Cities to step up illegal fireworks, gunfire enforcement for New Year’s Eve

Mesquite police will be cracking down on celebratory gunfire and fireworks this New Year's Eve. They're doing things differently after last year's celebration led to hundreds of 911 calls.

MESQUITE, Texas - Several North Texas cities are stepping up their enforcement efforts over New Year’s Eve to stop illegal fireworks and celebratory gunfire.

Year after year, Mesquite residents in Creek Crossing know what to expect.

"Probably at least 2, 3 in the morning. New Year’s tends to go later and longer than the Fourth of July. Fourth of July tends to go more nights consecutively," said Debbie Anderson, who lives in the area.

Anderson has lived in Mesquite for more than 25 years. She said fireworks and gunfire have always been an issue but there has been a noticeable increase in recent years.

"It scares a lot of the neighbors, a lot of the pets. And it’s continuous and it just goes on and on and on," she said.

The city has noticed an overall increase too. Last year, Mesquite police handled around 300 New Year’s Eve calls.

"We have a lot of reports of property damage. We’ve had a couple of car windows broken out and some people have reported bullet holes in their roof. Fortunately, no one’s been injured," said Mesquite City Manager Cliff Keheley.

So this year, the city will station police and fire in hot spot areas typically known to have problems on New Year’s Eve.

"We do it by heat map. The more concentration of calls into a neighborhood, we deploy based on that heat map. There are a couple of neighborhoods year after year it seems to have the most calls," Keheley said.

Several of Anderson’s neighbors have volunteered to help staff the phones at the call center the city has set up specifically to handle fireworks calls. It will free up the 911 line for medical and other emergencies.

Mesquite NYE Gunfire/Fireworks Hotline: 972-204-4888

"It was terrible trying to get through to the dispatchers to report anything because there were so many calls. This year they’ve actually got a separate line solely for people calling in fireworks," Anderson said.

Mesquite said it has tripled the amount of staff and phone lines in order to handle the New Year’s Eve calls.

Other cities like Dallas are also stepping up enforcement with fire and police partnering to target New Year’s Eve issues before anyone is seriously hurt.

LINK: 'What goes up, must come down': Dallas police warn people about celebratory gunfire