Law Enforcement

Border Patrol losing agents faster than it can hire them

The U.S. Border Patrol is losing agents faster than it can hire them, according to a new audit released Wednesday that said competition with other federal law enforcement and the difficulty of passing a polygraph test have sapped the agency of nearly 2,000 agents it’s supposed to have. More than 900 agents leave each year on average but the Border Patrol only hires an average of 523 a year, the Government Accountability Office said in a broad survey of staffing and deployment challenges at the key border law enforcement agency. The law requires the agency to have a minimum of 21,370 agents on board, but it had just 19,500 agents as of May. That’s an even bigger problem when stacked up against President Trump’s call for hiring 5,000 more agents, to reach a workforce of 26,370. Managers blamed everything from remote working conditions to competition with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the interior immigration agency that’s also staffing up, for difficulty in filling out ranks. Problems span the southwest border, with eastern California and western Texas suffering particular shortages. The new GAO analysis also looked at how the agents who are on board are deployed, amid a long-running dispute within the agency over the use of highway checkpoints. Checkpoint backers say they serve as a critical chokepoint, helping snare drugs and, occasionally, illegal immigrants traveling on the roads. Opponents say they are easily circumvented..

Oh, it’s probably a little bit of both..  To be fair, those checkpoints DO catch SOME bad apples.  BUT, it’s also true those checkpoints can be circumvented.  Also, those illegals caught at such checkpoints are caught inside the U.S., and as such are immediately entitled to all sorts of legal, financial, and other “entitlements” which we-the-actual American citizens pay for.  As many of you know, here at The Daily Buzz we have been calling for our federally elected leaders to BUILD THE WALL NOW!!!!….and put U.S. Army National Guard troops (to augment the personnel shortfalls with the Border Patrol) physically ON the border with Mexico; NOT back 40 miles, as has been the practice for years.  Being physically ON the border serves as a deterrent to those would-be crossers from trying to make an attempt.  Here at The Daily Buzz, we’ve been calling for these measures 2.5 years before Donald Trump made the wall a campaign pledge.

As for the shortfall in hiring CBP agents…  We’re glad to hear that the agency is maintaining high standards.  We’d rather have 100 dedicated, honest, and quality agents…than 1000 incompetent, and easily bribed or ethically-challenged ones.

MS-13 spreading across US as AG Sessions vows to take down gang

Attorney General Jeff Sessions this week promised to deal with the brutal street gang MS-13 in the same way that “we took Al Capone off the streets.” Amid a series of gruesome, high-profile murders across the United States, MS-13 has become a major focus of President Trump’s Justice Department. But dismantling the gang, whose numbers are estimated to be around 10,000 nationwide, is no easy task: MS-13 has infiltrated communities across the country – and throughout Central America – since its formation in 1980s Southern California. “MS-13 functions like all immigrant organized crime groups. They start by targeting their own community,” Lou Gentile, a former officer at the Organized Crime Unit of the Pennsylvania State Police and founder of investigative firm CSI, told Fox News. “MS-13 preys on their own, they exploit their own.” Click here to see some of the states and regions hardest hit by MS-13 in recent years:

AG Sessions unleashes organized crime task force on MS-13

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that he’s designated the MS-13 street gang as a priority for the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces — enabling authorities to target the gang with a broader array of federal resources. “Now they will go after MS-13 with a renewed vigor and a sharpened focus,” Mr. Sessions said Monday as he addressed the International Association of Chiefs of police conference in Philadelphia. “Just like we took Al Capone off the streets with our tax laws, we will use whatever laws we have to get MS-13 off of our streets.” The priority designation will instruct federal agencies such as the IRS, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target the El Salvador-based gang not just with drug laws but also tax, racketeering and firearms laws. Prior to this year, the task force was only able to get involved in cases when they involved the drug trade or money laundering. But changes to the task force’s authority in this year’s budget allow the Justice Department to directly name an organization as a priority. The change will mean that the task force can now get involved in a broad range of cases involving MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, including anything from murder prosecutions to firearms violations. Mr. Sessions has singled out MS-13’s involvement in the drug trade as a priority as his department has sought to combat both illegal immigration and an influx of drugs brought in the country from overseas. “Drugs are killing more Americans than ever before in large part thanks to powerful cartels and international gangs and deadly new synthetic opioids like fentanyl,” Mr. Sessions said.

Female deputy DA found bloody, beaten after gang attack in California: source

A deputy district attorney was the victim of a gruesome gang attack in Orange County, Calif., in an apparent attempt to prevent her from giving closing arguments in a gang murder trial. The woman, whose name has been withheld, stumbled — bloody and bruised — into the Newport Workout gym in Newport Beach early Thursday morning, Fox 11 Los Angeles reported. A trainer inside the gym came to her aid. “It looked as if a bucket of red-blood paint was poured over her head and every part of her face and shirt was red,” trainer Ron Cary told Fox 11, adding that he initially thought the woman had fallen while jogging. “One of the trainers yelled, ‘Call the police.’ She didn’t run and fall, she was attacked,” Cary said. “I overheard her saying she either works for the DA or is the DA of San Bernardino and she’s either in a trial or acting for the murder trial.” San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Christopher Lee confirmed to Fox 11 the following: “A member of our office was involved in an incident that is currently under investigation.” Lee declined to comment further. A law enforcement source told the local news station that the woman was about to give closing arguments in a gang murder trial and may have been targeted by gang members and that she’s been followed before. “I heard things coming out of her mouth like, ‘Was I raped?,’ ‘I was unconscious. I don’t know how long,’ ‘Are they here?,’ ‘Are they coming?’ Still a little scatterbrained,” Cary said. “We turned around and saw a woman who could barely walk covered head-to-toe in blood.” Newport Beach police say the woman was not sexually assaulted or robbed. The victim doesn’t remember anything about her attackers, police said. There were no arrests as of early Friday morning.

Just awful..  We hope this poor woman makes a speedy recovery, and that the animals who did this to her are arrested and properly charged.  As many of you know, we tend to avoid the human interest stories here at The Daily Buzz.  There are plenty of other outlets for that in the checkout lane at your local grocery store.  But, sometimes we make an exception.  Such is the case here..  These are the kind of animals, many of them illegal aliens (i.e. MS-13, etc.), that we need to get off of our streets, and/or round up and get out of our country.  Unreal..

Opinion: Trump’s pardon of ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio was the right (and courageous) thing to do

President Trump stood up for justice and for enforcement of our immigration laws when he courageously granted a pardon Friday to Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. Despite knowing he would face criticism, the president did what was right. Arpaio was convicted by a federal judge in July of criminal contempt after being charged with violating a court order that attempted to prevent suspected illegal immigrants from being targeted by the sheriff’s traffic patrols. The sheriff acknowledged continuing the patrols, but said that targeting was not the focus. Arpaio’s conviction arose out of a lawsuit wrongfully accusing the sheriff’s office of violating the rights of Hispanics, allegedly using racial profiling tactics to identify people for traffic stops, and detaining convicts based only on the suspicion that they were illegal immigrants. Arpaio denied all wrongdoing. I sat in the courtroom through Arpaio’s trial and concluded that he was wrongfully convicted. As a former law enforcement officer myself and former executive director of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, I know that Arpaio was dedicated to protecting the public he served and that his highest priority was keeping his community safe. Hearing testimony during Arpaio’s trial, I realized that any reasonable person who was there to pass judgment on this honest law-abiding man – who gave his life to the rule of law – could never have found him guilty on the evidence presented. However, the only one who could pass judgment on the former sheriff was U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, because Arpaio was denied his right to a jury trial under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The judge’s verdict convicting Arpaio was a travesty of justice. Arpaio’s critics have claimed for a long time that he is a racist and biased against Hispanics. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Under his command, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office boasted the highest percentage of Hispanic deputies, detention officers and staff in the state of Arizona. Moreover, he promoted more Hispanic officers to command positions than any other law enforcement agency in the state. On top of this, Arpaio has two grandchildren who are of Hispanic descent. To say he is biased again his own family members is absurd. Labeling him a racist for enforcing U.S. immigration law is a tired, exhausted, left-wing strategy that fails time and time again. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump said that he would be the voice for law enforcement officers everywhere and always fight to protect them when they protected the public. President Trump held true to his promise by using his presidential pardon for Arpaio to set an important precedent: judges should interpret law and not try to rewrite it. And good men like Arpaio should not be prosecuted, persecuted and punished for doing their jobs. President Trump recognized that Sheriff Arpaio was doing his job, following the law, and protecting the people of Maricopa County – which includes Phoenix – by punishing criminals to the fullest extent, under the laws on the books. Arpaio was first elected as sheriff in Maricopa County 1992. He maintained that position for 24 years, receiving the honor of being the longest-serving sheriff ever been elected in the county. In June, the National Center for Police Defense, which I now head, delivered 40,000 petitions to the U.S. Department of Justice urging it to drop charges against the sheriff. Arpaio’s case has been politically motivated from the beginning, when the Obama administration’s Department of Justice filed misdemeanor charges against him a mere two weeks before the election, contributing to Arpaio’s loss in his reelection bid. The Department of Justice typically refrains from taking legal action against an elected official so close to an election in order to avoid influencing the outcome. Arpaio is now 85-years-old and has over 55 years of experience serving in law enforcement. He knows the limits of his power, and for 55 years stayed within those limits, while keeping the bad guys off the streets and the good people of his community safe. That’s how he earned the title of “Americas Toughest Sheriff.” By pardoning the wrongly convicted former sheriff, President Trump has shown he stands with the law-abiding people of our great country, who have the right to live in peace and safety. And the president has shown he stands against criminals, including those who have crossed our borders illegally. The author leads The National Center for Police Defense (NCPD) a non-profit dedicated to helping law enforcement officers who have been charged with a crime while following, “to the best of their ability,” the training and knowledge that they have been taught to use, by their departments. His charity supported former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s legal defense. James J. Fotis is president of National Center for Police Defense and a former law enforcement officer. He served more than 23 years as the Executive Director of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) an association of law enforcement officers, crime victims and concerned citizens. Follow his organization on Twitter @defendpolice

Author James Fotis is, of course, spot on here.  Sheriff Joe’s prosecution, and subsequent conviction, was entirely politically motivated, and clearly a violation of Sheriff Joe’s 6th Amendment right to a trial by a jury.  After over a half century of honorable service in law enforcement, Pres. Trump was absolutely right in granting this pardon.

Cops put parking lot crack cocaine in ‘lost and found’

Police in northeastern Pennsylvania say they’ve put about $1,600 worth of crack cocaine in their “lost and found box” in hopes of reuniting the drug with its rightful owner. The (Wilkes-Barre) Citizens’ Voice reports the drug was found in the parking lot of a shopping center outside Wilkes-Barre. Wilkes-Barre Township police posted about the find on the department’s Facebook page. In a post headlined “FOUND ITEM,” police quipped the drug had been placed in the department’s “lost and found box” and invited the owner to come retrieve it. The post requested a picture of the crack’s owner holding the drug, along with ID and a “written statement containing your claim to the crack.”

No, you are NOT reading The Onion..  Let’s see if the “owner(s)” come forward to claim their “lost and found” item.  We’ll keep ya’ posted.

House passes bill which targets police shootings

The House approved legislation Thursday that makes killing a state or local police officer an aggravating factor that juries and judges would consider in death penalty cases. Under current law, killing a federal law enforcement officer is already an aggravating factor in death penalty deliberations. The bill’s supporters say it’s important to apply that standard to the murder of state and local law enforcement and other first responders, too, because it sends a message of accountability. The vote was 271-143. Some lawmakers and civil rights groups said the legislation ignores racial biases in the imposition of the death penalty. They also called the legislation duplicative since the killing of any police officer likely meets one of the other 16 aggravating factors that federal juries already consider in death penalty cases. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., acknowledged the scenarios the bill would apply to “are probably limited.” Still, he said it would be important in some acts of terrorism where a state or local officer is killed, or if an officer serving on federal task force were killed. He said it would also cover volunteer first responders. “This legislation sends a simple message. The stalking and killing of a law enforcement officer will not be tolerated,” Goodlatte said.

Excellent!!  Glad to see the House doing something which supports our first responders like this.