Archive for Criminal Interdiction
Baked Potato or Something Else?
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Following a tip, Alabama deputies made contact with a suspicious man in the parking lot of a restaurant. The man was in possession of a take-out lunch that he said he was getting ready to eat. However, the foil-wrapped baked potato was actually five ounces of cocaine.
Make sure you search everywhere!
The full story is at the Athens (AL) News-Courier.
Stay safe!
Understanding the Citizens’ Right to Use Force
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Police academies are woefully inadequate at teaching criminal law and criminal procedure. Typically, 40 hours or less are devoted to teaching criminal law (I’ve seen some states only require 16 hours). Generally, the teacher is a street cop, who may not spend a lot of time reading the statute books or slip opinions.
The focus of the classes is typically on defining what a “burglary” is, the difference between “assault” and “battery,” and elements of each crime. Very little time is put on the rights of citizens to use force to defend themselves and their property. Unfortunately, this means that police officers sometimes arrest the wrong people. Read More→
High Times
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New officers don’t always have the “street knowledge” they need to make good drug cases. Street knowledge is something that often takes years to build before an officer can recognize common drugs and activities surrounding their use and sale.
Training is not a substitute for experience, but it does give the officer additional information to use while on the street to hasten their learning. However, drug training is often not available to new officers. Read More→
K9Trooper.com: Training for K9, Criminal Interdiction, and Drug Interdiction Work
Posted by: | CommentsI meant to post this a while back, but if you have any need for police K-9 training, or training in drug and criminal interdiction, check our K9Trooper.com. They list training classes throughout a lot of the US that relate to drug interdiction and canine handlers.
The Mexican military has escorted drug smugglers into United States territory for years. On occasion, our Border Patrol agents are confronted, on US soil, by the Mexican army. In fact, there have been more than 200 confirmed incursions by the Mexican military into the United States since 1996. The latest case was on Sunday, August 3, 2008.
A Border Patrol agent, working south of Ajo, Arizona, encountered Mexican military personnel who had crossed over into the United States. The agent was held at gunpoint for a period of time, presumably while the smugglers they were protecting moved through the area. Thankfully, back-up officers arrived and the troops withdrew without a gun battle.
Unfortunately, not all US law enforcement encounters with the Mexican army have been as “peaceful.” For example, in January 2007, the Mexican army, in the United States, fired on Texas deputies with a .50 caliber machine gun.
Or how about the time in 2002 when a Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation police officer reported being chased by men in a Humvee and a Border Patrol agent responding to assist, encountered Mexican soldiers who fired on him with a .50 caliber machine gun.
Scores of incidents like these have been confirmed, but hardly mentioned in the press. The southern border is a war zone, and we are sending law enforcement officers in to do what mechanized infantry should be doing. And then our government tries and convicts two agents for shooting an armed drug smuggler. It makes one wonder what the hell is going on.
Read a well-researched article in the Washington Times here. Read an interesting “take” on the incident in an AP article here. Check out the Border Patrol union local 2544′s post about the most recent incident here.
Police officers engaged in drug interdiction and criminal interdiction are constantly finding new hiding places that criminals use to hide their drugs, weapons, and other contraband.
Here are a few locations that I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has found in recent years:
- Contraband hidden in a womans wig.
- Bags of heroin hidden in teddy bears.
- Marijuana concealed in the hollowed out boards of wooden pallets.
- Cocaine masked in the soles of shoes.
- Marijuana bundles in man-made landscaping stones.
- Drugs stashed in the manifold of an engine.
- Drugs concealed in new furniture.
- Marijuana hidden in metal cans disguised as food products
In addition, I.C.E. has located a lot of drugs being transported inside living people or animals. While you may not be able to see inside a man’s thigh (yes, they have found cocaine surgically implanted there), do pay attention to the unusual transportation of animals. Often, smugglers will implant large quantities of drugs inside snakes, dogs, or other animals, with the intent to kill the animals and retrieve the dope once they arrive at their destination. PETA and I don’t see eye-to-eye on most things, but this type of drug smuggling is clearly cruel.
One of the best hiding spots I.C.E. officers have discovered was a load of marijuana concealed in the floorboard of a trailer hauling two live bears! Definitely not the day to be the junior officer on scene…
Stay safe!
