Pueblo police Thursday announce enforcement measures for curfews in city parks, public areas
PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) -- Two weeks after a teenage boy was shot to death at a skate park, police revealed new, increased enforcement measures for curfews in city parks and other public gathering spots.
Police found the boy, whose name has not been released, dead near the Sgt. Blake A. Harris Skateboard Park, in City Park on the west side of town.
The shooting happened just before 2 a.m. on July 25, and police found the victim after responding to a report of gunfire.
Sgt. Franklyn Ortega said that police will increase enforcement of curfews despite limited resources because of a shortage of patrol officers.
"We're going to devote several officers to patrol those areas overnight," he explained. "It will be overtime duty for officers who volunteer to do it. I don't think we'll have any trouble with that. We're also going to rely on park rangers to help us. They'll put in some extra hours and be able to be there more often than we can. Our officers will patrol trouble areas that we know about, and look for some we don't know about. We'll be starting that soon, maybe this week."
Ortega said that the city's curfew ordinance draws a distinction between adults and juveniles.
"For city parks, the curfew is 10:00 at night, all the time, for everyone," he said. "The curfew for juveniles in the city is Monday thru Thursday, 10 p.m., and Friday and Saturday it's midnight."
Police have already started to gradually increase enforcement, Ortega said, having cited 20 juveniles for violating curfew this year.
"We've also seen a 28% increase in juvenile crime," he added. "Most of that happened in parks overnight, after hours. So, we're doing what we can to address that."
Ortega said that juvenile violators must appear in municipal court with their parents or adult guardians, and judges will decide whether violators should pay a fine ore receive another form of punishment, such as community service.
Adults who violate curfew will be fined $150 for a first offense, $300 for a second offense, and be required to appear in court for three or more offenses.
Stacy Martin, the mother of 14-year-old Brandon Johnson, feels that the current juvenile curfew isn't strong enough.
"It starts getting dark around 7 or 8 o'clock, I think that's a good time.," she said. "10 o'clock is just really late."
Her son agrees.
"Because that's kind of dangerous," he said. "There's a lot of people with stuff out there that can hurt you. It's like at night, and you can't see them good enough."
KRDO spoke with a family member of the skate park victim Thursday, saying that the family is keeping the matter private but is glad that police are conducting a curfew crackdown.
