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  1. #1
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    One Texas County Fakes Crime Statistics to Make the Border Look Safe-Part1

    PART 1- See Part 2 and 3 below

    The Border Conspiracy: Exclusive Videos Show How One Texas County Fakes Crime Statistics to Make the Border Look Safe



    HIDALGO COUNTY, TEXAS — PJ Media has obtained exclusive hidden camera video that shows federal grant money creates an incentive for local law enforcement to falsify their crime statistics. The fake stats tell a story that ends up benefiting the local agencies that clamor for the grants, while helping Washington sell its story that the border is safer than it really is.

    Every year, the federal government doles out roughly a billion taxpayer dollars to local law enforcement agencies in the form of grants. These agencies — city police and constables, state agencies, county sheriffs — apply for the grants through the Department of Justice’s COPS (for Community Oriented Policing Services) program and use them to hire more personnel, purchase vehicles and equipment, and enhance their crime-fighting capabilities.

    But do the federal grants actually help fight crime?
    Local law enforcement agencies insist that the grant money is vital to fighting crime and even to their departments’ survival. But is there a dark side to federalizing local law enforcement funding?

    Case in point: Hidalgo County, Texas. This border county is home to McAllen, one of the fastest-growing cities in the entire United States. Hidalgo County boasts the most border crossings of any county along the Texas-Mexico border. Property values are rising here despite the stagnant U.S. economy. The county is home both to gang-infested barrios and to a posh neighborhood that boasts fountains, manicured lawns, beautiful new custom homes, and many cars bearing Mexican license plates.

    Hidalgo County sits across the border from Reynosa, Mexico, one of the most violent and troubled cities in the Mexican drug wars. But according to some local officials, Mexico’s drug war has not spilled over into their bustling Texas community. They say this even though U.S. forces engaged drug cartel members in a firefight at Chimney Park in Hidalgo County in 2011.



    Hidalgo County elected Democrat Guadalupe “Lupe” Treviño sheriff in 2004 and then re-elected him in 2008, and this spring he reportedly spent more than a half a million dollars to clinch the Democratic nomination for a third term as the county’s sheriff. In this heavily Democratic county, Treviño is a cinch to win that third term. The former Austin police officer claims that Hidalgo County has seen a dramatic reduction of violent crime during his tenure. Sheriff Treviño dismisses the presence and influence of drug cartels in his border county. To hear Sheriff Treviño talk, domestic violence may be a bigger issue in Hidalgo County. But as a local news story that was published August 10, 2012, shows, many residents of Hidalgo County do not feel safe and do not believe that crime is down at all. They also do not believe that Sheriff Treviño’s office is concerned about them.

    The federal government has granted Hidalgo County about $6 million to fight crime since 2004. That money has gone to the county’s anti-narcotics efforts and has funded the purchase of sophisticated video surveillance towers that are supposed to be used to monitor the border and watch over troubled neighborhoods. One grant operation, called Stonegarden, has enabled the county to purchase several vehicles and video sky towers, which some residents allege have been used for non-police and even political purposes when they’re not being used to prevent crimes.

    The federal money is granted for the purpose of fighting crime, and the government monitors crime statistics via the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Local law enforcement agencies report trends in crime in their communities through the NIBRS, and the NIBRS stats find their way into speeches and comments made by politicians to show that the money is being spent well and that crime is being defeated. According to the Department of Justice’s Uniform Crime Reporting handbook (revised 2004):

    The culmination of this national data collection effort is three annual publications: Crime in the United States, Hate Crime Statistics, and Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, all of which have become sources of data widely used by law enforcement administrators, government policy makers, social science researchers, the media, and private citizens. Additionally, UCR data are often considered by the federal government in administering law enforcement grants.
    In May of 2011, President Obama went to the border at El Paso, Texas, and in his “alligators and moats” speech claimed the border is safe and mocked calls for more border security.

    PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Maybe they’ll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat.

    They’ll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That’s politics.

    But the truth is, the measures we’ve put in place are getting results. Over the past two and a half years, we’ve seized 31 percent more drugs, 75 percent more currency, and 64 percent more weapons than before. Even as we’ve stepped up patrols, apprehensions along the border have been cut by nearly 40 percent from two years ago – that means far fewer people are attempting to cross the border illegally

    Also, despite a lot of breathless reports that have tagged places like El Paso as dangerous, violent crime in southwest border counties has dropped by a third. El Paso and other cities and towns along the border are consistently rated among the safest in the nation.
    In March of 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, “There is a perception that the border is worse now than it ever has been. That is wrong. The border is better now than it ever has been.” Napolitano went on to say that violence from Mexico’s drug war has not spilled over into the U.S., citing statistics that show crime along the border has either stayed flat or even gone down. Napolitano has visited the border several times to hail the cooperation between local and federal authorities and has visited Hidalgo County, where her friend Lupe Treviño is the sheriff.

    During Napolitano’s visit in February 2012, Sheriff Treviño noted: “We tell the truth and say violent crime is down and cartel violence has been kept south of the river, but we get criticized because we say we need money. If we’re going to continue to lower the violent crime rate, we have to have a sustained maintenance. That’s why we need the continued influx of federal funds.”

    But how accurate are the statistics that the local law enforcement agencies send their states and ultimately to the federal government? PJM/PJTV has obtained exclusive hidden camera video from inside the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office. In this video, a crime analyst – the person responsible for entering official data into the Uniform Crime Reporting system from the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office – admits that the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office manipulates its crime statistics systematically.




    Deputy: Hey what’s up? (unintelligible question)
    Analyst: No, I can do it for you.
    Deputy: Cool. (unintelligible, but he asks about changing a code)
    Analyst: Huh?
    Deputy: (unintelligible)
    Analyst: I guess. Cause he’s the one changing everything.
    Deputy: Changing the stats?
    Analyst: (nods) He’s the one…
    Deputy: Well how is he changing them?
    Analyst: He reads the reports and fiddles with you if it’s not linking. Like, with a robbery, he redrizzles it down to a simple, like an, if it’s like uh, aggravated assault (looks away to see if anyone can hear), he orders a downgrade to assault. Or if…
    Deputy: It’s real simple to do because most people are gonna, think you’re gonna have more.
    (Analyst tilts head skeptically)
    Deputy: You can justify it both ways.
    Analyst: Yeah, but some of them, no. (crosstalk) Like, as far as the standards go, from the UCR, yeah.
    Deputy: So. You can get in trouble.
    Analyst: Hm?
    Deputy: You can get in trouble?
    Analyst: Not us, but…yeah the sheriff.
    Deputy: Him (points in the direction of the sheriff’s office).
    Analyst: Yeah. Not me.

    According to the Department of Justice’s Uniform Crime Reporting handbook (revised 2004):
    The completeness and accuracy of each agency’s crime reporting is crucial to a wide variety of data users so that they can understand crime, formulate policies, make strategic and operational decisions, and conduct criminological research and analysis.
    The federal crime reporting system relies on local law enforcement to accurately report the crimes taking place in their communities. But as we see on hidden camera video from the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office, the federal crime statistics system is being manipulated in at least one strategic county that sits directly across the Rio Grande from Mexico’s drug war.


    In Part Two of our Border Conspiracy report, we will hear from a Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputy. This deputy will blow the whistle on how Sheriff Lupe Treviño’s department has changed the way crime is fought, and reported, in Hidalgo County.
    Watch the PJTV version of this report here.

    The PJ Tatler » The Border Conspiracy: Exclusive Videos Show How One Texas County Fakes Crime Statistics to Make the Border Look Safe
    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    PART II

    The Border Conspiracy, Part Two: Video Confessions of a Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Deputy



    HIDALGO COUNTY, TEXAS
    — In Part One of our exclusive Border Conspiracy series, we went inside the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department. We watched as a crime analyst admitted on hidden camera to changing the crime codes in the Uniform Crime Reporting system. Downgrading the nature of the crimes that the sheriff’s office reports to the federal government makes the Texas county appear safer than it really is. The statistics also help the Obama administration argue that the border is now safer than it was just a few years ago, despite the drug war raging across the Rio Grande in Mexico. What we have learned so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

    According to a current Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputy, downgrading the county’s crime stats is part of a systematic effort to create a false impression that the community is safe. In this exclusive video, we have protected the identity of this brave whistle-blowing deputy by blurring the image and distorting voices. The deputy says the effort to manipulate the county’s crime statistics starts at the top, with Sheriff Lupe Treviño.

    Hidalgo Deputy 1 -- "They cook the stats."



    Deputy: They cook the stats, from minor crimes, to big crimes.
    Interviewer: What do you mean, cook stats? They change the description of crime?
    Deputy: They find a way to justify it, to downgrade it.
    Interviewer: So in your experience, the sheriff’s office looks for ways to downgrade the crimes, to change the statistics so that there’s credibility, supposed credibility, in proclaiming that particular crimes are down. Kidnappings, car thefts…
    Deputy: Yes.
    Interviewer:…aggravated assault, aggravated robberies, serious crimes.
    Deputy: Yes.
    Interviewer: They’re downgraded to less serious crimes so that, our borders look safer?
    Deputy: Yes.

    Sheriff Treviño gets political mileage out of claiming that he brings federal grant money to the county and that the federal grants plus his own efforts have made Hidalgo County safe despite the violence raging just across the border in Mexico. But according to this deputy, Sheriff Treviño himself behaves as if Hidalgo County is not the safe community that he claims it is.

    VIDEO BELOW:
    Deputy: He doesn’t go around by himself. He has bodyguards. He’s had bodyguards guarding his house while he sleeps at night. That…that’s a fact. When he goes, when he travels somewhere out to places, he has bodyguards with him. Why he has bodyguards, if you’re saying this is the safest county?


    Treviño might say that he needs such protection because he has been so effective at fighting crime that he has become a target. He could even point to the almost-routine assassination of police and government officials south of the border. But the deputy says it’s because on Sheriff Treviño’s watch, Mexico’s drug cartels have moved in and now have real power in Hidalgo County.

    VIDEO BELOW
    Deputy: I mean, he’s (Treviño) a politician, so he’s looking for anybody to pay his campaign. It’s easy for any cartel member who holds millions of dollars, who has an unlimited budget, to come and buy their way into the sheriff’s office.

    Interviewer: Is it your opinion, violent Mexican drug cartels and factions, are they able to produce resources and payoffs to county law enforcement to stay off the radar? Would it be your guess or your observation…that Mexican cartels have an influence in Hidalgo County politics and/or law enforcement?
    Deputy: Well, it do, yeah it sure seems that way sometimes because they do have the money, they have the funding.
    Interviewer: Ok.

    Deputy: So…for example, Emmanuel Sanchez, a deputy in the sheriff’s office. He belonged to a cartel on this side of the river that was connected to a cartel on the other side. And Emmanuel Sanchez provided a lot of money to Lupe’s campaign. Now, there’s probably no paperwork because he probably, you know, provided it in cash but he was caught with a million dollars coming back from Florida, and he was caught by Georgia.

    Cooked statistics, a sheriff who uses bodyguards, and deputies pressured not to fight or report crimes…what’s really going on in Hidalgo County, and why?



    The federal crime grants, while a small part of the overall federal budget, play a large role in linking the federal government’s priorities to the actions that local law enforcement agencies take. Better crime stats often lead to more and larger federal crime grants, as Treviño himself noted in February 2012 when Secretary Napolitano visited his county. The Obama administration has been particularly interested in making the U.S.-Mexico border appear to be safer than ever. Both President Barack Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have used the statistics coming from counties like Hidalgo to assert that the border is safe and getting safer.

    The federal grants are supposed to encourage local law enforcement to aggressively fight crime. But in the case of Hidalgo County, Texas, according to one deputy, something else is happening. Real drug cartel violence goes unreported and real spillover crimes go unsolved, according to the whistle-blowing deputy.

    And despite what President Obama says, we really don’t know if the border is secure or not. Not when Hidalgo County pressures its deputies not to find or fight crime.

    VIDEO BELOW:
    Deputy: Spillover violence has been here since the beginning, and it’s just getting worse. It’s getting out of hand. They’re not putting their foot down on it. And it’s just, it’s getting out of hand.

    So preventative action doesn’t normally occur from the deputies because their supervisors really look down towards that. The reason why is they’re always getting, I guess, bitched at. They’re always getting after. If a deputy causes trouble or goes looking for trouble and finds it and making an arrest or something and then the supervisor gets involved. Well he has to report it to his captain, he has to report it to his lieutenant that night, he needs to report it up the chain of command, you need to write a memo of what happened that night. And then it’s gonna come back down to the supervisor the following day (mimics supervisor griping at subordinate). So the supervisors usually, they kind of look down to, they don’t like the pursuits, they don’t.…Anything that’s gonna, like, bring the attention of the administration to the sergeant on patrol, they’ll cut it off quick.

    Interviewer: So any prevention activities, as a law enforcer, anything that you do preventative to fight crime before it occurs, that would become a reflection or a statistic that the sheriff would not want to reflect, is discouraged by immediate supervisors.

    Deputy: Exactly. Yes.

    Interviewer: Because the immediate supervisors then don’t want the attention from the sheriff so that it looks like there’s less crime. Is that correct?

    Deputy: Exactly.

    Hidalgo County is just one of the 23 counties on the U.S.-Mexico border, and according to its crime analyst and a whistle-blowing deputy its crime statistics have been faked to keep the federal grants coming. The cooked statistics also help keep up the administration’s story that the drug war raging in Mexico has not spilled over into the United States.

    In Part Three of our exclusive report, we’ll look at an unsolved crime that crossed the border — and how the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s office treated it.

    Watch the PJTV report here.
    The PJ Tatler » The Border Conspiracy, Part Two: Video Confessions of a Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Deputy
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  3. #3
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    FROM PART II
    Hidalgo Deputy 2 -- "The sheriff uses bodyguards."



    Deputy: He doesn’t go around by himself. He has bodyguards. He’s had bodyguards guarding his house while he sleeps at night. That…that’s a fact. When he goes, when he travels somewhere out to places, he has bodyguards with him. Why he has bodyguards, if you’re saying this is the safest county?
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  4. #4
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Hidalgo Deputy 3 -- "It's easy for the cartels to buy influence in the sheriff's office."


    Deputy: I mean, he’s (Treviño) a politician, so he’s looking for anybody to pay his campaign. It’s easy for any cartel member who holds millions of dollars, who has an unlimited budget, to come and buy their way into the sheriff’s office.
    Interviewer: Is it your opinion, violent Mexican drug cartels and factions, are they able to produce resources and payoffs to county law enforcement to stay off the radar? Would it be your guess or your observation…that Mexican cartels have an influence in Hidalgo County politics and/or law enforcement?
    Deputy: Well, it do, yeah it sure seems that way sometimes because they do have the money, they have the funding.
    Interviewer: Ok.
    Deputy: So…for example, Emmanuel Sanchez, a deputy in the sheriff’s office. He belonged to a cartel on this side of the river that was connected to a cartel on the other side. And Emmanuel Sanchez provided a lot of money to Lupe’s campaign. Now, there’s probably no paperwork because he probably, you know, provided it in cash but he was caught with a million dollars coming back from Florida, and he was caught by Georgia.
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  5. #5
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Hidalgo Deputy 4 -- "Spillover violence is getting out of hand."


    Deputy: Spillover violence has been here since the beginning, and it’s just getting worse. It’s getting out of hand. They’re not putting their foot down on it. And it’s just, it’s getting out of hand.
    So preventative action doesn’t normally occur from the deputies because their supervisors really look down towards that. The reason why is they’re always getting, I guess, bitched at. They’re always getting after. If a deputy causes trouble or goes looking for trouble and finds it and making an arrest or something and then the supervisor gets involved. Well he has to report it to his captain, he has to report it to his lieutenant that night, he needs to report it up the chain of command, you need to write a memo of what happened that night. And then it’s gonna come back down to the supervisor the following day (mimics supervisor griping at subordinate). So the supervisors usually, they kind of look down to, they don’t like the pursuits, they don’t.…Anything that’s gonna, like, bring the attention of the administration to the sergeant on patrol, they’ll cut it off quick.
    Interviewer: So any prevention activities, as a law enforcer, anything that you do preventative to fight crime before it occurs, that would become a reflection or a statistic that the sheriff would not want to reflect, is discouraged by immediate supervisors.
    Deputy: Exactly. Yes.
    Interviewer: Because the immediate supervisors then don’t want the attention from the sheriff so that it looks like there’s less crime. Is that correct?
    Deputy: Exactly.
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  6. #6
    Senior Member Kiara's Avatar
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    This is outragous! What are they a bunch of children? Anyone that lives on the border knows damned well it is not safe. All this damned nonsense has to stop!

  7. #7
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    Surprised? There is more coming! Oh, demands for cheeap labor and unlimted drugs is leadng us to loss of morals and country!!!! Enjou your salad,

  8. #8
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Good job by PJ Media on this story.
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