Member Highlight
On November 8th, officers responded to an elementary school located in Operations Division East (ODE). Several staff members at the school called 911 to report that a male with a backpack had jumped the fence into the playground. The male claimed to have a bomb in the backpack. At the time of the incident, several hundred students and staff members were on the playground and in grave danger. The bomber began chasing students while threating to detonate the device. Staff members acted quickly and physically put themselves between the bomber and students. The bomber informed those staff members that he was going to hold them hostage and detonate the bomb. Other staff members quickly moved students into the building and initiated a hard lockdown, restricting the bomber's access to additional victims.
Without hesitation and consistent with their active attacker training, Officers Sean Cleary, Katherine Hofmann, Nicholas Oliver, and Brian Trevino from ODE responded to the school, arriving within minutes. Officers located the bomber still on the school grounds and near two portable classrooms. Without regard for their own personal safety, officers immediately engaged the bomber from a dangerously close position. According to the Joint Counter Terrorism Guide, the severe injury and death radius of a pipe bomb or pressure cooker bomb is 70 feet, or a quarter of a football field. The officers were well within this distance.
The initial responding officers were unable to deploy lethal force because staff members were standing in close proximity to the bomber. Officers were able to direct staff away from the bomber and directed him to place the backpack on the ground or they would use lethal force. A short time later, Sergeant David Ortiz arrived on scene and took incident command. He formulated a plan and directed officers’ actions to work toward a resolution. Additional officers, some of whom were not assigned to ODE, heard the call for service and began arriving to assist with hostage negations, long gun support, and leadership to oversee the crisis response team. These were Officers Jason Barton, Andrew Fedor, Nikolas McCarthy, Vincent Sullivan, and Jacob Valenzuela, and Sergeants Jason Bredehoft and Richard Legarra.
Within 16 minutes of the first officers arriving on scene, the suspect surrendered and was taken into custody. Under Sergeant Ortiz’ leadership, the focus shifted from engaging the suspect to evacuating the school and searching for secondary devices that may have been left by the bomber. In less than an hour, 244 students and 35 staff members were evacuated and transported to a nearby high school to be reunited with their parents.
No additional devices were located and TPD's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team rendered the suspected bomb safe.
Street Racing Update
 In November, ODE continued to work on the problem of street racing, car meetups, and street takeovers. We’ve conducted several deployments during 2023 and increased our efforts following a Ward 4 Street Racing Town Hall in October. We’ll continue this focus moving into 2024, but we wanted to highlight our enforcement actions during street racing/takeover deployments for the year so far.
- Traffic stops—376
- Speeding citations—168
- Verbal/Written warnings—83
- Racing—23
- Vehicle impounds—23
- DUI (felony)—4
- DUI (misdemeanor)—2
- Other civil violations—59
- Felony warrants—2
- Guns recovered—3
ODE Statistics
Activity
|
Type
|
2023 Division Year to Date
|
2023 Department Year to Date
|
|
Calls for Service
|
37,568
|
165,380
|
|
Officer-initiated Activity
|
19,792
|
86,812
|
|
Gun-related Crime
|
316
|
1,745
|
|
Homicide
|
4
|
56
|
|
Traffic Citations
|
1,943
|
25,509
|
|
