Note: the coverup continues Ref: AZMEX EXTRA 25-4-11
Case sealed for man arrested after border agent's death
The Associated Press | Posted: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 7:03 am
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/
article_3efb766c-700e-11e0-85e7-001cc4c03286.html
A federal court has sealed all filings in an immigration case against
a Mexican man who was wounded in a shooting in which a Border Patrol
agent was killed near the Mexican border.
Manuel Osorio-Arellanes is charged with re-entering the country after
his June 2010 deportation.
But a search of publicly available records shows that he hasn't been
charged in the Dec. 14 shooting death of Agent Brian Terry.
Authorities say Terry was waiting with other agents in a canyon north
of Nogales when a shootout with border bandits erupted.
Osorio-Arellanes told the FBI that he raised a weapon at agents, but
didn't fire after he realized who they were.
Osorio-Arellanes was shot during the incident.
His trial on the immigration charge is set for May 10
Note: From F&F, Phx gun shows?? Or they don't need our help?
Federal police arrest Reynosa cops one week after weapons seized for
inspection
Comments 6
April 26, 2011 12:20 AM
Martha L. Hernández
The Monitor
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/police-49563-federal-arrest.html
Nearly 100 federal police surrounded the municipal police
headquarters Monday in Reynosa to arrest five local cops and two
traffic officers, the city's police chief said.
Col. Juan Adolfo Gonzalez Valentín said he could not name the
officers or say why they were detained because the investigation is
ongoing.
The chief didn't know whether the officers would be suspended, but he
is "not going to cover up for anybody," he said in Spanish during a
news conference after the arrests.
The Reynosa officers were taken into custody by the federal officers,
whose presence outside the police headquarters Monday included an
armored vehicle.
The arrests of the Reynosa officers come one week after the Mexican
Army seized weapons from all the municipal police departments
throughout the state of Tamaulipas for inspection, according to a
state news release.
The Mexican Army wouldn't say when or if the weapons would be
returned after the inspections.
This is the first time local police have been arrested since the
beginning of the current Reynosa mayor's term.
In April 2008, when then-Mayor Oscar Luebbert Gutierrez was beginning
his term, his newly appointed police chief was arrested by federal
agents — allegedly for protecting members of the Gulf Cartel,
according to the Monitor archives.
The arrest of former Reynosa police Chief Juan José Muñiz came
shortly after the army inspected the local force's weapons for the
second time that year.
Authorities did not confirm whether Monday's arrests were related to
last week's weapons inspections.
The federal Secretary of Public Safety — known as the PFP — neither
confirmed nor denied details of Monday's federal operation in Reynosa.
"We have no information so far," said Juan Buenrostro, deputy public
information officer for the PFP in Mexico City. "But we usually know
about after it happens."
Martha L. Hernández covers health, business and general assignments
for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4846.
Note: TEXMEX Same here in AZ except for a few jurisdictions.
Small-city cops take on flow of drugs, people falling through the
cracks of the border fence
April 26, 2011 7:52 AM
Naxiely Lopez
The Monitor
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/dangled-49574-black-small.html
A black bra dangled from a wooden fencepost along a desolate portion
of Military Road in Peñitas.
The undergarment might have seemed out of place, gathering dust there.
But for illegal immigrants trekking through the outskirts of the
city, it shined as a beacon, letting them know they were on the right
path.
Peñitas police officers are accustomed to spotting clues left behind
by smugglers as they fight their everyday battle: to stop the flow of
illegal immigrants, weapons and drugs from going and coming across
the Rio Grande, which borders the southern side of their 2.5-sqaure-
mile town.
"Each city has to tackle their own monster," Officer Andres Martinez
said during a ride-along with a Monitor reporter last week. "Ours is
the border wall."
The border fence was built with gaps between its segments to grant
ranchers access to their land and allow law enforcement ins and outs
to patrol the area. The cost of building one long wall was also a
factor in the inclusion of gaps.
In Peñitas, the fence ends and does not begin again until a few miles
west in Starr County, leaving a gap — reportedly about 12 miles long
— without a physical barrier.
That opening — which extends from La Joya to Sullivan City and a
three-mile section under the jurisdiction of the Hidalgo County
Sheriff's Office near Havana — has reportedly funneled much of the
criminal activity along the border to that area, police chiefs from
the respective cities said.
That is not to say, however, that criminal activity wasn't present in
the area before the wall in the surrounding cities was built. The
criminal element was already present, but officials believe smugglers
that used other areas before were left with no other option but to go
through their cities because they have no border wall.
BORDER ENFORCEMENT
Officers from La Joya, Peñitas and Sullivan City study their
residents and their histories, as several families have been known to
take part in smuggling rings, police said. Officers keep a mental
list of all the stash houses they have dismantled, while keeping
watch on potential ones.
Since the start of the year, La Joya police officers have detained
more than 200 illegal immigrants, while Sullivan City's officers have
seized nearly 9,000 pounds of marijuana, and police in Peñitas have
engaged in more than 33 pursuits.
Each day, police officers are tasked with border enforcement, which
accounts for most of their workload, said Sgt. David Rocha of
Sullivan City police. Arturo Hernandez, an investigator who is no
longer employed with the department as of last week, said it is
estimated that about 1 ton of marijuana leaves Sullivan City each day.
"Sullivan City is the gateway to drug trafficking," Hernandez said.
Martinez said the Gulf Cartel operates on Peñitas' portion of the
U.S.-Mexico border, with several of its cells — such as the Falcones
and Angeles — trying each day to get another load across.
Officers there assist U.S. Border Patrol in securing trails
throughout the city that were once major corridors for immigrants,
Martinez said. Most of the ones that run from Military Road near the
river to Highway 83, located a few miles north, have been dismantled
by law enforcement officials, but small signs of life left behind by
immigrants, such as toothbrushes and razors, reveal some are still
being used.
"It's like chess — sometimes we have to let them make a move, so we
can make a move," Martinez said.
If anyone understands the concept, it's Sgt. Raymond Gonzalez from La
Joya.
Gonzalez patrols the city like a hunter, so much so that his
coworkers jokingly refer to him as the "human canine."
"You have to fight the urge to stop every car you see," Gonzalez told
a Monitor reporter during a recent ride-along. "Just wait for the
right one."
Gonzalez parks his patrol unit in his favorite spot along Highway 83
every morning and quietly waits for any signs of criminal activity
before flashing his lights on. He studies the traffic and monitors
the drivers and their vehicles for clues and discrepancies.
A while back, he noticed several trucks carrying washing machines and
dryers through the area.
"I thought to myself, either there's a really good mechanic over
there or something's up," he said.
The next time he spotted a washer strapped to a vehicle, Gonzalez
stopped it, and sure enough, several bundles of pot were found inside
the hollowed, white shells.
"You have to think like a criminal," he said.
'RADIANDO'
But while police are forced to think that way, criminals are training
to think like police officers.
"They know our 10 codes; they know our language," Martinez said.
"They profile us like we do them."
Just like police have informants that tip them off when there's
something going on, scouts are hired by smuggling rings to keep an
eye on law enforcement, the Peñitas officer said.
Officers in that city battled with what they referred to as radiando
— a Spanish word denoting the use of a radio. Police would often see
people standing along the streets communicating through radios, which
prompted them to take action.
"It's not illegal, yet," Martinez said. "So we couldn't arrest them."
Police instead began to question and document each person who was
caught and soon enough their once-brazen technique began fading into
the shadows.
"You see that guy in the car?" Martinez asked about a vehicle parked
outside a home near the police department. "He's radiando right now."
Naxiely Lopez covers law enforcement and general assignments for The
Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4434.
Plane in N.M. lake may have departed from Arizona
Apr. 26, 2011 04:28 PM
Associated Press
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/04/26/20110426new-mexico-
plane-crash-cocaine-arizona.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The Federal Aviation Administration believes a
small plane that plunged into a northern New Mexico lake, scattering
debris and bundles of cocaine, departed from Arizona, authorities
said Tuesday.
Investigators have isolated what they believe was the aircraft on
radar and traced the blip back to Prescott, about 100 miles north of
Phoenix, FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said.
Debris recovered from Heron Lake after Sunday's crash identified the
plane as a twin-engine Cessna 310, he said. The identification is
considered preliminary because "it's obviously hard to say anything
definitive as long as the plane is at the bottom of the lake,"
Lunsford said.
It's also too early in the investigation to say how fast the plane
may have been going when it hit the water, he said.
State police divers have found only small pieces of the plane - the
largest about the size of a piece of paper - and only pieces of
bodies unidentifiable to anyone but a medical investigator, state
police spokesman Lt. Eric Garcia said.
They also recovered 23 bundles of cocaine from the cold, murky water,
he said. No more cocaine was found Tuesday, he said.
Garcia wouldn't speculate on the purpose of the aircraft's flight,
saying authorities would assume only "that a plane crashed and that
there was narcotics aboard it." State police have "strong leads"
about who was on the plane, but aren't releasing details, he said.
"We have been able to retrieve a significant amount of information
from the debris we've recovered," he said. That debris included
membership cards, but Garcia wouldn't release the names on those cards.
Lunsford said no flight plan was filed, and authorities don't know
who was on board and whether there were passengers, as well as a pilot.
The human remains have been turned over to the state Office of the
Medical Investigator.
Witnesses reported the plane crashed into the lake, about 100 miles
north of Santa Fe, at about 10:30 a.m. Sunday. Lake patrol officers
subsequently found several packages of cocaine floating on the water.
The state police dive team members have been working 100 to 200 feet
below the surface in extremely cold water. In addition, 30 mph winds
created choppy waters Tuesday, making conditions hazardous for the
divers as waves hit hard against their flat-bottom boat, Garcia said.
State police officials decided to pull the divers at the end of the
day Tuesday, but Garcia said officers in both uniform and
plainclothes will remain on the site "to see if anything shows up."
The FAA investigation into the cause of the crash has to wait on
getting the plane to the surface, Lunsford said. And given the nature
of the debris - the cocaine - law enforcement also will be
investigating, he said.
Air trafficking historically has been a significant issue along the
Southwest border, state police Chief Robert Shilling said Monday.
In April 2010, state police called about the hard landing of a small
plane outside Tucumcari in eastern New Mexico found a stash of more
than 400 pounds of marijuana inside the plane and hidden in nearby
bushes.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/
2011/04/26/20110426new-mexico-plane-crash-cocaine-
arizona.html#ixzz1Kg1ptdAJ
No comments:
Post a Comment