Texas Gone Wild: Hundreds Arrested, 50 Hospitalized, 1 Armed Robbery After Wild 'Topless' Jeep Weekend Gets Rowdy
Everything is bigger in Texas including the "topless" Jeep weekends on Crystal Beach where hundreds were arrested over the weekend for drunken and disorderly behavior.
The Galveston County, Texas Sheriff's Office reports there were an unofficial total of 234 arrests made by Sunday afternoon after approximately 30,000 partiers descended on the beach to drop their tops and get summer cranking with a beach bash.
Major Ray Nolan told media outlets that his department's plan to increase patrols to keep trouble out of the neighborhoods near the beach had led to a "successful event."
"We've had about the same number of arrests as last year," he told KHOU.
The totals are still coming in, but Nolan says there were 13 felonies handed out, two people flown to hospitals, 40 people hospitalized with injuries and one woman who is in critical condition with a head injury after falling out of a truck. The driver of that truck was charged with DUI.
There was also an armed robbery that police are investigating. According to police, in that case, an armed gunman walked up to a citizen on the beach and demanded a wallet while showing off a weapon.
"We feel like we got a pretty good handle on the overall safety of it," Nolan added. "We're just trying to get through...and try to get everybody home safe."
This isn't the first big beach weekend this spring to cause headlines. In April, Tybe Island in Georgia turned into chaos as a crowd of around 40-50k college students and locals from around Georgia and South Carolina converged on the beach town for an impromptu beach party.
“Tybee Island is fortunate that no lives were lost and no property destroyed,” the town's mayor told a local media outlet.
The Tybee party was highlighted by twerking on top of vehicles, shootings and some woman reportedly twerking on a stretcher as paramedics were trying to rescue a patient.
Good luck to the beach communities this summer. You now have two beaches that have put up huge numbers and now locals know what they have to beat. Can someone top 300 arrests?
Buckle up.