Sheriff Doolittle visits Rotary of The Woodlands, teases success stories

THE WOODLANDS – Rotary Club of The Woodlands, the local branch of service organization Rotary International, hosted special guest Montgomery County Sheriff Wesley Doolittle at its most recent weekly meeting. More than a hundred Rotarians and their family members attended the meeting to participate in a ‘fireside chat’ with Doolittle and Rotary president and Township board member Cindy Heiser.

“I love getting to tell people about the things going on in the Sheriff’s Office,” he told Woodlands Online. “I’ve talked with some of the kids in attendance here already, and after the fireside chat we’ll be handing out some backpacks and school supplies. And I’m looking forward to school starting back up so we can work on safety with our local schools.”

At the Q&A session, Doolittle talked about his first seven months in office and the changes made to and challenges faced by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. Listeners learned about the restructuring of the department into a clear chain of command and separation of departments. As a result, patrol officers no longer had to deal with investigative issues, clearing them for more and enhanced patrol work, which has translated to a much more significant presence on the roads.

From day one, Doolittle has placed an emphasis on road safety, and has set up several task forces already, netting 50,000 traffic stops for speeding, DUIs, red-light running, ‘donutting,’ and more. 40,000 of those stops resulted in warnings, but several have ended up getting dangerous drivers off the roads.

The latest series of task forces have faced the burgeoning problem of ‘bank jugging,’ a situation where thieves and robbers will follow someone who has made a cash transaction at a bank and subsequently break into their car if they make a stop, or rob them when they reach their home or place of business, sometimes with accompanying violence.

Doolittle boasted that since the inception of these new task forces, eleven arrests had been made in the county – including five for just the month of June – of ‘juggers.’ He noted that each perpetrator and suspect resided in Harris County and had crossed the county line to commit their crimes here. Several of these suspects were already out on bond; to the amusement of the attendees, Doolittle described how one of them committed his crime while out on two bonds and while wearing an ankle monitor.

Doolittle told Woodlands Online that next week his team would be holding a joint press conference with other law enforcement agencies and the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office with more good news on the front fighting crime in the county. Stay tuned to Woodlands Online for updates.