Border Violence Intensifies

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Those of us who’ve worked in jurisdictions adjacent to our nation’s border with Mexico are not nearly as shocked as most people at the escalating drug cartel-related violence, which has spilled onto US soil in recent months. Actually, that sort of thing has been occurring for a number of years with little public notice — until now. Several recent incidents of cartel “paybacks,” in the form of mass murders in remote areas of Arizona and New Mexico, have led to people asking how such a thing could happen.

Don’t beheadings and body burnings happen just south of the border? Well, no, they do happen here too. Get used to it because such incidents will become much more common. And, in the near future, they won’t just be restricted to rural areas. Good cops who are in the know predict such mass murders in the larger cities of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are only a matter of time. Despite the assertions of the current administration that “our border has never been safer,” the facts prove otherwise.

Handcuffing Ourselves

There are some enlightened and responsible law enforcement leaders — most notably the “Border Sheriffs” — who’ve seen this coming and have taken reasonable steps to prevent such occurrences. For every one of them, however, there are multiple politically correct police chiefs and sheriffs whose heads are in the sand. They are in denial, and so mired in political correctness not only do they fail to take appropriate enforcement measures, but they also fail to see the problem in the first place.

Federal resources are being constrained by totally unreasonable “rules of engagement,” and failure to devote adequate resources in those areas where the problem is most evident merely compound the problem. Worse yet, the so-called Department of Justice, in furtherance of a political agenda, has become an adversary to the very law enforcement agencies with which they should be cooperative partners.

Drug-related violence is bad enough in its own right. Left unchecked, the cartels will continue their efforts to buy off and intimidate government officials on our side of the border, in order to broaden their operational base. Corruption of some elected and appointed officials in the US is inevitable, as they’re just as enticed by the prospect of wealth — regardless of the source — as the cartels are. But the problem doesn’t end there; that problem alone is serious enough to forever alter the integrity of American law enforcement … I take that back, the potential problem is even more serious.

They Hate Us!

The cartels have no love for the US, and view it only as a rich customer for the goods they have to offer. The cartels are motivated by greed, pure and simple. With the lack of reverence for human life they’ve demonstrated, nothing and no one will stand in the way of them maximizing financial gain. Thus, it should come as no surprise — except to an administration who is in denial — intelligence information from reliable, non-political sources points to an increasing alliance between cartels and international terrorist organizations. Their number one objective is infliction of death and destruction on US soil and its citizens.

How does this alliance manifest itself? Good sources suggest the following: cartels want weapons, and terrorist organizations have them. Terrorist organizations trade weapons with cartels in exchange for using the cartels’ established smuggling routes and tactics to move armed, international terrorists into the US without being detected. Think I’m making this up? Our government has acknowledged one major US-hating terrorist group (Hezbollah) has established enclaves and training camps in Mexico. They are teaching and equipping cartel operatives to further enhance their capability for both violence and intimidation of elected officials. The “quid pro quo”? The cartels, according to actionable intelligence, have moved and are continuing to move Hezbollah operatives closer to, and in some cases across, our international border.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this scenario bothers me a great deal. Most troubling to me: all of this is possible only because of a complacent — and in some cases complicit — law enforcement community. In days past, our profession in this country almost universally had the wisdom, integrity and ethics needed to combat such an obvious threat to our national security. Currently, those characteristics are tragically far from universal, and, all too often, seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
By Jerry Boyd

Questions, comments and suggestions for future columns can be sent to Jerry at [email protected]