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San Jose Police Credit Proactive Strategy For Curbing Cince De Mayo Violence

SAN JOSE (KCBS) — San Jose police are crediting a patrol strategy in East San Jose and downtown for a decline in arrests during Cince de Mayo festivities.

Some rowdy celebrants among the mostly peaceful crowd of about 400 people threw rocks bottles at officers, a San Jose Police Department spokesman said.

Despite the problems, this year there was only 11 arrests compared to 23 in 2012, said spokesman Albert Morales.

"I mean that's kind of where we want to see the numbers. We want to see them go in the opposite direction," he said.

There was only one major incident where a transit bus was attacked by a mob of bottle throwing revelers on Santa Clara Street, but the VTA's Brandi Childress said the damage was only minor.

Cinco de Mayo Violence & Vandalism Curbed By San Jose's Proactive Police

"We're going to be able to restore the windows and the bus should be back in service later this week," Childress said.

San Jose Police attribute the drop in arrests to better communication with the public about police presence, and targeting what Morales called, "known hot spots" with large numbers of officers.

"When you saturate that area with officers and have them patrolling a lot more and being a lot more visible, sheer numbers sometimes discourages people from engaging in some sort of criminal activity," said Morales.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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