Starbase, the company town established by SpaceX in South Texas, is forming its own police department. The city’s commission approved an ordinance during a special meeting on Tuesday to create a municipal police force, pending approval from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. The department will be led by a chief of police elected by the city commission and is expected to hire eight officers. It could become operational within a few months.
City administrator Kent Myers emphasized the need for the department, stating that the significant assets from SpaceX operations require protection and that the police will play a critical role in providing that security. It is not yet clear if Starbase has submitted its application to the state commission. The city reportedly hired the security consulting firm Vision Quest Solutions to help build the new department.
Starbase is the location where SpaceX manufactures and tests its prototype Starship rocket. The city is small, currently home to only a few hundred residents, most of whom are SpaceX employees or their families. It is also geographically isolated, with the closest neighboring town, Brownsville, about ten miles away—a drive that can take 45 minutes or longer.
A police department would be the latest public service added since Starbase was incorporated as a city last year. In October, a handful of SpaceX employees living there started a volunteer fire department. Around the same time, the city also created a fire marshal position and took on its own building inspections and permitting.
Initially, Starbase attempted to handle law enforcement by contracting with the Cameron County sheriff’s office. The city had struck a five-year, $3.5 million contract that was supposed to provide two deputies patrolling the city at a time, with eight deputies assigned overall. Starbase also made an agreement last year to use the county’s jail, agreeing to pay $100 per day per inmate and reimburse additional expenses like medical care.
However, that arrangement did not work out as planned. According to Myers, the city did not have much success in finding deputies through the county, leading to the decision to change direction. Sheriff Manuel Treviño indicated this was partly due to the contract not including civil service protections for the deputies.