Here’s Why Police Are Everywhere in Amarillo Right Now

Yesterday, I walked into the Verizon store on Coulter here in Amarillo to return some equipment I no longer needed. Nothing crazy to report there, but when I was chatting with the agent helping me with the return, she said something that threw me a bit for a loop.

"Be careful when you leave here. Customers have been coming in and saying they were pulled over and given a warning for something silly. I guess the cops are out today." At the time, I was like, well, that was an interesting thing to tell me. Kind, but it threw me off. However, it DID prompt me to look into whether there was increased police presence for some reason.

Operation Summer Shield In Full Effect

I went on to Facebook and saw a post where someone mentioned the increased police presence. Of course, there were all sorts of uninformed comments being made by a lot of people. Some were saying it was a coordinated effort with ICE; others complained about how they should be focused on drugs and gangs instead. The deeper I dug, the more I found...along with the REAL answer.

It's called Operation Summer Shield, and its purpose is to reduce criminal activity in the city, as well as enhance public safety. The operation has been going on for a few days and is expected to last for a few more. This is something that is apparently also going on in multiple other states and cities.

What Can You Expect

Honestly, you can expect a multitude of things. First is the obvious increase in police presence around the city. If you like to speed, roll through stop signs or red lights, you might wanna think again. You're more than likely going to get popped.

The other piece of this is targeted operations to help curb crime in the city. Police are targeting certain areas that have been identified via crime analysis to help make the city safer as a whole. Specific details are not being released since the operation is ongoing and it could compromise certain pieces of it, but we can expect it to keep going for a bit longer.