@ nationalterroralert.com: On the heels of recent booby trap attacks on an anti-gang task force in Hemet, CA, Riverside County police made 16 arrests and seized 16 firearms after raiding 35 locations.
Hemet City Manager Brian Nakamura: “We’ve apprehended the individuals we believe are related to this crime.”
AP: reports that long-time rival Sinaloa and Gulf cartels have reportedly joined forces with La Familia to combat the Zetas, a gang of hitmen that has grown into a drug trafficking organization with a reach extending into Central America.
Intelligence reports indicate the Gulf cartel has recruited its former rival, La Familia, to crush the Zetas gang in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, said Ramon Pequeno, the head of the anti-narcotics division of Mexico’s federal police.
CBS 2: Following booby trap attacks on an anti-gang task force in Riverside County, CA, investigators are looking at the Vagos motorcycle gang and any motives it might have for perpetrating the criminal acts. “More than two dozen people affiliated with the gang were arrested in a sweep Wednesday and investigators believe the gang may be linked to recent booby trap schemes.”
Most recently, a 200K reward has been offered “for information leading to the capture of whoever is responsible for recent attempts on the lives of the anti-gang officers.”
CNN: 2009 has been the deadliest yet in Mexico’s war on drugs, with an estimated 7,600 Mexican casualties. President Calderon stated repeatedly that the vast majority of the casualties were criminals, not civilians.
Just heard on KFI AM 640: the Los Angeles Police Department will soon join the ranks of law enforcement agencies using Next-Generation 911 (Next Gen 911 or NG 911) systems. Here’s an example of Florida County implementing NG911.
According to KFI, people in Los Angeles will soon be able to call 911 and if appropriate the LAPD will direct them to send images, texts, and video to the LAPD computer-aided dispatch system. Dispatch can then send the information to patrol units to assist in their law enforcement efforts.
Hey, maybe they can transmit it to other agencies as well (hint, hint)!
Kudos to the LAPD for integrating available Web 2.0 and communications technologies and maximizing the increasing potential to fight crime.
NYT reports that a Riverside County judge handed down the death penalty to convicted arsonist Raymond Lee Oyler for the deaths of five firefighters resulting from the commission of his crimes. In March 2009, a jury convicted Oyler of “5 counts of first-degree murder, 17 counts of using an incendiary device and 20 counts of arson for setting fires in the mountains of the San Gorgonio Pass, 90 miles east of Los Angeles, over a six-month period in 2006.”
In their book, Profiling Violent Crimes (3rd ed.) Ronald Holmes and Stephen Holmes cite statistics where 41% of arsonists commit the crimes out of revenge, and 30% commit it for excitement.
[Common] emotional state[s]and behavior[s] just prior to firesetting: mounting tension and anxiety; restlessness – an urge for motion; conversion symptoms [e.g.] headaches, pressure in the head…;a sense that the personailty was merging into a state of unreality; and an uncontrollable urge or irresistable impulse to set fires.
…is the focus of a recent study by Stratfor. Of note are the means the traffickers employ:
… the specific nature and corridors of those movements are constantly in flux as traffickers innovate in their attempts to stay ahead of the police in a very Darwinian environment. The traffickers employ all forms of movement imaginable, including:
Stratfor also looks at how U.S. gangs get in on the action:
While Mexican cartels do have representatives in cities across the United States to oversee networks there, local gangs get involved in the actual distribution of the narcotics.
For more, click here.
ABC News reports:
The California DOJ released a statement that they arrested Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, an Afghan national, thirty five miles outside of L.A. in his house in Tustin on February 20, 2009 and charged him with “lying about his identity and immigration status, and failing to disclose that he has been associating with senior al Qaeda leaders.”
Apparently he didn’t disclose to immigration officals that his brother in law is “Dr. Amin al-Haq, who the indictment says is the security coordinator for Osama bin Laden.” He also didn’t let on that he is associated with “Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, another Islamic radical suspected of supporting ‘terrorists acts carried out by al Qaeda and the Taliban.'”
According to the FBI affidavit, Niazi also used hawalas, an unofficial, unlicensed system of transferring money via a large network of money brokers, to transfer money to Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as to family members in those two countries.
The government also claims Niazi failed to disclose to immigration officials a trip to Pakistan in May 2004. The government claims the deception was part of an effort to illegally obtain U.S. citizenship.
The FBI is also looking into Niazi’s associations within the United States, and trying to determine if he was sent here as an operative for al Qaeda.
Some books I’ve been meaning to post on – Instapundit (H/T) just reminded me of one of them :
Austin Bay’s and Jim Dunnigan’s A QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO WAR, 4th Edition – The Tools for Understanding the Global War on Terror, Cyber War, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, China, Afghanistan, the Balkans, East Africa, Colombia, Mexico, and Other Hot Spots (piping hot, newly updated)
Also:
Bernard Rougier, Everyday Jihad
Chris Blatchford, The Black Hand: The Bloody Rise and Redemption of “Boxer” Enriquez, a Mexican Mob Killer
William Queen, Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America’s Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang
M.F.K. Fischer, How to Cook a Wolf
I just threw this last one on, for good measure. To quote John Updike, she was a “poet of the appetites,” writing about her love for food and cuisine during WWII in Europe when times were tough and food was rationed. A useful perspective during our own (less) challenging times.
Enjoy!
Ex-OC sheriff Mike Carona, lately on trial along with his wife and ex-mistress for scheming to ” illegally win office and use his position to enrich himself and his inner circle,” was acquitted by a jury today of all but one count of witness tampering.
As many of you will remember, Carona was dubbed “America’s Sheriff” by Larry King for his handling of the Samantha Runyon case.
Click here for OCRegister story.
The multi-agency Border Enforcement Security Task (BEST) Force began its operations in the Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor complex in October 2008; since then, it has already seized cocaine bound for Australia, weapons headed for Mexico, and meth en route to Hawaii.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Robert Schoch, the stated primary mission of the BEST Force is to “shut down criminal organizations that exploit the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.” This Task Force is made up of officers from federal, state and local agencies.
View the rest of the story here.
California Proposition 6 in favor of increases in law enforcement funding and revisions to the state criminal law failed.
Disappointing.
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Culper Ring 355 