you're watching tvsa television for San Antonio hello everyone I'm officer Marcus Trujillo and welcome to this edition of behind the badge today we're going to bring in some new faces and we're also going to go over some information that's changed over the years now as time evolves so must the rest of the general public now the department has changed here recently we've gone to new uniforms we've even gone to a new paint scheme on our Patrol cards that you may have noticed and here recently we've also gotten a new sergeant in charge of Media Services and with me today is Sergeant Chris Benavides how you doing sir good good to see you again good to be here so how long have you been with sapd 10 years it's going on 10 years now and what other assignments have you had here on the department before coming to Pio you know Marcus it started way back when no I'm just kidding I started out on the west Patrol as an officer two years into my career um was part of some task force one of one of them was a crime Response Unit and shortly thereafter I went to the gang unit so most of my career has been with the gang year that was my forte so to speak I did that for a while as a patrol officer got promoted as the detective was asked to come back and did a lot of plain clothes and undercover work so my promotion to Sergeant I kind of wanted to expand and I was doing so much of the operations side of the house I kind of figured you know it's time to do something else the other side of the house on the on the department now you and I have known each other for a number of years but for the people out there for the viewers we're going to take it kind of step by step for them sure can you explain to them what is the Pio office what is what is their role what is their function well you know different different folks call Pio different things two different terms public information officer or the public information office I'm the director of Media Services what all that means is I'm basically the right-hand man to the chief when it comes to Media events um I my official title is director of Media Services but I'm considered to be a public information officer meaning I give information to the public now how important is the role of Media Services to the general public to the community as it relates to the department and the community working together you know it's it's a it's a delicate balance there's two major issues that my office controls or tries to control Media Services and police incidents by their very nature generate a lot of interest by the public and the media for instance police involved shootings hostage negotiations Major Crimes and major task force uh involvement by the police department generate that and heighten the level of interest from the public in the media so my office has to balance two major concerns the right that the public and media need the information and want that information divulged and major concern number two is our victims we have to know what information to release and what to protect to keep our victims protected for example if we have a sexual assault complaint the media the public needs to know that is there a predator in the area what information can we get about this predator um so we'll release the information we try to protect our victims but we'll release the fact that we have a sexual assault in this area this is a suspect information and any other details that we can release at the same time we have to protect our victim we're not going to let the the audience know that our victim is this is the name we'll release certain information as is as in uh it was a female or or male the age right and then making the right depressing and then the suspect information won't get released uh if we have someone in custody we don't officially release the name of the suspect until he's been formally charged he or she's been formerly charged so we have to weigh that delicate balance on what information to release we want to release enough information to make the public and media aware but we also want to protect our victims now you said something a minute ago that I don't want to get too far off track but in regards to whenever there's a some type of emergency event whether it be police fire or EMS the flashing lights the sirens do attract attention what quick message would you send to the motorists out there when they drive up on an accident now we all know that first Lane immediately next to the emergency vehicles slow down 20 miles an hour before below the speed limit but what about all the other lanes where people are slowing down simply to take a look because they see all the flashing lights and all the marked Vehicles well Mark you've been out there you know rubberneckers and that's that's a term we use Loosely but that causes some of our other accidents to happen what we ask is you know what as much as we all love the lights and Sirens we all grew up loving the lights and sirens and seeing the little lights Flash and nowadays we have sophisticated equipment to where now instead of the revolving light we have the strobes and all kinds of good stuff but we ask that the public understand there is something going on and if you're going by for instance an accident scene please move over move it along move it along so to speak be careful but moving along we have it well in hand and and you know what a lot of the public does does the lights draw a lot of the attention it does it does attract everybody's attention and there are a lot of delicate balances that you and the other staff members in your office do have to balance in your everyday job what would you say is the most challenging or the most difficult once you show up on the scene what what is the thing that is that is the most challenging for you in your in Your Capacity I I've been appointed to this position for almost two months now and and from what I've seen the most challenging task that I have is getting the message out that will not be distorted contorted uh in any way and that's a hard balance that's a hard thing to do you want to get out there and you want to give the facts and as easy as that may seem depending on editing depending on how it's written in the paper your message could get contorted in some way so uh that is is by far the only thing that I've seen that's kind of challenging you want to get the unified message out there you want to report the facts you want to give as much information as you can to the media and public but I have seen in my short two months here that sometimes that message doesn't come out exactly as you plan to dance that fine line sure sure now in your tenure so far what has been the most rewarding in this new position getting the message out exactly the way I want it when it does come out there exactly yeah okay now your position requires you or maybe other members of your staff to make certain types of scenes uh what types of scenes would you make versus others that you wouldn't obviously if it's a minor accident on a residential neighborhood that's not something that Media Services or Pio would get involved with but what are some of the scenes where you guys would be called out you know it's usually the major incidents uh hostage negotiations officer-involved shootings major accidents fire scenes basically if if it's such of such magnitude that a simple press release won't take care of I try to get out to the scenes I wish I could get out to some of those accident scenes but it's more of the high profile scenes and usually I'm like I said I'm right hand man to the chief when it comes to Media Services so on a daily basis we're speaking to each other and I'm usually letting him know what's going on so if he's not with me I'm usually the one going out to the scenes now you've kind of jumped into the swimming pool or jumped into the water already swimming so to speak we've seen you already on different channels four different events different instances incidents that have occurred to try to give the viewers a little bit perspective of what is it that you have to deal with arriving on a hot scene an ongoing scene where detectives and other follow-up units are trying to figure out what's going on they're trying to piece everything together but at the same time you're trying to get the information that you need and that the Chiefs needs for the briefing to the media how challenging is that to get what you need without trying without slowing down anybody that's trying to conduct a criminal investigation well you know it is a delicate balance there as well when you show up to the scene you know you got a hundred different incidents happening at one time we have let's say we have The Hot Zone right here and then you have the peripheral and you have everyone trying to feed you information but what I've learned in in my tenure is you go to the source usually there's a sergeant on scene and then they handle an officer so what I do is I've already made a routine to go to those guys who's in charge of the scene I go right to those guys and get as much information as I can and for the most part it's worked out pretty well and it's not exactly a nine to five job not at all not at all you're on call 24 7. sure there'll be some there'll be some nights where I can get a good night's sleep and other nights where I'll have two call outs uh a night so yeah it's it's I'm on call 24 7. a lot of coffee oh yes now does Pio respond to quests from the general public or only from other media Outlets how what is your typical target audience that you guys are reaching out to or responding to for the most part it's the media Outlets we do require we do receive requests from some public which we're happy to to take care of but for the most part it's media Outlets the daily routine the the reports that go in and out the daily calls for service and basically media calling us and asking hey what's going on at this scene so yeah for the most part it's media now is there anything that you can think of uh for the general public anything that they can do to help or to assist uh in something when they do see something that's in a residence or maybe in a business district not on the highways but somewhere where maybe there's a lot less traffic any advice that you would give to the general public again we know we all know that the lights and the sirens are going to attract them sure uh you know if I could put one message out there it'd be if you're involved or anywhere around a crime we can use all the extra eyes that we can get I'm not saying get involved as far as going up and putting yourself In Harm's Way But if you have those extra eyes for us if you can give us details if you can give us facts about what happened about the crime we always look forward to that if you arrive after the fact and you see all the police lights and Sirens we ask that you please you know the public has a right to know certain information but we ask that you're not get into our our Ingress and egress areas please step to the side we usually do a good job at putting all of the public in a certain area away from the hot zones but uh there's nothing wrong with trying to find out information and if you see me out there ask me and I'll tell you okay now we've been talking here with Sergeant Chris benavidus in case you're joining us a little late going over Media Services and the role of the public information office now we've seen recently here in the media is and it's no secret some reporters are trying to relate the increase in Family Violence to the economy and coming up in just a few minutes officer Dart is actually going to be interviewing some people from a crisis response teams what information could you give to the general public and as it relates to that is this something that maybe we should be a little bit more aware of our neighbors or is this something that uh is coming to light more now than before because we're getting the word out better I think we're getting the word out a lot better and that's one of the the problems or issues that our department is any department will be faced with family violence assault calls so the chief and I have discussed that at length and uh we're brainstorming we want to get the word out that there are there is help for our victims what we're finding is a lot of the victims don't want to come forward and we ask that if you're calling law enforcement or not calling law enforcement or one of the other agencies please let someone know someone around you if neighbors are witnessing some of this violence please call in uh but yeah that is a Hot Topic it usually is and we're out there we're trying to get the message out more awareness well sorry but obvious thanks again I appreciate it thank you we hope to have you here again soon and some other topics and we've been talking with Sergeant Chris Benavides the New Media Services director for the San Antonio Police Department and coming up in just a few minutes after this short break officer Robert dark my partner will be in interviewing some officers an officer and a caseworker from the crisis response team to bring you more information on that topic you're watching behind the badge thank you these are just some of the things that can happen if you drink and drive I'm Police Chief William McManus if you're drinking and driving you're hurting this community are you ready to live with the consequences think about it it's just not worth it call a cab don't drink and drive deflink is now available 24 hours a day seven days a week in all of our substations and in our downtown headquarters it allows us to easily communicate with citizens who rely on American Sign Language so if you need assistance and you require this special sign language tool just stop by your local substation and we're ready to help you 20. welcome back I'm officer Robert dark with behind the badge and we are here speaking with officer Tracy Williams and Mr Craig Hodge with the crisis response team and one of the things in uh I guess the police work we deal with on an everyday basis but in some Social Circles it's somewhat faux pas to speak about and that is domestic and Family Violence and these individuals here work with it every day and they're here to tell us more about it welcome thank you thank you okay what is the crisis response team for those that aren't familiar with with that crisis response team is basically a follow-up unit to the patrol units that go out and we provide assistance to domestic and Family Violence to those victims uh in the form of safety plans relocation assistance with the legal and outside agencies for counseling and that sort of thing and we also act as a basically what I try to tell people to help them understand a little better is we act as a liaison between the time that the current the offense happened and with our detectives down at the follow-up units and what we try to do is assure like Mr Hodge said the safety if there's any more cases that we need to walk warrants any of that so we we know we act as that little cushion to make sure that we're keeping the victim as safe as possible so this immediate action needs to be taken we're there to step in and do that okay uh department-wide about how many officers and caseworkers are on the CRT units there are six substations and each substation has six three officers and three civilians and then we have the uh the victims advocacy unit at the main station oh okay so we basically have the whole city covered in that aspect recently I know that they've expanded the unit by how many officers was each unit expanded by each officer got one officer and one civilian it was increased to so basically it increased by a two individuals in so have you seen an increase in in cases lately yes in the month of June alone this year we handle 211 cases versus to last year in June we had a 179 uh and we're averaging about 200 cases a month based on this time last year okay so there has been and again we're from the proof substation so this is only the proof subsidy this is only statistics okay these stats are only for improved right so they could be different say on the west side or on the east side or even the South Side um have you seen an increase I mean obviously you have seen an increase but what would you say might be a factor to the increase the compound there that I tend to find in my cases and I'm can concur or add to it and that is that the biggest factors that I see is going to be substance abuse and alcohol those always seem to be the most commonality of all the cases that come through my desk the second one that I've noticed and it's a stressor is the economy and in that means in that way I mean people have lost their jobs so they already have the substance abuse issues or alcohol abuse and then they lose their job and it just the stressor increases by trillions and I'm using that Loosely because that just it makes their anger and the feeling of they can't you know do anything about it more so would you agree a case in point I had a case on my desk where an individual was uh unemployed he was laid off and what triggered the incident itself was the fact that he was unemployed and of course she was you know writing about getting a job which kind of led to the incident itself so it does contribute to the the increase would you say that's an isolated factor or is it more of a repeat would you likely see these folks again in the future if the con if the economy stays like it is we'll probably see more cases that I think was an isolated case that was the first case I've really seen that was directly directly uh attached to that particular not the unemployment thing so I would say that was an isolated case but we'll I think we'll see more of those cases as time goes on if the economy stays the way it is right um you know as far as um we're talking about isolated cases are there a lot of repeat cases where you're having the same victim uh same suspect or vice versa where they're both suspects or they're both uh victims in this in that case the statistically wise on average a person goes back eight times the victim Norman goes back eight times before they finally actually do leave and not go back so we have that against us we know when the first person comes in so we try to educate them not only on stats but you know in some reality checks to let them know look you know don't we don't want you to be a statistic and we also try to immediately gauge them in services that will prevent that and maybe help Empower them and help them rebuild the self-worth that was tore down or the esteem issues that the controller had on them because normally that's why they stay in my because kids money you know the the cycle of violence the way it works is is the controller immediately starts attacking their support group first which would be friends family kids he threatened you or she threatens a person with if you leave I'm gonna take the kids and they feel like they have nowhere to go they're just stuck and because of that we they come in and we start educating and let them know look first of all there's not only a lot of services out there to help you they're free that will help you rebuild that and we can even relocate you if need be so when it's like a light goes on and and their face and they feel relieved because they finally feel like they're not alone so the biggest thing that we see is if that contact is what's so important right after the incident if we can get to them which is normally for US 24 hours if we can establish that contact act and start educating them getting information we see the recidivism it's there I mean I'd be lying if it was it does but I think it's helping to prevent the statistics of going back eight times right Officer Williams you mentioned a couple of things that I want to touch upon one is the children we'll get to that in just a second but you mentioned uh on average it's about eight times before someone actually leaves a relationship is that the statistics locally Statewide or is that even Nationwide it was it's Nationwide okay Nationwide um and you talked about a lot of times indirectly or even directly victims of Family Violence is the children um how are they affected by all of this by violence in the in the home um you know the kids probably to me are probably the worst the worst get the worst of it because not only are they seeing the abuse going on between the two parents verbal physical emotional all that but sometimes they are also products of that too sometimes they are being used as well as not just witnessing it and then they're torn you know they want to protect we see what I've been seeing is a lot of kids having a lot of anger issues socializing issues so we also try to get them in some kind of services what we tend to do in our unit is is there's kids involved we immediately do a referral to Child Protective Services just one more factor out there to kind of use as a checklist to make sure the kids are okay and if they need to remove them they can and maybe get them in a safer environment so we try to make sure that the kids as well as the victim are being the needs are being met do you see that too sure of course not only that statistics show that a child that grows up in a household whether it's domestic violence will usually become and abuse themselves because it's learned behavior okay that's you know it's shocking I'm sure to a lot of folks that are looking at these numbers and actually doing the math and figuring this out uh Mr Hodge how are uh victims referred to CRT I know at the beginning uh the segment you mentioned that you're kind of a support to patrol but how are how how are those victims put in touch with you directly how does the ball get we come in contact primarily most of our clients come through the reports themselves the officers up on patrol go out they write up the cases we go through the cases and we pull out anything associated with domestic violence now we also see walk-ins and referrals I've had clients that I've helped in the past the success stories who go out and they have friends who are also involved and they will like refer but most of our cases come through the patrols just the reports you know the assaults uh bottling injuries uh stalking the harassing the telephone threats that sort of thing so most of our cases do come through uh the patrol officers and the reports however we do get walk-ins and we do get uh referrals every now and then will get someone that might come in with just a question because of a situation and they're not really sure what their rights are and they'll make a question uh what do I do this is my situation and then we get uh referrals that way also okay now if an officer is out in the field makes a report and actually is lucky enough to make an arrest of the suspect is the case over with or do you uh as CRT uh unit members do you do any follow-up with that we still engage because at that point the person is arrested that allows that individual time to you know to determine where the relationship is going is it salvageable is it one that you just want to do counseling to get through it or is it a situation where like officer Williams was saying hey this is it I'm at the eighth point I want to do something now why he's in jail so we still engage uh just because individual is arrested that's just the first part of the process you still have that middle and that middle part to have to go through to deal with uh uh the the situation itself as far as what triggered the situation uh is there a history behind the situation uh is it a situation where you think again can be salvaged through counseling or is it a situation where enough is enough I'm ready to move on uh and in the relationship and another reason we I think do that too is that I the problem and again in the whole cycle of violence of what it does to a person's uh demeanor esteem and all that stuff the issue I mean I have a case where I worked with a lady all day long she had been beat up I mean looked like a card hit her and I worked with her all day got her engage in Services um we ended up walking a warrant we picked the guy up and she bonds him out so the issue we have there and particularly on arrest cases is we want to make sure that we're still letting them know because they're still weak I mean even though he's out of the house you know it's not it doesn't mean for them it's over so we want to make sure that we're getting to them as quick as we can let them know hey look please don't bond them out but let us try to help you and work with you and you know just talk to them because a lot of times when they know what's out there like I said and they know they're not alone they won't continue to cycle because they have to stop it just as much as the perpetrator has to stop right you earlier you mentioned getting CPS involved what other agencies a lot of times do you get involved in a lot of your cases um you know we work with the DA's office the Family Justice Center which is an excellent program um as long as well as um the city has a lot of services out there for there's Project Quest which is for a trip job training they get them temporary jobs you know we're fortunate attorney general victims crime compensation which allows them to get compensated at their job they lose their job as a result of this or something so we we're lucky and we have a lot of good counseling services that are either on a sliding scale or free and that's good for us because you know you don't want to go to a victim of time look this is what you need to do but it's going to cost a lot of money so we're really fortunate that the city of San Antonio has these programs for us to be able to use so we we are we have a very wide spectrum of people that we work with that we've been fortunate now if somebody is watching this and says you know I'm in a destructive type relationship I need help I I need out can they just go pick up the phone call you or walk into any substation that you can walk into your substation because every substation gives us a CRT unit and um normally you know wherever they live would be the most convenient for them but if they want to come to prove they certainly can they won't be turned away if they go to a substation where they work versus where they live I've had cases where they live on the west side and they work on the northwest side so yeah it doesn't matter where because all of the substations do have a unit like us okay is there any last parting words that you like to let people know about the CRT unit no one you know the victims are not alone there really aren't there are options and you really just have to speak out and that's the biggest the biggest thing it's the hardest thing to do but you know you're not alone and we are here to keep you safe yes we want them to know that we're there to support them we're not necessarily there to end the relationship but to find out which direction the relationship is going to go in and we have tools to assist in that not every case ends up where the individual is ready to leave the relationship there's cases where they just need counseling and some assistance financially or that sort of thing and and then the relationship can press so on okay officer Williams Mr Hodge appreciate you coming out today thank you all right taking the time out of your busy day I know that those cases are probably piling up unfortunately it's one of the ugly aspects of police work but it's got to be done and I want to thank you for you know the work that you do thank you for having us thank you you've been watching behind the badge I'm your host officer Robert Dart we'll see you next time foreign