Villarreal called Goodman a longtime friend but denied that she received the CPB employee’s name from her. It came from a tipster, she told The Post.

“What the police don’t understand is that my sources are the people out and around my town. Every time there’s an accident or something everybody calls me or texts me,” she said. “The officers are angry at the fact” that people “give me the information first.”

Indeed, Villarreal seems to have many friends and admirers around town. In a recent profile, Texas Monthly called her “one of the most relied-upon and most viewed news sources in Laredo.” On a typical night, she’s driving the streets from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., fielding tips from her many followers and sources — a swarm of police in a neighborhood, a car crash, a shooting. Some of her content is graphic, and she’s the first to admit that she has a foul mouth when she gets worked up.

“She’s both beloved and despised for broadcasting the kinds of images that don’t make it into the city’s traditional media,” reporter Leif Reigstad wrote in Texas Monthly.