Listen
The Sheriff’s Department urges individuals who face arrest on pending misdemeanor cases to surrender themselves to the Sheriff’s Office downtown to avoid an encounter with warrant-serving teams doing door-to-door. The department’s Thomas Gilliland recommends resolving those cases on your own.
“It’s the constant over-your-shoulder looking and anytime you get pulled over, dreading the ‘oh boy, and I going to jail?’ And these are the types of things that can end up, you know, ruining someone who’s has maybe forgot about it, didn’t do the community service, didn’t pay all the fine. There’s a variety of factors, but still, they’re open misdemeanors and they have to be cleared up.”
The warrants to be served are mostly for Class A and Class B misdeameanors, but will include some felonies.
“Traffic tickets turns into a warrant for your arrest, which is a Class B warrant. It goes from a Class C citation to Class B jail. Yes, you ran a red light, and you can go to jail for that. You have DWI’s you’ll have burglaries, you have — the most the common is theft by check.”
Those with outstanding warrants are asked to surrender themselves to the Sheriff’s Office at 49 San Jacinto to avoid an encounter with warrant-serving teams this weekend. Saturday’s roundup will be made up by members of the Reserve Command — a group of certified peace officers who volunteer their time.