About The Website

Due to the growth of gang membership nationally and as a preventative measure, the Laredo Texas Anti-Gang Center has created this website to educate the public about criminal gangs and provide a way for residents to report tips to thwart the potential threat.  This initiative has been designed to help keep our neighborhoods and families safe from gangs and the related violence they bring.  

This website is supported by local, state, and federal agencies that allows the public to submit anonymous gang crime tips and wanted gang fugitive tips within the counties of Webb, Zapata, Jim Hogg, Starr, Maverick, Val Verde and abutting counties including the municipalities within those counties. 

This website creates a partnership between the public and law enforcement.  Supply, distribution and sale of illegal narcotics is supported by one or more criminal organizations.  While you may only be aware of an individual or a small group of individuals who participate in the sale of illegal narcotics, the illegal product is supplied and distributed by larger criminal organizations.  These same criminal organizations are often involved in a multitude of other criminal activity that negatively impact our communities including, robberies, home invasions, theft of automobiles, human trafficking, prostitution, child exploitation, and others.

Background of the Laredo Texas Anti-Gang Center

After the creation and success of the first Texas Anti-Gang Center in Houston, Texas in 2013, a total of eight Texas Anti-Gang Centers have been established by the Governor’s Office over the past eight years. The locations of the seven other Anti-Gang Centers are located in El Paso, Houston, Lubbock, North Texas, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio and Waco.

In 2021 the Laredo Police Department was afforded the opportunity by the Governor’s Office to bring an Anti-Gang Center to the Laredo Texas area.  The Texas Anti-Gang (TAG) program initiated in fall of 2021. The center, also known as the TAG, is set to become operational in mid-2022 with participation from the following agencies: Laredo Police Department (LPD), Webb County Sheriff's Office (WCSO), Webb & Zapata County District Attorney's Office (WZCDAO), Texas Department of Public Safety - South Texas Region (DPS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), US Customs & Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), US Border Patrol (USBP), US Customs & Border Protection, Office of Field Operations (OFO), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), US Marshals Service - Laredo Division (USM) and US Department of Justice Office of United States Attorney, Southern District of Texas - Laredo Division (AUSAO).

Mission

The TAG Centers are state-of-the-art facilities within which representatives from multiple law enforcement agencies collocate in order to more efficiently and effectively cooperate and collaborate on intelligence, investigatory, and operational activities related  to combating the shared threat of criminal organizations operating in and affecting the region.   The TAG Centers serve to connect agencies beyond physical co-location through an information/intelligence sharing level across all agencies within the TAG Centers respective regions and across the TAG Centers statewide.  

Core Values

• Cooperation - Recognition that the fight against criminal street gangs and violent crime is a common goal among all law enforcement that requires agencies to come together as a team in order to be more efficient and effective.   
• Collaboration- Bringing agencies together to address the common threat of gangs/violent crime to apply each agency's unique perspective/jurisdictions and skill sets to bear on the violence impacting our community.
• Intelligence Sharing - Enabling our law enforcement partners to effectively address their common goals of reducing violent crime by openly and actively sharing intelligence.
• Dedication - Texas Anti-Gang centers are devoted to promoting the inter-agency cooperation/collaboration among law enforcement agencies across the State of Texas in the common fight against criminal street gangs/organizations and violent crime.  Gangs have to a great extent eliminated organizational lines in order to become more effective against law enforcement.  Law enforcement must respond in kind.

Strategic Goals

• Fighting criminal street gangs/criminal organizations and violent crime.     
• Increased interagency cooperation/collaboration. 
• Increased intelligence sharing opportunities/abilities.
• The inter-connection of agencies at a regional and statewide level in order to become a "force-multiplier" for law enforcement across the state.

The Primary Goals Of This Website Is To:

Educate Laredo Texas area residents and businesses about gang activity in the Laredo Texas area and provide a means for them to report criminal activity anonymously.

The Illegal Threat - What is a Gang? - Criminal Enterprises - Gang Identification - Graffiti: Gangs vs. Taggers - We Need Your Help - Submit an Anonymous Gang Crime Tip

Assist parents and guardians...in identifying indicators and provide information about prevention services available in the Laredo Texas area.

What is Being Done - Parents, Educators, & Community Residents - Prevention & Intervention Assistance - Under the Influence Warning Signs

Inform young people...on the dangers and consequences of joining a gang.