Police Go Undercover As Crossing Guards in Busy School Zone

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico

By ABC-7 Reporter Jill Galus

Speeders, cell phone talkers and people not wearing seat belts are among the 80 citations Las Cruces police officers issued within a 2.5 hour time span Wednesday afternoon along Lohman Avenue and Del Monte Street.

A major cross walk located along the congested six lanes of traffic is also in a clearly marked school zone, which means large groups of kids walk across the road at some of the busiest times of day.

Crossing guards try to keep kids safe while using the crosswalk, but officers say all too often drivers make it feel like one of the most unsafe places to be, and caught violators red-handed.

“Can you tell if that girl’s on her phone in the outside lane,” an officer said over a radio to another officer down the street.

And just like that, a driver passing through the marked school zone was greeted with a ticket.

“We’ve had a lot of seat belt violations, some excessive speed, changing lanes in the school zone,” Officer Landis Hartranft said.

Undercover and dressed in a neon vest, Hartranft posed as a crossing guard.

He says it did not matter what he was wearing – drivers simply sped up through the 15 mph zone or did not stop at all as kids tried to cross the street.

“When we’re in uniform obviously people slow down, they’re a lot more careful, but without being able to see us there’s a lot of disregard for the different school laws here in the school zones,” Hartranft said.

A mother walking home with her children says ignorant drivers make it a struggle.

“When the car don’t stop, I don’t cross,” Libertad Dabila said. “They don’t want to stop but they have to because their life is important.”

Hartranft says being out of uniform allowed him to experience what crossing guards go through on a daily basis.

“A lot of speeders and with it being six lanes all the way across people don’t pay attention to what’s in the opposite lane from them, so they may miss a little kid or even the school crossing guard out there with the stop signs.”

Officers say by law, drivers are obligated to slow down and stop for anyone in a cross walk, the only sure way to avoid a worst case scenario.

“A human body or especially a kid, 50, 60 or 70 pounds, as opposed to a two or 3,000 pound car… there’s no match and so we’re trying to prevent that; we’re trying to make sure that kids arrive and go home from school safely,” Dan Trujillo, spokesman for the Las Cruces Police Dept., said.

Officers say the majority of the 80 citations issued went to drivers talking on their cell phones.