Windcrest officials renew city curfew for teens 17 and younger

Windcrest once again has a curfew on tap, enforcing restrictions on teens 17 and under on public property between the hours of 12 a.m. and 6 a.m.

The Windcrest City Council in January refused to renew a curfew that comes up for renewal every three years.

Council Members Wes Manning, Mayor Pro Tem Joan Pedrotti and Marcus Yax voted for the curfew approval at the May 16 meeting while Greg Turner and Cindy Strzelecki voted against the measure, as they had both done in January.

Before its passage, the council eliminated references to daytime curfew hours, between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. during school hours — a limit originally put into place for control of students who were truant, leaving campuses and entering Windcrest establishments.

“Our police department will no longer be picking up juveniles and taking them back to the school,” Manning said. “We’re not going to be truant officers anymore.”

Strzelecki made a point with Police Chief Darrell Volz that the number of curfew violations has not been a pressing problem for the Windcrest PD.

“On citations issued in 2021, there were 12 citations. In 2017-2022, there were 301,” Strzelecki said, alluding to the possibility of pandemic-affected school attendance and public crackdown. “So that’s one a month. I think there’s a myth or a belief that kids are running rampant, and that’s what the officers are using.”

Windcrest’s curfew prior to Jan. 10 made it a crime “for any minor to purposefully remain, walk, run, stand, drive, or ride about in or upon any public place in the city between the hours of 12 midnight and 6 a.m.,” according to Article IV Minors, Sec. 24-90.

Strzelecki pointed out the curfew would be enacted for control of a problem that’s only occurring once a month.

“We don’t have a lot of citations. Even with the school we don’t have a lot of citations,” Volz said, before backtracking on Strzelecki’s basis. “But that’s because they understand that we have that law. If we don’t have that law, then we won’t have anything to do with them.”

Yax — who changed his vote from opposing a curfew in January to supporting one in May — asked if officers have the ability to request identification from teens with and without the curfew.

“Suppose your officers roll up on someone who appears to be a minor, after midnight,” Yax said. “If that officer asks them to show some ID, to prove identification of that individual, they are under no legal obligation to do that, is that correct?”

Volz responded affirmatively. “Correct. They don’t have to give us anything.”

Yax then asked, “If the ordinance is in place and we have a curfew, they are legally bound to identify themselves.”

“Yes,” the chief said.

Yax said the existence of the curfew allows officers to use their better judgment if they see people who are out after midnight and appear to be anywhere between 15 and 20 or 25, separating roaming teens from roving adults.

“This is to try to correct bad behavior before it becomes criminal behavior,” Pedrotti said. “We’re not trying to criminalize this. We’re trying to give the police officers a tool to help everyone from making bad choices.”

Strzelecki said curfews “came into law to reduce crimes by minors and … against minors. The actual research they had for the last 20 years has shown that that hasn’t proven to be true.”

“Teens,” she added, “are no less likely with a curfew, as without a curfew, to be victims of crime or to cause a crime to happen.

Pedrotti responded with the “tool in the belt” scenario once again.

“Personally, if kids are outside walking down my street at 1 o’clock in the morning, I want you to have the power to stop and ask them what they’re doing,” she said.

Mayor Dan Reese called the vote and Manning, Pedrotti and Yax passed the ordinance into law, effective through May 16, 2027.

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