(This article was revised to add a photo gallery and videos from the news conference.)
PANAMA CITY BEACH ― Chief J.R. Talamantez of the Beach Police says the success of this spring break season was a combined effort.
Local officials held a news conference on April 15 at the Panama City Beach Police Department to highlight the success of the area’s recent high impact period and high impact zones during the 2026 spring break season. These were initiatives put in place to help curb spring break chaos.
“Spring break 2025 was not ideal,” Talamantez said. “We had a significant amount of violence, including seven shootings in 10 days. We made a commitment (to not) let (that) happen again. I am here to say we did exactly what we said we were going to do.
“One year later, the only incident we had was some idiot shooting a gun in the air, and he went to jail for it.”
According to Talamantez, the success of the 2026 spring break season was due to support from local officials, partnerships with surrounding law enforcement agencies and the use of high impact periods and high impact zones.
Past reports note Panama City Beach and Bay County officials designated March 28 to April 11 a high impact period for the area. Additionally, they established high impact zones, or areas with increased police presence and penalties.
The zones, which boasted large police presences, were located near Pier Park, south of Middle Beach Road from about Alf Coleman Road to Clara Avenue; south of Middle Beach Road from about Richard Jackson Boulevard to the east end of the city’s limits; and east of PCB’s city limits along Thomas Drive to Raven Street, encompassing Grand Lagoon to the sandy beach area.
During that time, the Beach Police also set up a mobile command center at Pier Park, with checkpoints at the park’s entrances.
Talamantez noted there were various law enforcement agencies that participated in what he referred to as “the spring break takeback.” The name was a reference to different “takeover” events that have caused issues throughout the area in past spring break seasons.
“We had the strongest law enforcement presence in the city’s history to take back a season in which individuals were trying to take from us,” Talamantez said. “It’s safe to say we did not let that happen. … This was a unified community coming together saying ‘this is not the place, we are something better, and we are going to show you.'”
Participating departments included the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission, Panama City Police Department, Springfield Police Department, Parker Police Department, Lynn Haven Police Department, Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, Holmes County Sheriff’s Office, Bonifay Police Department, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, Dothan, Alabama, Police Department, Columbus, Georgia, Police Department and Georgia Bureau of Investigations.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time and have been to many pre- and post-spring break press conferences, and I can tell you that this one hits differently,” Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford said. “There is gratitude in this room. There is gratitude in my heart for this spring break.
“I think one of the things that really made the big difference (this year) was the (police) presence that we had out there everyday.”
This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Panama City Beach police chief dubs spring break 2026 a success
Reporting by Nathan Cobb, Panama City News Herald / The News Herald
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
