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I appeared on numerous radios show this week to discuss the Texas Mega-Church Shooting. Last week two officers, hired in an off-duty capacity, were at the Church working and in uniform and was able to respond to the direct threat within minutes of the shooting outbreak. She had her biological child with her more than likely to use as a shield. No was killed in the mass shooting which is a blessing because this incident could have had a very high rate of death. Police did find in their post shooting investigation that the suspect had antisemitic writings connected to the shooter and are investigating whether this may have led to a causal reason for the shooting, and they also found on the shooters AR-15 that a pro “Palestine” sticker on was on the weapon.
Dr C’s Opinion: First and foremost, we must recognize the quick reaction by the police officers there to go “direct to threat” and take out that suspect with a few minutes. And we certainly pray for the recovery of the victims of this incident. But let’s unpack issues in this case that are coming forward. And it all has to do with, once again, having a mass shooting, with previous histories of violence, crime and mental illness. Fact One: The shooter Moreno had a violent, extensive criminal history stretching back to 2005, according to court records. Fact Two: She was previously arrested for assaulting a public servant, assault causing bodily injury, forgery, theft for stealing cosmetics from a store, evading police, among a slew of charges on Moreno's decades-old rap sheet which she was identifying herself as Jeffrey Escalante- Moreno. Fact Three: Moreno was placed under an emergency detention order by Houston police in 2016. "We do believe she has a mental health history that is documented through us and through interviews with family members, according to Houston PD. Fact Four: Arrest records show she was an El Salvadoran immigrant. In 2010, it appears U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had lodged an immigration detainer against Moreno, but the federal detention request was "lifted" more than a month later. Fact Five: Moreno in yet another transgender mass shooter. We have had no less than five transgender mass shooters over the course of the last two years, many of which have occurred just in the last six months. Fact Six: Several of Moreno’s neighbors also said in a Monday news conference she had harassed and threatened them, and they had set up a meeting about the problem with local authorities and officials about five months before the shooting, NBC News reported. One woman said she made a complaint after Moreno allegedly threatened her with a handgun in July 2022, according to NBC News. CNN has reached out to Conroe police for further information. My friends, this person should not have been out on the streets of America. Every mass shooter has displayed previous criminal or mental health conditions that were ignored and not followed up by our systems we have in place. One of the reasons why this is occurring is because we have failed to embrace evidence-based policing that can give authorities the information and data they need in real time in order to keep us safe. Additionally, I will be gathering more information and data on the KC Chiefs Parade Shooting incident for publishing next week. Kansas City Police announced yesterday that 2 of the 3 suspects taken into custody are juveniles and it appears the motive is being narrowed to a dispute of some kind. The shooting resulting in 1 death, and 22 wounded in the attack. So more to come next week on this horrible tragedy! And that’s my criminal justice memo for the week.
Armando Silva, 29, murdered Las Cruces Officer Jonah Hernandez in the line of duty this past weekend with a fatal stab to the chest, marking the first on-duty death of an officer in the department's 96-year history. Silva, who reportedly had a lengthy criminal history, was subsequently shot and killed by a good Samaritan who called for help on the fallen officer's radio. According to ABC News, the incident began with a call that Silva was trespassing on private property at a Las Cruces business Sunday afternoon. Las Cruces Chief Jeremy Story told a Tuesday news conference that Hernandez was dispatched by himself and was attacked by Silva, who was wielding a large kitchen knife. The police chief described that Silva had a long and violent criminal history. “He was convicted of serious violent crimes and spent some time in prison," he said, adding "He violated his probation and parole multiple times.”
Dr C’s Opinion: Chief Story had serious criticism for the New Mexico justice system that allowed Silva to walk free. He said, “Silva had a long history of violent crime and mental illness. This is just one more agonizing reminder of the brokenness of the New Mexico criminal justice system. A system that should have protected our community from Silva but instead allowed him to endanger us all." This is a state that has once again is not embracing real data and following good criminal justice public policy. In the case the evidence dictates that this offender should have never been out on the streets due to his background but also due to his constant violations of probation. Folks, this is why it is called probation. And if you violate it, one should be held accountable for that violation. It is a serious breach of the public trust to violate probation.
The House gathered on Tuesday night impeached Biden's DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with a vote of 214 in favor to 213 against. Mayorkas' impeachment marks the first time a cabinet member has been impeached in 150 years. It is unlikely that the Democrat controlled Senate will take up the vote.
Dr C’s Opinion: The impeachment articles accuse Mayorkas of having repeatedly violated laws enacted by Congress regarding immigration and border security" and of having made false statements to Congress that the border is secure and closed and that DHS is in operational control of the border. The border is out of control and this man has failed to enforce immigration statutes as required by law. American immigration policy has never been and show never be based on an open to all system. There has to be checks and balances and processes in place to accept new citizens into our country and this belief goes back to the documents written by our founding fathers.
To follow up with the border, according to statistics released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Feb. 13, the number of interactions between migrants and law enforcement officers at the border between the United States and Mexico has reached a new high for January. Border Patrol reported more than 176,000 encounters with migrants at the southern border in the month of January. illegal immigrants are flooding across the Southern border, but they can’t do it without some help — and it’s not just from the cartels. And to further add fuel to the illegal immigration fire, according to the Blaze, non-governmental organizations like OIM, Red Cross, UNICEF, HIAS, the European Union, Doctors Without Borders, UNHCR, and the Norwegian Refugee Council are offering migrants aid and instructions on how to get into the United States. The migrants have been receiving maps with specific routes that detail how to make it safely to the U.S.-Mexico border. And to further the problem, this new information has just been discovered. Newly uncovered emails reported by the Washington Post between Department of Homeland Security officials and journalists show the agency tasked with protecting U.S. border and domestic security admitted it is not tracking illegal immigrants after they were released from federal custody into the interior of the country. Further, nineteen-year-old Darwin Andrés Gómez-Izquiel, an illegal immigrant living in New York City and implicated in the mob assault on two NYPD officers in early February was once again arrested on Tuesday, just days after his release. He is charged with robbery and petit larceny according to authorities after participating in a coordinated robbery attempt at a Queens Macy's.
Dr C’s Opinion: Incredible! This is why Secretary Mayorkas was impeached from office. The number of criminal illegal aliens coming into this country, coupled with the number of special interest illegal aliens coming in from terrorist countries and the number of Chinese illegal aliens is overwhelming our system and is causing it to fail.
The U.S. Marshals Service found that serious threats to federal judges and prosecutors spiked considerably in recent years, increasing over 50% from last year. The federal agency recorded 457 serious threats against federal judges that prompted an investigation in 2023. That is a 52.3% increase from 2022, when the agency investigated 300 threats. In 2021, there were 224 threats investigated, 220 in 2020, and 179 in 2019, according to the agency’s data shared with Reuters. There were 115 threats against prosecutors requiring an investigation in 2023, up from 93 in 2022, a nearly 24% increase.
Dr C’s Opinion: The Marshals Service is tasked with protecting 2,700 federal judges and over 30,000 federal prosecutors. I take this protection quite seriously since I lived through an active shooter event myself. As a survivor of the 1993 Federal Courthouse shooting and bombing incident, I am fully aware of the threats to the courts, the prosecutors and to those law enforcement officers protecting the courts and providing testimony in court cases. It is vitally important to provide funding and resources to the Marshals Service and to local Sheriff’s offices that protect our local court systems. We are living in a time of advanced anarchy and social discontent often fomented by elected officials. This type of anarchy and violence cannot be tolerated in a free society.
In the wake of a mounting recall effort against Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price citing her soft-on-crime policies, California Governor Gavin Newsom is dispatching DOJ and National Guard attorneys in addition to 120 California Highway Patrol officers to get spiraling crime under control and increase prosecutions. As reported by Mercury News, the move from Gov. Newsom to bolster the prosecutorial force in Alameda County followed just days after an order to deploy 120 Highway Patrol officers to confront an overwhelming number of "serious and complex crimes" that have erupted in the area. While Newsom's office was mum about many specifics such as precisely how many attorneys are being deputized into the Alameda DA's Office, he told reporters the move was to increase the capacity of Price's office to prosecute "violent crimes, serious drug-related crimes and property crimes."
Dr C’s Opinion: As leaked document from Price's office in March of 2023 stated that "almost all felonies, including those that are serious or violent, will now be probation eligible." Earlier in the year, she fired Oakland's police chief, petitioned a judge to grant a seven-year sentence to a teen linked to three murders, and sought parole for gang members who killed a toddler in a high-profile case. And according to Zero Hedge, not long after taking office, Price hired her boyfriend as a "senior program specialist" with a six-figure income. Residents say that Price's soft-on-crime antics as well as her controversial decisions are making things far worse for the community and costing innocent lives. This is once again a prosecutor serving in elected office that has no idea what she is doing! And what’s the deal with all these prosecutors and their boyfriends? These seems to be a national issue regarding use of public monies and payments to lovers.
So much for National Cybersecurity! President Biden's new campaign account garnered more than 67,000 TikTok followers in the first day since joining the Chinese-owned app he banned over national security concerns. Biden's reelection campaign on Monday defended its new TikTok account as a vital way to boost its appeal with young voters, even as his administration continued to raise security concerns about whether the popular social media app might be sharing user data with China’s communist government. With 150 million U.S. users, TikTok is best known for quick snippets of viral dance routines. But Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., posted on X that Biden’s campaign is "bragging about using a Chinese spy app even though Biden signed a law banning it on all federal devices."
Dr C’s Opinion: Biden in 2022 signed legislation banning the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes. Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, could share user data, such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers. Separately, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has been reviewing the app for years while trying unsuccessfully to force TikTok ownership to divest from its parent company. So, what will it be Mr. President? National security or your own political needs? And that’s my criminal justice memo for the week.
Apparently, we have spending money finally on border security. Unfortunately, it is for the border security of Ukraine and Israel and not our own borders! The Senate passed a $95 billion national security supplemental package to assist Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific after a tedious procedural process that came to an end early Tuesday morning. The package includes $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza and nearly $5 billion for the Indo-Pacific. Democrats brought the package up for a vote after Republicans had blocked the $118 billion package that also included numerous border and immigration provisions.
Dr C’s Opinion: This is incredulous. If one recognizes the important of border security monies for other countries, then why would you not deploy the same resources at our own border. We have probably close to $12m illegals in our country with thousands pouring across the border daily. This includes many with significant criminal histories including violent crimes. We have nearly 80,000 now caught at the border that were in the category of special interest aliens, which are those coming from terrorist countries. Central and South America is letting out their inmates from their own prisons and sending them to the border. And there is no doubt that we have Chines soldiers and Hamas killers embedded in our own sovereign country. This cannot stand and will cause of systems, from criminal justice to social services to schools to fail.
The city of St. Louis is facing police shortages, including a record number of vacancies, as critics blame left-wing politicians who leaned into the "defund police" movement. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, like many law enforcement agencies across the country, has faced significant departures that it is struggled to replace. The department is budgeted for 1,224 officers, but has over 300 vacancies, according to a report in December. From a historical perspective on police numbers in 1995, there were approximately 1,600 officers, and now the PD is down under 1,000. St. Louis, in recent years, has been among the cities with the highest murder rate in the country. Among 70 cities that report homicide data to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, it was second only to New Orleans. Part of the problem was the former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner whose political campaign was funded by George Soros. Gardner’s lack of prosecution on suspects, and use of cashless bail resulting in a sad state of rampant crime and violence. It was so bad that the state of Missouri, led by the Attorney General ended up seeking an ouster for Gardner.
Dr C’s Opinion: The research proves (and 85% of Americans agree) that cutting police budgets is not a reasonable public safety solution. We should instead be providing them with the funding they need to intentionally deploy more officers in our community and ensure every officer has better training and more education. Victims deserve justice and our hard-working law enforcement officers should be provided with the bandwidth they need to achieve a passing grade in public safety. Violent crime is unique compared to other types of crime, it is both hyper–localized and concentrated among a small network of people. This means that combating violent crime cannot be carried out by a one-size-fits-all approach from Congress but also means that cities can implement cost-effective and targeted strategies, like evidence-based policing, that disrupt these place and people networks.
This is Dr Currie Myers, America’s Criminologist. To view my work please visit drcurriemyers.substack.com and please share and like our page! Stay safe and have a great weekend!
Welcome to the America’s Criminologist Podcast for February 16, 2024