Go Topless Weekend Crime Recap From Mark Diaz
Go Topless Weekend Crime Recap From Mark Diaz
Galveston County Crime During Go Topless Weekend
Last weekend was Go Topless weekend here in Galveston County. As I do with most big holiday weekends, I’ll run the numbers, look at the arrests, and see what kind of activity we had. This weekend was pretty big for law enforcement. In all of Galveston County, there were about 395 arrests. About 250 of those were on Crystal Beach. On Friday the 19th, for all of Galveston County there were 117 arrests, with 70 being from Crystal Beach. On Saturday the 20th, which was the biggest day, for the entire county we had 187 arrests, 132 of those being in Crystal Beach. Sunday was 91 for the county, with 48 of those being in Crystal Beach.
When I went through these, it was pretty clear that law enforcement was strict about what they would arrest people for. There were people arrested for having no seatbelts in a vehicle. Now, I don’t envision that to be someone sitting in the passenger seat without a seatbelt on. That probably is the people that were standing up in the back of jeeps holding on to the bars and driving down the beach.
Then there was a whole lot of public intoxication. I saw a couple for glass containers on the beach. A lot of minor stuff. I think law enforcement was trying to send a message to the rowdiest attendees or partygoers. There was a lot of driving while intoxicated. I believe the newspaper said there were maybe three shootings. There were some injuries, I think a woman either fell or jumped from a vehicle and sustained some serious injuries.
There was another incident where a driver hit a pedestrian and that pedestrian sustained serious injuries. There was a report that said at least 50 people were hospitalized in some capacity over the weekend, due to goings on at Crystal Beach. Remember when I say these numbers, when I say Friday, Friday ended at midnight. If you’re looking at each night it was probably higher, so there were probably a substantially lower amount of arrests during the day. From what I can tell by looking at social media posts, most of the rowdy activity happened after dark.
I thought it was interesting that if you look over the years this event here in Galveston County specifically on Crystal Beach has just gotten worse and worse with the number of arrests. The people that are attending, I guess, are just here for one big party rather than for the Go Topless event.
Initially Go Topless was a nationwide movement for Jeep owners to congregate and get together. What has happened in Crystal Beach is that there are fewer and fewer Jeeps and more side by sides, big trucks, etc… As a comparison, right down the road in Brazoria County, at Surfside Beach, there was a large turnout of jeepers, and they had no incidents. There was a statement issued by the Surfside police department that they had no issues and that all the jeepers were nice and respectful of the beach there.
We’ll have to see what happens here in Galveston County or at least on Crystal Beach with this event that seems to get worse and worse every year. When I say worse and worse, I mean, arrests, and injuries, I think last year we also had a couple of shootings. It’s getting to the point that it’s not a family-oriented weekend anymore over there on Crystal Beach.
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That’s what I have for this week. We had 395 total arrests in the county from Friday to Sunday. I counted about 250 of those out of crystal beach. Now, when I say Crystal Beach I mean from the ferry landing which is Port Bolivar down to Gilcrest. I did not look into Chambers County or anything in High Island, but I did count anything that was from Port Bolivar, down to Gilcrest. I hope you all have a good week and we’ll see you next week. If you’ve been charged with a crime in the Galveston County area, contact our Galveston County criminal defense lawyers at (409) 515-6170.