By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Writer’s Note: The 830 Times apologizes to District Attorney Suzanne West, as the initial
version of this story filed and posted were the raw transcriptions of her comments to
commissioners court, not the finished article.
District Attorney Suzanne West recently told members of county commissioners court
that meth and THC continue to be problems locally, but assured them the community “is
still the safe community that it’s always been.”
West, whose office prosecutes felony criminal cases in Val Verde, Kinney and Terrell
Counties, spoke to commissioners court during its first May regular term meeting on May
7.
She began her presentation by inviting members of the court to call her if they ever have
questions about the work her office is doing.
West spent some time speaking about the Operation Lone Star (OLS) and Border
Prosecution Unit (BPU) grants her office receives from the Texas governor’s office. The
BPU grant “provides prosecution resources for district and county attorneys along the
Texas-Mexico border and for counties that are significantly affected by border crime,”
according to grant information on the governor’s website.
Operation Lone Star was initiated by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in the summer of 2021 to
secure the Texas-Mexico border.
West told the court she believes her grants will be renewed and praised the county’s grant
writers, Debbie and Carl Esser of Esser & Co. and County Auditor Matthew Weingardt
and his staff, for their assistance in streamlining the process. West said her office also
keeps close track of the grant funds and how they are spent.
West spoke about how she uses portions of the grant to fund staff for her office, noting
she sometimes reassigns them as needed.
West said the BPU monies help her office prosecute human smuggling cases as well as
drug cases.
She said in the past year-and-a-half, her office has dealt with 4,237 arrests and 7,915
prosecutions.
West said, “I know that sounds strange; how can you prosecute more (cases) than what
you get? But (some of those) are old cases that we’re still working through, and that’s the
next level of what I’m going to be talking to the state about. . . and if they continue
funding us, it’s not going to be because of what’s coming in right now, because it’s
relatively slow, compared to what (it) has been.
“I can see winding it down to some extent but we still have, literally, thousands of cases
to get through and work through, and the 63 rd and the 83 rd courts are both dealing with
those cases as best they can,” West said.
The district attorney said the majority of the BPU cases originate in Kinney County and
are processed through the 63 rd Judicial District Court.
West also told the court to be ready for increased needs for the county’s probation
department over the next year’s budget cycle.
West said, “Those 7,915 people (prosecuted), not all of them went on probation, but at
least 6,000 of them are convictions, and so that means a lot of probationers.”
The district attorney said she hopes the state will step in and assist with additional
funding for the probation department. She also noted that “the vast majority” of the
probationers are from out of the county.
“They were coming from all over Texas, and to be honest, from all over the U.S. and
some foreign countries as well. So those probationers are from all over Texas and all over
the U.S., and so probation has had to adjust how they deal with those out-of-county
probationers,” West told the court.
The probation department is getting additional work from the motions to revoke (probation) that her office is filing, West added.
West also spoke to the court about the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services
(CJIS) numbers, which track the closure of her cases.
She said the numbers filed by her office help her “maintain the ability to keep all our grants.”
Finally, West spoke to the court about the local drug problem.
The district attorney said although fentanyl gets a lot of media attention, she said she has seen only one fentanyl case.
“But we have a lot of meth in this community, and meth does come from Mexico. . . I’m not really concerned about fentanyl in our community right now, but I’m absolutely concerned about the meth,” West said.
She said there is also a problem in the community with THC, which, according to Wikipedia, is “the principal psychoactive component of cannabis.” West said some of her office staff have been making presentations locally about the substance.
West assured the court and audience members that “our community is still the safe community that it’s always been.”
West also told the court that although the state grants fund the salaries of much of her staff, “I do know there are those carryover things that you guys take on, the building, the maintenance, the cleaning, the workers’ comp, all of those things, and I appreciate it, and I’m sure the community appreciates that you take on the things that you do to keep our community safe.”
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com .
