ugh hello there and welcome to behind the badge i'm sergeant javier salazar gosh it's hard to believe this year is just about halfway over the past several months have been busy once for the sapd for most people spring and summer evoke images of vacations and summer destinations but here at the sapd it means the end of fiesta season the observance of police memorial week and gearing up for summer safety today we're going to be talking about all of these things at length in our last episode chief mcmanus joined us to talk about the sapd's plans to assure a safe and happy fiesta for everyone deputy chief anthony trevino will be here today to give us a recap of this year's fiesta events how he thought everything went from a command standpoint and what the sapd is working on for the rest of the year after that we'll talk about something else that's near and dear to us this time of the year police memorial week it's always a bittersweet occasion but like most departments we have our own memorial ceremony every year near the memorial wall at the trading academy this year's ceremony commemorated our fallen sapd officers and unfortunately we saw one new name added to our wall that of officer robert bobby deckard jr on a larger scale we always have a contingent of officers who attend the huge national ceremony in washington dc one of the officers who represented the sapd in washington d.c this year officer johnny moreno of the sapd honor guard will come on and talk to us about both memorial services our last segment today will feature one of our detectives giving the top 10 safety tips to keep our family and home safe for the summer months as always it promises to be an informational show so come right back after this short break i had to go back to school to get a book i forgot and the quickest way was across a busy highway my dad had to identify my body pedestrians should never be on a highway or expressway shortcuts can kill walk safe san antonio welcome back as i mentioned chief anthony trevino chief of staff of the san antonio police department is joining us on today's show to talk a bit about fiesta chief welcome to behind the badge thank you chief uh as you know a couple of our last episode chief mcmanus was on and he was talking about going into fiesta and everything that we were going to be expecting from a command staff standpoint how do you think overall fiesta went this year's fiesta was another great event and we're always talking about dwi awareness throughout the year but specifically during the fiesta time period and going into the fiesta time period we always closely monitor our dw irs comparing one year to the next and we had about 287 dw irs compared to the previous year which is a little bit down but as you remember the the fiesta time period has extended from 12 days to 18 days so over the entire fiesta time period we actually had 402 dwi arrest and so even though it's an improvement over next last year we still have some opportunities for improvement okay and we've got a little help to that end my understanding is that team dwi going into fiesta was really ramping things up can you tell us a little bit about team bwi and what they do sure sure team dwi is actually a partnership with some of the commercial businesses other governmental agencies and other law enforcement organizations within bexar county and so it's a combined effort to increase dwi awareness but it's not something that we do only during the fiesta time period team dwi works throughout the year to try to make sure that we're putting the message out so that way the public will be informed about the dangers of dwi okay so it's just as much about education as it is enforcement with team team dwi excuse me uh i know a couple of episodes back we had captain powers on and madd they came on and we were showing off uh some psas and and team dwi was just instrumental in helping us get that get that stuff put together well so it looks like we had we were right on top of things as far as dwi went which again is always a concern going into fiesta what are some of the other issues that as an agency we saw at fiesta events this year probably the biggest issue that we have year in year out is just missing kids kids being separated from their parents okay and i guess we did okay i was i was working market square and i would hear on the radio throughout the night um you know we have a missing child over here and then within three to five minutes our officers were calling out well i've got mom or dad over here and they were able to get everybody together so it doesn't seem like there were any major mishaps as far as that goes no no our officers the men and women of the department do a great job especially when it comes to reuniting uh children with their parents okay uh so chief again when when chief mcmanus was on uh last last time we talked about planning and how planning for a fiesta starts on day one after fiesta it starts for the next year i take it this year is no exception to that yes you're right fiesta is something that we plan for year round and so as soon as we finish off this past year's fiesta what we do is we go back and we look at some of the things that maybe that we could improve on or do better and in an effort to make fiesta a a great event for the city of san antonio every year good deal and it's it's just goes to show what we do we we take it seriously uh the safety and security of our people is is what we we look it's foremost in our minds and we just want everybody to come out enjoy fiesta enjoy downtown san antonio but just do it safely and responsibly i guess absolutely absolutely that's our ultimate goal chief thanks for coming on we really appreciate having you on we'd love to have you back sometime soon we're going to take another short break but please stay tuned and in just a few minutes officer misty floyd will be talking to a member of the sapd honor guard about police memorial can't be happening are weekend clear clear we just buzzed just buzzed you didn't tell us that sir you're right this isn't happening you'll be fine yeah i feel good really no not really buzz driving maybe we should stop acting like it's no big deal hey ready to go yeah but the fire's not out close enough huh close enough if it's too hot to touch it's too hot to leave i mean the next thing you know you've torched our whole neighborhood which is why we're not going anywhere exactly nine out of ten wildfires are caused by humans only you can prevent wildfires playing in the wnba takes a lot of practice so i attend every practice to work on my game i'm danielle robinson you too should attend school every day because that's what it takes to be a winner whether you're in school or in sports you need to show up to win that's why i support sa kids attend a win and by the way winners call me danielle welcome back i'm officer misty floyd as sergeant salazar mentioned earlier may 13th through 17th was declared national police week by president barack obama the tradition began in 1962 under president john f kennedy's administration this is a week where the nation takes time to honor those officers who died in the line of duty here at the sapd we had our own annual memorial service but there was also a national memorial service in washington d.c as well our next guest officer johnny moreno of the sapd honor guard was present at both services officer moreno welcome to the show hey misty thank you for having me thank you well i would like our guests to start off by hearing a little bit about what the honor guard actually is what's the purpose absolutely well the san antonio police honor guard basically set up to honor those men and women who serve with us who may have fallen in the line of duty or those men and women who are being promoted or have are receiving awards and why did you join in the first place the honor guard specifically well i didn't become a policeman so that i could be glorified myself but rather so that i could serve and i felt who better to serve than those who serve others right alongside us that's really why i decided to join the honor guard okay and a lot of people associate being a police officer with the thin blue line can you describe what that concept actually is it's funny you mentioned that because i've got a thin blue line band that i'm wearing around my wrist the thin blue line first and foremost is a symbol of family the police office the police the police officer family the actual meaning behind it can be debated but the blue line kind of stems back into the late 1800s but wasn't the fir the foremost iconic symbol for the law enforcement community until about 1950 when it was established as a symbol for the law enforcement profession the blue line itself stands for the law enforcement officer and the black portions that it separates have been coined as the positives and negatives in today's society also known as the good and the bad okay it's an interesting concept too now as far as president john f kennedy declared the week of may 15th as national police week can you tell me what that week represents yes ma'am absolutely um actually in 1961 it was enacted but wasn't proclamated until a year later in 1962 but that week was basically established to pay tribute to those law enforcement officers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and also to allow us to voice our appreciation for those officers who are still standing at the forefront of america's crime sapd holds our own annual police memorial and it's really for fallen officers that served on our department can you tell me what the honor guard's role is in that service sure basically to facilitate the entire memorial specifically to conduct all of the memorial honors like the 21 gun salute the call of the colors the presentation of the memorial flag and even to bring the own united states flag to half mask that as you know in 1994 president clinton enacted and wasn't actually proclamated until 2002 by george bush that designated all united states flags to fly at half mass in representation of police officers memorial day and then from my understanding recently you had the opportunity to go to d.c to attend the national police week can you speak a little bit about what your experience was there sure i think that by and large the overwhelming support that i saw there i mean just across the board you expect the local state and federal law enforcement families to come out in droves but once you see the support from the citizens and most of them have no ties to any law enforcement family whatsoever but they're there to show their appreciation for the price that these officers paid and that was really what was what i felt was more all worthy than anything else and also from the thousands of first responders that came out to support national police week of those thousands about 1200 are selected to walk the families to the actual wall right that's right as a matter of fact during that memorial walk or walk of the fallen families myself and sergeant earwood also of the san antonio police department honor guard were selected to escort these family members and if you can imagine i would if i had to guess probably about 3 000 family members of these fallen being brought in by bus after bus after bus and we're standing there in line and honorably waiting for these people to come in and escorting them to their seats about three and a half hours pass and wouldn't you know it our very own fallen officer robert decker his his wife and mother-in-law were about to step off the bus and as grace would have it there we are miles earwood and i ready next in line to escort oh wow down to their seats there's no other way to explain it then it was a miracle amongst those you know 1400 officers who were awaiting the escort and these other 2 000 family members that were being bussed in that we had the privilege of honoring one of our own fallen my goodness that's really touching it's a coincidence really or a miracle absolutely now with all of these officers there like i said among thousands that come from all over the world to honor officers that some that have fallen that we do know and some that have fallen that we don't know how did you feel among all of these first responders well just the the feeling of being there is amazing you're standing amongst nineteen thousand officers who have with nineteen thousand plus who have fallen before this time and their families um really i wasn't so much in all of their final sacrifice but more so how they live their lives you know these officers served every single day knowing that today i'm willing to give and pay this this ultimate sacrifice they they're the true embodiment of what it means to serve and protect well johnny thank you so much for taking out the time to come and be on behind the badge today we look forward to having you on a future episode thank you so much it was my pleasure next up sergeant salazar and i will be sitting down with one sapd detective to talk about how you can keep your home and family safe during the summer season as you know we're well into the vacation season with summer vacation come summer challenges of course we all want to keep our homes and family safe we'd like to spend the next few minutes going over the top 10 safety tips that will help you do just that now to help us with those tips we want to welcome a familiar face to the set of behind the badge viewers may recognize detective matt porter from his days as a spokesman for the sapd in the pio office these days matt is staying busy as a detective in our homicide unit detective porter welcome to the show thanks for having me thanks matt thanks for coming out so i guess today we're going to be talking about we got together before this in in post pre-production and we talked about the top 10 safety tips what we hear uh the most complaints coming into the pd about and so we're here to address those top 10 safety tips can you start us out with number 10 right with summer rapidly approaching people are going to be out and about a lot of activities the number 10 thing on our list is garage doors a lot of times people are in a rush they're leaving they might forget to shut their garage door leaving that open can leave access inside your house so a lot of people some for example uh be doing some landscaping they go to the backyard they do to work and they forget that they left the front of the house unsecured through the garage door right and unfortunately there's people out there that look for that type of activity to go inside your house to burglarize your house so they're window shopping basically absolutely okay okay so uh number nine property and cars it sounds like the same thing really is this window shopping and this is a big issue that we have is people are in a rush they leave things in their car ipods phones money anything that has any sort of value that's left in your car that these burglars can see you can rest assured that they'll get into your vehicle now as far as putting your items in the trunk can you talk about that a little bit do you need to do it when you get there should you do it prior to arriving to point b we recommend if you're going to leave anything in your vehicle at least put it in the trunk it's not 100 full proof but what you want to do is you want to put it in the trunk before you get to your destination there are people that are driving around they're targeting vehicles if they see you putting high dollar items into your trunk there's a chance that they could get into your vehicle and try to access the trunk okay so tell us about number eight number eight is going to be home security while on vacation i recommend for this one is maybe tell a neighbor that you trust or family member to come pick up your mail pick up your newspaper let them know that you're going to be gone so if they see anyone outside of your house that's not supposed to be there they can notify the police okay so the trick is to make it look like you're still home when you're not right you maybe have someone come in turn on lights turn off lights move a vehicle little things like that and you can also request request patrol buys through the department sure if you call your local substation let them know how long you're going to be out of town when you're going to be out of town they'll send a patrol officer by to check on your house while you're gone okay interesting stuff so number seven bicycle safety tips i guess that's a two part correct uh if you're going to be riding a bike make sure you have your safety equipment a a vest a reflective vest at night the flashers on your bike at night be aware of your surroundings and obviously if you're in a vehicle if you're going to be passing bicyclists make sure you have give yourself enough room uh we need to share the road to prevent accidents okay so that safe passage ordinance i know we've talked about that a couple times on the show safe passage i guess is just uh when you're passing a vulnerable road user not just a bicycle a vulnerable road user you're supposed to give the proper clearance which is three feet of clearance for regular motor vehicles and then for large trucks commercial motor vehicles it's six feet a lot of people don't realize that that's true and for number six pedestrian safety unfortunately we've seen accidents where people are not using a crosswalk trying to cross highways if you're gonna cross the street do it at a crosswalk if you need to cross the highway you need to go down on an access road where there's crosswalks the last thing we want is for you to be crossing a busy highway because there's a good chance that you'll get hit okay pedestrian safety i guess goes for the drivers as well for drivers of vehicles looking out for pedestrians that's something we always advocate right and again that just comes down to giving yourself enough time to get to where you need to be it seems like when a lot of these accidents occur when people are in a rush but again there's going to be a lot of people out during the summer months and you need to be aware of your surroundings and that takes us into number five school zone safety there's a myth out there that because of the summer months the school zones are not in effect but there are school zones that are in effect during the summer months there'll be children crossing the street walking on the sidewalk so just be very careful so regardless of whether or not it's a traditional school month you still have to stop if you see a school bus stopped right right anytime a school bus is stopped with their flashers on you have to stop and again we'll see school zones and people are under the assumption that because it's the summer months school zones are not in effect but if you see those flashing lights you have to abide by those laws so not to mention when you're talking about school zones cell phones are a big deal still absolutely if you're in a school zone and those lights are on you cannot use any handheld device or you will be ticketed okay that's good to know now number four is an interesting one can you tell us about that it's backing accidents again it comes down to being in a rush you know a lot of times there's children playing behind vehicles we recommend that you do a 360 walk around of your vehicle check your mirrors before you get inside your vehicle before you start backing up because again the summer brings a lot of the weather's nice a lot of kids outside playing and you just need to be aware of your surroundings and it's safe to say that we should all know our vehicle's blind spots too right correct correct when you park before you're backing out you know you could be at a shopping mall there's people walking by you can be in a rush and you want to give yourself ample time to look in your mirrors to make sure there's nothing behind you before you back up and something that works really well for me is to make sure that when i am parking i mean correct me if i'm wrong when you are parking it's best to find an easy exit parking space correct if you can actually back into your parking spot if it's feasible okay using all of those safety tips good to know so number three distracted driving okay this is another big one uh whether it be playing with the radio uh texting talking on the phone um when you're behind the wheel of a vehicle we recommend that 100 of your attention is on the roadway we see a lot of accidents where people are on their phone they're switching the radio station putting on makeup you name it we've seen it and a lot of these accidents can be prevented you know given that you give the attention necessary when you're driving even music volume is a factor too that can definitely be a distraction and with young drivers they're going to be out going to the river going to the lake there's going to be a lot of kids in a car and sometimes that can be a recipe for disaster so if we can get out in front of this and let these kids know that when they're driving they need to leave the driver alone they need to let the driver pay attention to what they're doing this will help prevent accidents and this now takes us to our top two these are two really important ones that we want to spend just a little bit more time discussing can you take us to number two matt kids unattended around water this is a very big one there's a lot of people out there with swimming pools there's a lot of people that are gonna be taking their children to the river to lakes if your child doesn't know how to swim and they're gonna be around water put a life vest on them at a minimum put the rubber floaties around their forearm excuse me around their biceps we've seen tragic accidents where children someone's not paying attention and the children falls into a pool and they don't know how to swim or they're not a strong swimmer and it and it turns out to be a disaster and we definitely want to prevent that and you know in researching this piece for for the show i was surprised to hear that 23 bear county kids have have drowned in the past six years and it's not just little i would just think little babies toddlers maybe but these are kids from eight months all the way up to 17 years of age that have lost their life due to drowning right now that goes for an adult too if you're not a strong swimmer and you're going to be around water go ahead and put a life vest on it's better to be safe than sorry absolutely well in talking to our our counterparts with the fire department they were telling us that this year they've already made seven drowning calls and five of those seven were young children so it's just something that you just can't take any chances with it it's best to not uh not leave them unattended and another thing if you're going to be around water a lot it might be a wise choice to maybe go to a cpr class okay definitely and i know they're offered throughout the community i've seen them posted in bulletins and that sort of thing so that's a very good tip so what's our number one safety tip coming into the summer months what is it kids in hot cars as you know south texas it gets hot it gets hot fast and early we have seen not necessarily in san antonio but in the surrounding area we've seen where kids have been left in cars and i'm telling you it's very hot in 10 minutes temperatures can rise almost 20 degrees so again give yourself time if you if you're not normally in your normal routine during the school year you could be taking your kids to daycare you could be doing different things that you're not normally doing and if you're not in your normal routine things can kind of get out of whack so just give yourself enough time and remember that you do have children in the car and actually just the fact that children's body temperature can heat up three to five times faster than in adults right so a lot of people didn't know that matter of fact i didn't know that until we started researching these tips it's an important factor absolutely well matt we can't say thanks enough for coming on today we really appreciate it uh we really appreciate you coming and bringing your your experience as a detective uh to the table here and we would love to to have you back on the show later on to talk about some more safety tips and and crime tips as well thank you so much hope everyone out there enjoys their summer thank you thanks all right as you know keeping our citizens well informed is a big part of what we do here at the sapd many times the best way to address crime and tragic situations is to prevent them from happening in the first place with the right information we all stand a better chance of staying safe and sound not only in the summer but all year round well that brings us to the end of another episode we hope you found the information interesting and useful whether keeping fiesta crowds safe and secure taking drunk drivers off the road or helping you safeguard your home and family we here at the sapd enjoy our relationship with the public we serve we truly hope to make a difference every day we thank those of you here in the alamo city as well as the rest of the country who took the time to help us pay our respects to our fallen officers please keep those viewer questions and feedback coming to behind the badge at san antonio.gov and don't forget to check out our facebook page at facebook.com san antoniopd thank you so much for watching behind the badge uh today we gather to recognize the selfless decision of one of the most influential women of our time the woman who after having one too many drinks chose not to drive home buzzed here today to honor rachel is the family whose lives she spared