Good news

So then.

This is good news.  I hope the trend continues.

Arrests, ER visits fall after holiday

By Bryan Shettig - The Herald-Zeitung

The number of arrests and emergency visits dropped dramatically during the first weekend after Memorial Day in New Braunfels.

New Braunfels Police officers made 11 arrests on June 5 and 6 and issued 98 citations, said Lt. John Wells, NBPD spokesman. During Memorial Day weekend, 32 people were arrested and 338 citations were issued.

Many of this past weekend’s citations were for parking violations and open alcoholic containers in parks, Wells said.

“So far this summer, our main source of tickets has come from parking violations,” Wells said, with open alcoholic containers, traffic violations and minors in possession of alcohol following as the most common misdemeanors.

Memorial Day weekend 2010 saw about a 12 percent increase in arrests and almost 20 percent increase in tickets compared to 2009, Wells said.

There were no fights in public parks this past weekend that resulted in arrests or citations, he said, but police will continue to look for people who might be causing a disturbance. On Memorial Day weekend, two separate fights broke out along local rivers, one of which left two San Antonio men stabbed.

“Fighting and gang-related activity is something we’re always watching,” he said. “If we see people affiliating themselves with gangs, we will just ask them to leave because that’s not what we want with the family environment on the rivers.”

The number of patients at the Christus Santa Rosa — New Braunfels emergency room also returned to “normal” this past weekend, said Melissa Krause, hospital spokeswoman.

On Saturday and Sunday, the emergency room had an average of 100 to 115 people each day, Krause said.

On Memorial Day weekend, the hospital had about 125 people at the emergency room each day, she said.

The amount of trash cleaned out of the Comal and Guadalupe Rivers this past weekend was not known before press time. City officials said Pristine Texas Rivers, the contractor that cleans the rivers, had not yet provided figures for trash amounts.

River users dumped nearly 100,000 gallons of garbage in the local rivers during Memorial Day weekend, city officials said for a story last week. Since the trash is wet, the city measures the amount of trash pulled from the rivers in gallons.