Mexican Drug Cartels Make Texas Deadly Place for Policemen: Official

The US government should strengthened security along the southern border with Mexico, the chief of the Houston Police Officers Union said.

WASHINGTON, January 1 (Sputnik) – Drug cartels that come to Texas from Mexico are responsible for a high death rate among local police officers, and the US government should do something about it, the president of the Houston Police Officers Union has told the Sputnik news agency.

"I definitely think that one of the reasons that [the number of policemen deaths] is high is because we are on the border with Mexico where we have Mexican drug cartels. They come across our border. We have had several of our officers who have been killed by illegal aliens here in Texas," Union's President Ray Hunt said.

Hunt added the government should strengthened security along the southern border with Mexico.

"I hope that our new governor who was just elected, who takes office next week, will put more patrol agents down the border, because obviously our president is not securing the border, so it looks like this could be Texas responsibility to secure it," he claimed.

According to data, released by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) on Tuesday, in 2014 Texas had 11 police officers fatalities. The state ranked second deadliest preceded only by California.

The rising police death toll has prompted police unions to ask for additional safety measures to be taken, according to Hunt.

"We are also asking for our Chief of police and chiefs across Texas to start pairing up units and put two officers per car. We believe that four arms are better than two, and four hands are better than two. So we believe that that will help a little," he said.

NLEOMF statistics estimate that 126 law enforcement officers lost their lives in the United States in 2014, while the number of firearms-related fatalities rose by 56 percent.