Free Republic

An alleged multistate human trafficking ring forcing immigrant women into prostitution. The mysterious killing of a former police officer in South Florida. Attacks against police officers in New York. The arrest of a drug dealer in Chicago. Local and federal officials say these apparently unrelated crimes have a common denominator: Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang that originated in a Venezuela prison and has slowly made its way south and north in recent years. They say it’s now operating in the United States. The scale of its operations is unknown, but crimes attributed to alleged members of the gang...

Violent crime dropped considerably in the first months of 2024 compared to the same time last year, according to statistics released by the FBI on Monday. Crime reporting for the first quarter of the year showed a 15 percent drop in violent crime overall, including a 13 percent drop in aggravated assault. Serious violent crime like murder and rape both decreased by about 26 percent. The figures were a victory for the Biden administration, which sought to highlight the dip as the GOP focuses on crime ahead of the 2024 election. “This data makes clear that last year’s historic decline...

Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, arrested an 11-year-old boy on allegations that the child went on a violent monthlong crime spree, including car burglaries and shootings. Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said in a post on social media that it was “disappointing to see a 11-year-old arrested” for crimes that ranged “from burglary to shooting a firearm.” “But this armed individual’s behavior was escalating and he was a danger to the community,” he said in the post. In a statement on Friday, police said the boy was arrested late Thursday. Medina said in the statement he was “grateful that we...

Republican Georgia Rep. Mike Collins claimed Sunday afternoon that one of his staffers was robbed at gunpoint in Washington, D.C. Collins took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and claimed a staffer on his team and a friend were allegedly robbed at gunpoint early Sunday by three men in the southeast neighborhood of Navy Yard. While the staffer and other individuals were not identified by Collins, the Republican congressman claimed one attacker had taken a watch while another was punched by one of the victims. “Our nation’s capital has become a warzone because of pro-criminal policies peddled by D.C.’s government....

DALLAS - Four people were injured in a shooting in Deep Ellum on Sunday morning. Dallas police said patrol officers heard shots near Elm and N. Crowdus streets around 3 a.m. Four victims, ages 17, 26, 28, and 35, were taken to the hospital. The 17-year-old was last listed in critical condition. The other three are expected to arrive.

Incredible footage has been released of the moment a sheriff's sniper killed a suspect by shooting directly through a computer monitor. Sterling Ramon Alavache was holding two Bank of America workers in Florida at knifepoint while claiming to have a bomb. Officers had already tried to get the would-be bank robber to surrender but instead Alavache decided instead to take two hostages. The 36-year-old then put one of them in a headlock and held a knife to her throat - and that's when a SWAT team's sheriff's sniper decided to end the siege. With remarkable precision, the bullet was fired...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- At least 45 people have been shot, eight fatally, in gun violence across Chicago so far this weekend, police said. An 18-year-old woman was sitting in a parked car when she was shot in the head, Chicago police said. Around the same time, a man, 29, was shot near downtown Portillo's in River North, police said. The shooting happened in an alley near Portillo's in the 600-block of North Clark Street around 3:14 a.m., police said. Last weekend, at least 19 people were shot, two fatally, in gun violence across Chicago, police said.

This sticky-figured porch pirate could barely wait until the package was delivered. The brazen masked Columbus, Ohio, crook snatched the goods just seconds after it was plopped down on the porch — the stunned FedEx driver looking on in disbelief.

Illegals block Times Square and call for abolishing ICE. They are not happy with the Executive Order Biden signed yesterday that does basically nothing to stop illegal immigration.pic.twitter.com/aqmOxlYlOf — Mayor (@Mayoralpodcast) June 6, 2024CommentaryPieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is the 2024 election heist all began fitting together Friday as illegal immigrants took over New York City’s Times Square to demand the abolishing of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in response to what was already a toothless and symbolic executive order from President Joe Biden.And so begins the long foretold Cloward–Piven strategy that will not only secure for the radical Left...

Over the course of one night last year, three people were killed in separate attacks across Sweden - three of many violent attacks to rock the country in 2023. The first victim was an 18-year-old man who was shot dead in a Stockholm suburb on September 27. Just hours later, one man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting in Jordbro, south of the city. Then, as if two killings weren't enough, Soha Saad - a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher living with her brother and parents - died in an explosion in Uppsala, west of Stockholm, in the early...

Gov. Kathy Hochul scuttled the congestion toll to enter Midtown because she believes too many people are afraid to take the subway so they drive in instead, ex-Gov. David Paterson said Sunday. “What she told me in a private conversation was she just thought about people who were afraid to ride the subways, so they drive their old car over the bridge, and they have to pay all this money,” Paterson said on 77 WABC radios’s “The Cats Roundtable.” “She was thinking really of individuals who would be affected. “Hochul realized that some of the problems that the antagonists to...

CHICAGO -- At least 31 people have been shot, three fatally, in gun violence across Chicago so far this weekend, police said. On Friday night, two teens and a 12-year-old boy were wounded in a pair of shootings in Douglas. The first shooting happened about 9:20 p.m. in the 500 block of East 31st Street. Someone in a silver sedan opened fire, striking the 12-year-old walking with a group of people and a 15-year-old girl sitting in a car, Chicago police said. A 16-year-old boy was shot less than an hour later and about a half-mile away. He was standing...

The former assistant city attorney of Atlanta, who was also a life advice podcaster has been jailed for seven years after fraudulently obtaining approximately $15 million in COVID relief loans. Shelitha Robertson, 62, used the illegally gained funds to splash out on luxuries such as a 10 carat diamond ring, a Rolls Royce and a motorbike. The former police officer had obtained the money under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a federal stimulus program that was set up during the pandemic.

Three Alabama sisters are accused of trying to hire a woman to inject one of their sons-in-law with a lethal dose of heroin but did not care if he was stabbed or shot as long as the job was done. Mitzy Gaye Smith, 54, Judy Owen, 61, and Sandra Grimes, 57, face federal charges of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, conspiracy to transfer a firearm to be used in a violent crime and use of interstate commerce facilities to commit murder for hire, according to court documents. The plot came to light this month when a woman came forward...

Hartford, Connecticut’s, Mayor Arunan Arulampalam (D) is denouncing residents of a predominately black community for arming themselves to fight violent crime. The New York Post reported the residents, approximately 40 in all, are calling themselves the “Self-Defense Brigade.” The armed residents patrol the streets of their neighborhood at night and keep an eye on homes and businesses via drones. The brigade was founded by Cornell Lewis, who told FOX News, “The Democrat machine in Hartford is either unwilling or unable, incapable, of doing it, and people are paying their tax dollars, and they’re not really getting any kind of service....

A report from the Tennessee Star indicates that Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old transgender woman who shot and killed six people on March 27, 2023, bought her guns with federal grant money. CNN noted that Hale bought a total of seven guns “between October 20, 2020, and June 6, 2022,” and all were legally purchased. The Tennessee Star quoted 99.7 WTN afternoon radio host Brian Wilson noting that Hale allegedly “took money from an education grant she received to purchase her weapons and to pay for training at a local gun range.”

A predominantly Black neighborhood in Hartford, Connecticut, hoping to fend off violent crime, has turned to an armed group of citizens to patrol their streets by land and by air. The so-called “Self-Defense Brigade” — made up of about 40 legally armed citizens — are voluntarily patrolling the streets of Hartford’s North End wearing body cameras mostly on nights and weekends, according to the group’s founder, Cornell Lewis. When the armed volunteers are not on the streets, the group monitors video feeds from a dozen drones hovering over the neighborhood, and 75 home surveillance cameras in the neighborhood. “The Democratic...

This week, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched Texas' 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List, created in partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety. The list was released on Wednesday and includes 10 offenders who entered the country illegally and are wanted for dangerous crimes, according to ABC 7. “When President Joe Biden took office, he dismantled every effective border policy his predecessor put into place,” Gov. Abbott reportedly said. “As a result, we have seen record high levels of illegal immigration, including dangerous criminals and terrorists who are a threat to the public safety of our state...

Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale reportedly used funds from a federal Pell Grant to buy the guns she used to perpetrate a mass shooting in March 2023. 99.7 WTN afternoon radio host Brian Wilson reported Wednesday that Hale “took money from an education grant she received to purchase her weapons and to pay for training at a local gun range.” Hale purchased seven guns, three of which were recovered from the Covenant School after she died during an encounter with Metro Nashville Police Department officers, police said at the time in a post to X. She killed six people,...

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif. - Newly released surveillance video shows a man randomly firing a gun at passing cars as he walks down the street. The incident happened on June 3 around 7 a.m. in the area of West Seventh Street and South San Jacinto Street in the Riverside County city of San Jacinto. Deputies from the San Jacinto Sheriff’s Station said multiple cars were struck by gunfire and two people suffered gunshot wounds. One of the two victims unfortunately died. They were identified as 42-year-old Victor Hugo Leon, a father of four. According to a GoFundMe account, Leon was on...