Chief battles raid rumors

Editor's note: In the printed version of this article, the word "not" was left out of the sentence concerning JPD's stance on racial profiling and discrimination. It has been corrected in the online version and will be noted with a correction in the April 27 edition. We deeply regret the error.

Rumors of a widespread raid in Jacksboro by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week led Jacksboro Police Chief Scott Haynes to step in and stop the spread of misinformation.

“I wanted our community to be at peace with this,” he said. “I want them to understand we aren’t going to conduct raids in our community in an attempt to determine someone’s immigration status. I want people to understand as part of my vision if you’re a victim of a crime, I want you to feel comfortable contacting the police department and know that we aren’t going to start an investigation into your immigration status whether you’re here legally or not.”

A comment went up Wednesday, April 11 on a Jack County community Facebook group, noting that ICE had been in town which they had.

“The rumors are what were getting everybody upset,” Haynes said. “One of the rumors was they had picked up 60 people in Jacksboro. Once I was made aware that a lot of people were uneasy I wanted to get that information out there as quickly as possible and I wanted it to be accurate.”

Haynes posted on the JPD Facebook page a team from ICE was in Jacksboro to remove a subject. 

“To my knowledge, the person was taken into custody without incident and the ICE team quickly left our city,” Haynes wrote. 

The post further explained he would share more information as it became available and that the Jacksboro Police Department does not participate in racial profiling or discriminate against anyone.

To read the complete article, see the April 20 edition of the Herald-Gazette.