Mr. Charming
BBC NEWS | Americas | ‘Bloody chainsaw’ man enters US __ This is an amazing story since Canadian businesspeople are often harrassed and detained at the border. Are they kidding us about this or what?
A man carrying a home-made sword and what looked like a blood-stained chainsaw was allowed into the US from Canada, the Associated Press reports.
The news agency says Gregory Despres’ weapons were confiscated, before US custom officials in Calais, Maine, let him cross the border on 25 April.
The next day he became a murder suspect after bodies of his two neighbours were found in his hometown in Canada.
Mr Despres, 22, was arrested on 27 April and is now awaiting extradition.
Found by P. McEntee
I knew a group of “traditional” U.S. Customs agents who worked the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo bridges. These guys would have confiscated his weapons, sent him back across the bridge, and notified the Mexican authorities that he was coming. This story is pretty weak.
Maybe the guys working at the Customs office thought “Oh great, another D&D nerd.”
The US Border “Guards” also did a great job of fouling up the evidence potential of the crap they confiscated. I watched eye witnesses on NWI-TV describe watching the guards playing with the sword — tossing it around the guard shack, etc..
On the other hand, the cop in Mass who caught Despres did everything right. He was distributing wanted posters for Despres when he thought he spotted him walking down the street. This was in Mattapoisett where he used to live in a boat. The cop calmly turned the posters over so they wouldn’t be visible and cruised up alongside the dude. Asking unimportant questions, he verified to his own satisfaction that it was Despres.
Despres, meanwhile, starts telling him his story about how he’s a Marine on a special mission for President Bush [I could believe that part].
The officer drove away — radioed for backup and waited a couple blocks away to grab Despres when he was certain it could be done quickly, with no other civilians nearby.
Good police work in Massachusetts. Incompetent goof-offs running Homeland Security on the Canadian Border.
Being a Canadian myself, my American family and I often travel to Canada. Though we have never been held for two hours, the waits and questioning are usually involved, even though we have produced birth certificates and my Green Card. It usually takes less then half the time to go through Canada Customs then it does to return to the US.
Why the local customs officials didn’t call the local police is beyond me. Carrying weapons, including a sword and chainsaw covered in what could be blood does require further investigation. The customs agents are not trained in criminal investigations, police are. I am afraid that, as with most American law enforcement agencies, the Homeland Security detail decided that there was nothing that they could do in their own little fiefdom and let him go instead of turning him over to the police. I guess this is the reverse of local police arresting an “undocumented person” and not turning him over to the Homeland Security force.
“U.S. officials said border officers were suspicious of the man with a Mohawk who told officials he was a U.S. Marine assassin.”
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/10/border.chainsaw/index.html
Ah yes, the ol’ “U.S. Marine assassin” claim.. works every time….
It goes beyond the customs at the border.(and yes ,good job done by the Mass. police) Had the judge in New Brunswick not let him out 4 weeks prier to await sentencing ,none of this would have been news. I am the son of one of the victims and now have to live with an (another) incorrect desicion by a legal system!!!!!!
I am so thankful to God for my corned that I don’t have to deal with things so personas,,,, He will soon straighten things out 😉