20 onetime impoundment fee of $20 and this includes the cost of of for the police department to secure and protect that vehicle and finally you're going to have a daily storeage fee of $15 and that accumulates daily so you'll have an additional $15 charge per day the vehicle sits on our lot and where where exactly do we store the uh the vehicles that we impound the vehicles that we impound will be located at our at Groudon pound the physical address of Groudon is 3625 groud Road and as far as where that's at if you start from Highway 90 West where it intersects with Acme road if you head on Acme Road South from Highway 90 atue Road will eventually turn into broud road and there's a large sign which off of broud road which tells you where to turn on to our our facility now it's important also to note that whenever officers impound a vehicle they will present the person who is who is the driver of the vehicle they'll present them with a card on the front of the cards you'll have a phone number for groud Road or for the ground Road facility and on the back you'll have a map which illustrates exactly how to get to the facility so help to eliminate confusion with that regard okay could you give us an example of an owman and also the explanation of how to get the vehicle back sure let's uh let's say for an example that a officer pulls over a vehicle for a traffic violation as he approaches the vehicle he's going to ask the driver for their driver's license and for proof of their insurance and when let's say for purposes such as of this example that the driver of the vehicle says well I have in I'm I'm insured but I don't have it with me well technically that is a violation because state law requires that when you drive a vehicle that you have proof of insurance with you however um under this policy our officers our officers are going to make every effort to attempt to validate within reason every effort within reason to attempt to validate that this driver does have insurance an example might be calling if it's during normal business hours to call the insurance company on the phone to see if we can establish that they do have a policy and to get a policy number or another example might be that the uh the officer will attempt to contact the family of the driver to see if they can bring something to the scene uh to to validate the fact that the the driver does have insurance now let's proceed further with this example here and let's say that the driver does not have insurance at that point the vehicle will be impounded and as a stated earlier it will be relocated to to our physical address of 3625 crowden Road and and will be at that facility now it'll be the the responsibility will be on the owner of the vehicle to go out to our facility as soon as possible because as I said the charges continue to accumulate so they want to get out there as soon as possible but if they want to drive the vehicle off of our lot they're going to need to provide their driver's license which helps us to establish who they are and proof of ownership and then also proof of liability insurance and then after paying all the required fees fees that we just discussed the uh the record fee the empowerment fee and an early storage uh fee of $50 per day then that vehicle will be released to leave the leave the property thank you lieutenant I think you gave us a lot of information that we can give to our viewers and is there anything else you'd like to add yes sir there's there's one thing I'd like to add you know with uh with any policy any successful policy there's a lot of people who are involved in in making it happen and that's the case with this policy as well however there's two people I believe that deserve a special mention uh the first person will be is Officer Mike Tucker who's sitting here on my right who the this idea this great idea originated with him and so very we're very grateful for his work uh with this policy he did a a very a great amount of research on both the transportation code and the occupation code to make sure that that everything was done correctly so we owe him a Deb of gratitude for that and finally I'd also like to thank Chief Rosemary flamia because she has put a a very substantial amount of her time and her effort into making this policy uh happen had it not been for her efforts and for her dedication to this policy then I do not believe this policy would have reached fruition so the assistance of San Antonio owe her a debt of gratitude for her work in this area and finally Joe I just like to say that this policy really takes the high moral and legal ground and it really is the right thing to do I'd like to thank the citizens of San Antonio for their overwhelming support of this policy and as I stated earlier uh other jurisdictions that have taken similar proactive measures to this policy have achieved great success with it I anticipate that we will achieve the same results here and we will all benefit as a result thank you I'd like to thank Lieutenant Bell and officer Mike Tucker for being on the show also if you'd like more information on what we talked about today visit the link you see below to get more information also stay tuned for scenes from the next behind the batch on behalf of Chief albo Chiefs and members of the San Antonio Police Department I'm officer Joe Rios you be safe San Antonio [Music]