ODESSA, Texas — A lot of work goes into planning and putting on the Sandhills Stock Show and Rodeo. One of the biggest aspects of planning involves security preparation.
Joe Commander, vice president of security for the rodeo, said that they start planning security for the next rodeo the day after the rodeo ends.
This year, to keep your cars safe, the rodeo brought in mounted patrols to make sure no one breaks into or steals cars from the parking lot.
"We also know that they’re going to be a deterrent to car burglaries, and we’ve had a vehicle or two stolen in the past," Commander said. "So we’re going to have 10 members of that organization helping us."
The commander of the mounted patrol group, Johnny Rodriguez, believes that having officers on horseback can have a big impact on safety.
"Well a lot of people are scared of the horses, and we’ve got some pretty big, tall horses," Rodriguez said. "So it intimidates the people, especially the ones that have never been around horses."
The mounted patrol officers as a group fall under the Midland County sheriff, but the officers that make up the group at the rodeo come from both Midland and Odessa.
"We have we have a couple members from the Midland Police Department, we have a member from the Ector County Sheriff's Office and we have a member from the Odessa P.D., but we’re here for the community," Rodriguez said.
One other way the rodeo tries to keep you and the participants in the rodeo safe is by utilizing security cameras that they can monitor.
"We’ve, in the past, we’ve implemented security cameras, outside, pole cameras that we can watch them from our phones," Commander said. "They alert us if there’s any motion detected and things of that sort, and the county has put in cameras."