Free Republic

Chandra Ann Levy (April 14, 1977–ca. May 1, 2001) was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001 and is presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002. The investigation led to media allegations of an extramarital affair with then-U.S. Representative Gary Condit,[1] a Democrat representing California's 18th congressional district and a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Condit was never named a suspect by police and was ultimately cleared of involvement, however the cloud of suspicion raised by the...

NOTE The following text is a quote: August 11, 2010 ICE arrests 14 men in southern Indiana during operation targeting foreign-born gang members INDIANAPOLIS - Agents with the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), in close partnership with other federal, state and local law enforcement partners, arrested 14 foreign-born gang members and gang associates during a two-day operation ending Tuesday. This is the latest joint local action of an ongoing national ICE HSI effort to target foreign-born members of violent street gangs. These arrests were made Aug. 9 and 10 in the Indiana...

NOTE The following text is a quote: August 11, 2010 ICE's Operation Community Shield goes global with new task force in Honduras Operation Double Impact from the videographer's view "We knew these operations were different from the states. There was a feeling of heightened awareness of our surroundings and increased tension in the air. Shootings and murders are taking place all over the city on a daily basis. When we were driving to a location downtown to look for gang members, we saw a body with a gunshot wound to the head lying on the sidewalk. " - Chuck Reed,...

MS-13 gang leader sentenced to death for 4 murdersby GLENN COUNTS / NewsChannel 36 WCNC.com Posted on July 27, 2010 at 5:59 PM CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Alejandro Umana flashed gang signs on his way inside the federal courthouse for sentencing Tuesday morning. Umana, an MS-13 gang member, was convicted on multiple counts of murder of this year. “He was a leader, he was sent in by the leadership in El Salvador to come to Charlotte and surrounding areas to help organize the gang,” says Sam Nazzaro, a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. In April, Umana was convicted of...

Gov Brewer to Obama: Warning Signs are Not Enough.

The U.S. Border Patrol has quietly reduced its current force of available agents along the U.S.-Mexico border by cutting the overtime hours they can work even as the Obama administration is asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars to hire 1,000 new agents, and Congress and the public are clamoring for beefed-up border security. Several rank-and-file and senior agents told The Washington Times that a new overtime directive issued at the agency's Washington headquarters will limit their ability to get their jobs done, reduce coverage during peak smuggling periods and allow more criminals to avoid apprehension. "By lowering the...

Last week the Cochise County Sheriff's Department released some formerly undisclosed information about the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, In the heavily redacted police report, we learn that shortly before he was shot to death, Krentz radioed his brother Phil, that he came across some illegal aliens and someone was hurt on his 35,000 acre ranch. He asked his brother to contact Border Patrol and to get some medical attention for whomever was hurt. That was the last time anyone heard from Robert. The report stated that another rancher, who's name was blacked out from the report had...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday the federal government will move to let state and local police in non-border states rotate down to the border to help local authorities go after smugglers along the U.S.-Mexico line. In a major policy speech in which she took aim at what she called "bumper sticker" slogans and said the Obama administration has made huge strides on security, Miss Napolitano said the border can be made still more secure and said administration officials are in the middle of "surging" more boots on the ground. "We are not satisfied. There is more work to...

Mexican drug cartels have set up shop on American soil, maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona from which their scouts can monitor every move made by law enforcement officials, federal agents tell Fox News. The scouts are supplied by drivers who bring them food, water, batteries for radios -- all the items they need to stay in the wilderness for a long time.

Royal City, a town with a population less than 2,000, has had its sixth drive-by shooting this year. A 10-year-old boy sleeping in his bed is the latest victim. Royal City Police Chief Darin Smith says there have been six drive by shootings within city limits this year, that’s as many as all of last year. Chief Smith says the shootings are getting more blatant and are happening in the middle of the day.

Note: The following text is a quote: May 28, 2010 Charlotte ICE gang operation yields 12 arrests CHARLOTTE, N.C. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents assigned to the Charlotte Gang Unit continue making arrests in North Carolina with its recent weekend effort yielding 12 arrests and the seizure of cocaine, marijuana and brass knuckles. Among the 12 arrests last weekend were four gang members and affiliates: one Asian Boyz gang member, two MS-13 gang members and one MS-13 affiliate. All four are foreign-born nationals from Vietnam, Uruguay and Honduras. One is a naturalized U. S. citizen, one has...

NOTE The following text is a quote: MS-13 Driver in 2007 Murder in Springfield Sentenced to Life in Prison ALEXANDRIA, VA—Carlos Bladimir Montoya, also known as "Ciego," 26, of Sterling, Va., was sentenced today to life plus a consecutive 120 months in prison for his role in the murder of a rival gang member on May 5, 2007. Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Shawn Henry, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office; and Colonel David Rohrer, Fairfax County Chief of Police, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District...

Just happened in the last hour or so. One of the killed police officers is the son of the Chief of Police.

“Itz tym 2 go.” Those were the chilling last words – sent in a desperate text message – from a New Jersey teenager moments before he and his friends were shot to death execution-style by a gang of thugs in a Newark schoolyard nearly three years ago, according to his sister, who survived the attack. Terrance Aeriel, 18, tapped out the frantic text to his sister, Natasha, as he spied a group of beer-drinking men gathering near the metal bleachers of Newark’s Mount Vernon School playground. Terrance feared his sister and their two friends were about to be set-upon by...

Note: The following text is a quote: North Carolina MS-13 Gang Member Convicted of Racketeering Charges Related to Murder; First MS-13 Member Sentenced to Death Defendant Shot and Killed Two Brothers in December 2007 in Guilford County, N.C. WASHINGTON—A 12-person federal jury in Charlotte, N.C., today voted unanimously to impose the death penalty against Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umana, aka “Wizard,” 25. Umana was convicted by the same jury on April 19, 2010, for the murders of Ruben Garcia Salinas and his brother, Manuel Garcia Salinas, on Dec. 8, 2007, in Guilford County, N.C. The jury also found that Umana was...

Nearly three years later, this city on Tuesday began to relive one of the most notorious crimes in its recent history, as the first of six defendants went on trial in the execution-style murders of three students in a schoolyard on a summer night. --snip-- The murders brought the first reports to many people here of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, the violent street gang that the authorities say Mr. Godinez, a native of Nicaragua, belonged to.

Los Zetas, the paramilitary organization founded by former Mexican army soldiers which previously was providing enforcement muscle for the Gulf cartel, has asserted itself as an independent drug trafficking organization, and early reports are that it may be forming an alliance with the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang in El Salvador to move cocaine through Central America as reported by KGBT. Leo Navarrete, the legal attache at the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador, confirms "that authorities are on the lookout for connections between gangs and big-time drug traffickers," and appropriately compares them to domestic terrorists as reported by Alex Renderos...

El Salvadoran officials are worried that a Mexican drug trafficking organization may be forming an alliance with a feared Central American gang. Mexico’s El Universal newspaper is reporting that members of the Zetas are in El Salvador where they may be working on an alliance with the Mara Salvatrucha gang. El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes told reporters the Zetas are believed to be in his country and working on forming the alliance. El Universal reported that the Zetas and other Mexican drug trafficking organizations are vying for control of cocaine smuggling routes through Central America. Click here to watch the...

Note: The following text is a quote: Seventeen Members and Associates of the MS-13 Street Gang Arraigned in Federal Court on Racketeering, Witness Tampering, and Firearms Charges Earlier today, 12 alleged members and associates of La Mara Salvatrucha, or the “MS-13” street gang, were arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge E. Thomas Boyle, at the United States Courthouse in Central Islip, New York, on federal criminal charges, including murder, assault with dangerous weapons, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, witness tampering, firearms offenses, and conspiracy. Five additional defendants named in the indictment were arraigned earlier this week, also before United...

The violent street gangs that largely profit from retail drug trafficking increasingly are taking aim at law enforcement authorities from the East to the West coasts. The NYPD has announced two separate plots against its officers. Yesterday, New York's finest announced "a massive gang takedown" which "uncovered a rare alliance between Bloods and Crips and a ruthless plot to assassinate cops" as reported by Rocco Parascandola for the Daily News. And last week the NYPD announced an investigation into an alleged plot by the transnational MS-13 to assassinate "an officer in every command" as reported by Rocco Parascandola for the...