Gonzalez: Heading Massive Sweeps
National Ledger – Operation Falcon III — This story from last week is floating around the net and is incredibly baffling. It’s baffling because so little was said about it. No analysis. Just rah-rah coverage. Bad guys off the street, hooray!
Alberto Gonzalez apparently has headed up these sweeps of fugitive sex offenders and miscellaneous “worst felons” for the third time. I’m not getting why, if these people are so dangerous and their whereabouts are apparently known, they are not picked up right away as opposed to being picked up in a nationwide sweep by US Marshalls. This just does not sound right. And where is the major media when 11,000 people are being arrested at once? I’m am not close to believing that hundreds of people were not misidentified and arrested falsely. Let’s be realisitc. Where are those tales of woe? Instead we get zilch except what appears to be a press release.
Operation Falcon III is the codename for a joint effort to round up sex offenders and gang members on the East Coast. Operation Falcon III combined deputy United States Marshals that teamed up with thousands of fellow federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to conduct the largest ever round up of criminals.
Nearly 11,000 fugitives, including 1,659 sex offenders, were swept up in what Attorney General Alberto Gonzales described Thursday as a record-breaking law enforcement operation targeting some of the nation’s “worst” felons.
Most of the coverage for this event seems to be isolated in small town newspapers and local TV stations.
related links:
Mass. Arrests outlined here
And then there is this press release that ran in Findlaw about the whole event with emphasis on finding one guy in particular. I found this quote unusual:
…bail has been set at $500,000.00 on the charge of being a Fugitive from Justice. Berlo is currently awaiting rendition to N.H.
“What is impressive about the Brian Berlo investigation is the speed at which the investigation proceeded once handed over to the United States Marshals Service,” said Acting United States Marshal William Fallon. “With little information to go on, a U.S. Marshals led team of officers, were able to track down and arrest Berlo within a matter of a few hours
First I thought the use of the term “rendition” a bit odd in this because of its implications. Also there seems to be a not-so-subtle message here that local police are incompetent and the feds with “little information to go on” can do what the locals cannot do. And they do it faster!
So what gives?
Pre-election PR. Look the Republicans are the party of Law and Order! I can’t wait to vote against them tomorrow. I will savor their losses like wine.
You hope. It would be more amusing if the Republicans pick up seats! Although I too doubt that will happen, it would be better for the blog. 🙂
I too chuckled at the timing of this fall roundup. These are your federal data-gathering dollars at work. That’s how the marshals were able to find people that local authorities were unable to find. If you’ve ever had any privacy concerns about secret databases being compiled, let’s dispel those concerns now by showing good outcomes that no one can argue with.
I feel a tad manipulated.
As someone of maternally jewish ancestry, I probably need to say no more for people to understand that mass arrests of social undesirables taking place below the radar makes me instinctively nervous. That aside, the most notable thing is simply the fact that the arrests were conducted en masse; the only comparable efforts I can think of involved specific criminal organizations and not big box busts involving individual fugitives.
Wasn’t that long ago that the Feds made a similar claim with respect to a local motorcycle club with criminal ties, the Banditos. Far from the methodical, calculated sting they claimed at the time, however, the effort was the result of the fact that someone figured out who all the snitches were and they had the choice of moving or wasting several years, a proportionate number of man hours and a fair chunk of taxpayer dough on surveillance without results. Except that this happened anyway, since the narcs were found in a burned out car the following day, none of the arrests resulted in charges that bore much relation to the gun trafficking, black market vehicle distribution and meth production cited as the target of the investigation and all of these continue to this day without more than a possible if probable period of inconvenience to those involved. But it sounded really good in print, and I got to see my parent’s Celeron eMachine carted off by the ATF on CNN, apparently in the hope that since the business it was confiscated from had been owned by a member of the criminal enterprise in question ten years earlier, that it would provide records of the organization’s current criminal enterprises.
Like you expect an eMachine to contain a working copy of MSWorks and a few nudie gifs, much less evidence of a sophisticated criminal operation.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen a bunch of old men and local yokels rounded up and grandstanded as proof of someone’s law enforcement prowess nor the only one that masked an attempt to conceal a botched operation.
That nobody’s making it a photo-op and there aren’t any publicists booking interviews for Donny Deutsch or Nancy Grace(10,773 arrests of sex offenders and somebody’s kept it from Nancy? C’mon!) commends a reasonable skepticism, especially in the event it sinks off the chart altogether. Something’s probably slightly stanky in Denmark and somebody probably figures big numbers will make them seem less incompetent when the money guys figure out how much the faux pas cost.
So where are they going to keep all these people? In those 800 prison camps supposedly built recently? Is that why they were built, or is this just a coincidence?
So what, the number of people they still need to apprehend makes 11k seem like chump change.
That they are so far behind is an indication of their general lack of effectiveness.
#4’s comment really sounds about right. Periodically the INS sweeps a bunch of illegals up from some business. Usually before the news even is released to the press, almost all the illegal aliens have been released upon their own recognizances and are finding another underground job somewhere else.
But hey, the mass arrests make the headlines.
These guys are all Democrats and were found in **to close to call** states.
They should have arrested Independents, since Democrats are used to being abused, but the Indies would freak and vote accordingly. 🙂
Word to the wise. John, you may be on to something. Huge change in the polls over the w/e…..that 18% lead generic Dems had is now at 4%, and several races the Dems thought were their’s have tied or are breaking Rep..
I still see a Dem. takeover of the House, but by a very slim margin, if these polls hold….and no Senate for the Dems.
“…bail has been set at $500,000.00 on the charge of being a Fugitive from Justice. Berlo is currently awaiting rendition to N.H.”
Why the hell is bail set on this guy, like he will not run again?
From the related link:
The roundup, in 24 states east of the Mississippi River, targeted “the worst of the worst fugitive felons in the country,” Attorney General Albert R. Gonzales said at a Washington news conference.
I read a similar quote the other day, and it makes me gag…
They throw around “worst of the worst” almost as often as the recently-disavowed “stay the course”.
It still bothers me how we were supposed to be content to let the guys at Gitmo rot – indefinitely – because they were “the worst of the worst” – and then we find out that the really important people were at secret prisons…
It doesn’t help his credibility, in this case, that he claims they are the worst in the country, when the operation was only East of the Mississippi.
They crow about how many sex offenders they picked-up, but seem to down-play that the only reason they picked-up so many was that they chose to concentrate on sex offenders and gang members… 🙁
From the related link:
…this year the operation concentrated on sexual predators and fugitive gang members.
I think that something Andrew Sullivan said is important to mention “If the Republicans win this election democracy is broken”.
is “Fugitive from Justice” sufficiently vague?
As someone of maternally jewish ancestry
That would be all Jews, if I understand how those things work, and I believe I do.
Actually this whole roundup was an exercise. They came up with an arbitrary list of 11,000 individuals and turned it over to a law enforcement entity with access to Patriot Act resources. Just another warmup for when they start arresting plain old citizens for being unpatriotic.
13 That would be all Jews, if I understand how those things work, and I believe I do.
Really?
So…
All Jews have maternal jewish ancestry?
Meaning…
People without maternal jewish ancestry are not Jewish? [i.e. father is Jewish but not the mother, converts to Judaism]
You are simply making the distinction between ethnicity and religious belief?
Sadly, I think a great deal of this — aside from the electioneering PR — is publicity easily generated because local PD’s are so incompetent. There’s usually at least one TV station in every DMA that specializes once a year or so in doing the “we tracked down the fugitives” story.
All they ever do is what some lazy-ass cop could have done in the first place. Get on the phone and call local agencies that are in touch with the “fugitive” — social services, food stamps, city welfare — cripes, even directory assistance works a significant portion of the time.
Some hack gets to say he’s the leading investigative reporter in the big city.
——–
joshua — here’s something you may not have considered — the number of folks who voted early, especially when they’re in an area where the earlier polls indicated a Dem vote.
Just watched an interesting discussion on Tennessee — where the Republikan is purportedly leading by 3% or more — this week. But, 40% of those voting for Senator had voted in the preceding 2 weeks — when the polls showed the Dem leading.
If halo effect means something, that may make a difference.
Big picture, this is the status quo for this administration: Why do something well all the time when you can do it well occasionally and get credit for it?
Lets see if I have this correct.
11,000 people arrested.
Probably mostly those in gangs, that HAD no records, just hanging out with the WRONG person.
11,000 people probably being sent to jails AROUND the US, NOt just the east coast.
Once released, WHERE in the F#$% am I?? N. Dakota?? texas?? Oregon??
I said at the outset that this whole thing is weird.
#17
Alaska… working away for free… 😉
#15 Actually this whole roundup was an exercise. They came up with an arbitrary list of 11,000 individuals and turned it over to a law enforcement entity with access to Patriot Act resources. Just another warmup for when they start arresting plain old citizens for being unpatriotic.
Comment by xrayspex — 11/6/2006 @ 1:14 pm
I need to get me a flag and a Jesus Fish bumper sticker, and pronto. With my soft, shapely ass, I’ll never survive prison.
Let me just say to George W Bush… “4 MORE YEARS – 4 MORE YEARS – 4 MORE YEARS”
Oh God that hurts.
#20 – and when I say #15, what I really mean is #13
What happens when you put 11k gang banging gang members into one jail? Fucking retards.
Condi is probably rounding up west coast gangs as we speak. By tomorrow the Biggie/Tupac murders will be finally solved! Go Bush! 😛
Why round them up all at once? Well if these are gang members it prevents some of the targets from getting away.
OFTLO…”soft, shapely…” Hmmmm…
They probably aimed at 100, and grabbed everyone in the area.
Maybe they were going to vote democrat ? 🙂
People without maternal jewish ancestry are not Jewish
You are correct, sir.
i.e. father is Jewish but not the mother, converts to Judaism]
Woops. I missed that part.
If the mother converts, then she is Jewish, hence, her children are Jews. If she does not convert, the father’s religion doesn’t matter.
This has nothing to do with ethnicity. Just one of those things. With catholics, either, (or I suppose neither) may be Catholic, as long as they both agree to raise the children as Catholics.
Now imagine the poor old Shakers, who didn’t believe in sex. All shakers were converts, I think. Unless they came up with some method of divine conception.
Nobody is reading this thread anymore anyway. Blah blah blah.
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