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  • 2019-01-15 (xsd:date)
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  • Does the Texas DPS Have Armed Patrol Boats on the Rio Grande? (en)
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  • In January 2019, a photograph purportedly showing a Texas Highway Patrol boat armed with machine guns on the Rio Grande started circulating on Facebook, along with a message detailing the craft and their use: The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) unveiled their first patrol vessel in December 2011, and over the next year they added another five boats to their fleet, each of which was named after a Texas police officer who was killed in the line of duty. A November 2012 press release issued by DPS after the unveiling of the final patrol boat explained the naming process: It's unclear if all six of these these boats are equipped with automatic weapons. Department spokesperson Tom Vinger told Reuters in 2012 that at least the first couple of boats were equipped with automatic weapons: They have night vision capabilities, they have ballistic shielding, and the first couple of boats have fully automatic machine guns. We've reached out to the Texas Department of Public Safety for some updated information on this fleet. Although the Facebook post states that these patrol vessels were originally purchased to protect Texas law enforcement from armed attackers on the Mexican side, Vinger said that the main purpose of these boats was to stop smugglers of drugs, weapons and illegal immigrants. According to Vinger, the best use for these patrol vessels was to help law enforcement better respond to splash downs, a term used to describe the tactic employed by smugglers to escape back to Mexico when confronted by officers on American soil: An excerpt from a DPS press release documented by the Houston Chronicle in February 2012 elaborated on the purpose of the vessels: (en)
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