Sheriff Hanson on Gangs, UFOs, and More

Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson is covering a lot of topics from this nationwide meeting of sheriffs!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We start off the program this morningby going to where are you, Atlanta?
Sheriff Aaron Hansen's at the National Associationof Sheriff's meeting here and I'm surprised
you're not running the thing. Goodmorning, Sheriff. I'm actually in beautiful
Oklahoma City and hearing at a gloriousarmored BEARCAD vehicle property of the Oklahoma County

(00:25):
Sheriff Tommy Johnson down here. Sojust enjoy the very hot weather down here
in beautiful Oklahoma. Yeah. Well, it's probably colder down there than it
is up here. But the thisthis Association of the National Association of Sheriff's
meeting. You guys have been downthere tackling everything from Venezuelan gang's courtesy of

(00:48):
the President's asylum directives to UFOs.I think will the UFOs is certainly interesting.
Let's work our way back to there. What's going on with this border
crisis and this latest thing that sheriffsare being told to watch out for.
Thanks to all the people streaming acrossour border. Yeah, well, thanks

(01:11):
for that. You know. Actually, this is the second conference I've been
at. A week and a halfago, I was at the major County
Sheriff's Conference in Florida, and thatwas the largest sheriff's agencies for the sheriffs
and the largest agencies across the nation. And now this meeting is the National
Shaff Association, and that's every shriff, big, small in between. And
actually sit on the board. Irepresent the state of Nebraska for the National

(01:34):
Shaff Association. Here's there's some prettysobering statistics. So you know, people
might be surprised to hear that whenillegal immigrants are intercepted by the FEDS,
either by ICE or border patrol,safe to say, the vast majority of
them are not detained. They're actuallyreleased, they're paroled. Bass majority of
them are not sent back from whencethey came. They actually released into our

(01:59):
community. Twenty two, we hada presentation in Florida by the Director of
ICE. It was four point fivemillion immigrants in alternative detention in the United
States and twenty twenty two. Andjust in two years now, in twenty
twenty four, that number is shotup by three million, seven point five

(02:22):
million illegal immigrants in the United Statesnot being detained out in our communities across
the nation. And what's even morestaggering is that that is a ICE agent
two illegal immigrant ratio of seven thousandto one. So for every seven thousand

(02:42):
illegal immigrants in our community not beingdetained, there's only one ICE agent to
supervise them. And that's exactly whyyou ended up with a scenario, a
nightmare scenario, the tragic scenario ofLake and Riley down in Georgia. To
your point earlier, Scott about theVenezuelan gang challenge that's coming across our board,

(03:04):
Yeah, well, why is Venezuelasuch a specific country for the issues
that you're talking about here, Well, Venezuela is a nation that is experiencing
a lot of unrest, you know, a lot of violence in their nation,
a lot of political unrest, andso you know, President Biden has
allowed for protected status, temporary protectedstatus for Venezuela assilent seekers, and as

(03:32):
of July of twenty twenty three,there was four hundred and seventy two thousand
Venezuelan asilent seekers that we knew aboutthat flooded into the US, that migrated
the US. And that was ontop of the two hundred and forty two
thousand Venezuelan assilent seekers that we knewof at that time, and so I
think that that protected status program isprobably going to be coming to an end,

(03:57):
I think in the end of July. But in the meantime, they're
still here. They're still here.And so the individuals that were involved in
the murder of Lake and Riley,for example, Jose Abarra, he had
been released from by Border Patrol inOpasso, and specifically they indicated that was
because of lack of detension capacity.So again they don't have the ability,

(04:20):
we don't have the infrastructure to detainthese illegal immigrants. When they come across
the border, they get paroled intothe United States. And in the case
of Jose at Barra, he wentto New York, got arrested in New
York for assaulting a juvenile and thennext he was found in Georgia for killing

(04:40):
Lake and Riley. And sheriffs arefrustrated because that Jose Abara, the murderer,
his brother that you know, wesuspect as Venezuela and gang ties.
He had been arrested repeatedly in Georgia, arrested, released, arrested, release
without really any flag for the sheriff. And so the sheriffs get heat for
letting them go. But again,we're just stuck in this in this cycle.

(05:03):
And bottom line is this. It'seasy for people say we need to
fix the border, and we do. But what's very common theme emerging now
is we also need to invest federallyin the tension infrastructure for illegal immigrants,
especially ones that are high risk criminallyapplying. But then also we need to

(05:23):
hire more ICE agents because that's seventhousand and one ratio, it's not working,
and it's putting an entire nation atrisk, regardless of where you live.
Just as you were sharing that informationwith us, as we're talking with
Sheriff Aarren Hansen here on news radioeleven ten kfab, the Daily Wire just
put a news story in my inboxabout a twelve year old Houston girl named
Jocelyn Nungay who was allegedly killed bytwo illegal immigrants from Venezuela. Now,

(05:49):
my geography is not one hundred percentsolid. Where is the border between the
United States and Venezuela. Is thatin Texas? Is that in Arkansas?
Is that in Louisiana? All?But my ridiculous question has to do with
why is it that we are allowingasylum seekers from Venezuela who are not seeking

(06:13):
asylum in Colombia or anywhere in CentralAmerica or Mexico before they come here to
America. Well, you know,I think you know the answer to that
is that's our border policies and ourchallenges with illegal immigration, Our current immigration
lawns. I mean, they incentiviize, you know, these large groups of
people to make their way up throughSouth Central America and New Mexico and across

(06:38):
the border. And what we're findingis, especially with the discussion here this
week, it's not just people seekingasylum, it's criminals. It's this trend
de Aragua, this Venezuelan gang thatis intentionally trying to grow their reach across
across America. They do extortion,kidnapping migrants, smuggling, human draft games,

(06:59):
you know, robber these drugs andguns, and they're trying to grow
their reach and they're trying to hidethemselves within this migrant population, many of
which just do want a good life. But between the terrorists, the known
terrorist intercepts, and the Venezuelan gangs, it's just a real risk. I
talked to the sheriff in the Dallasmetro area. They have a fourteen hundred

(07:20):
percent or fourteen hundred percent increase infederal depths in his country, they are
constantly actively getting into shootouts with cartelmembers, and they're counting down in Dallas
Metro and he says, he's warningus this is coming your way. Now.
Luckily, we've got a forty percentdecrease in federal debts because we're actually
putting fenteral dealers in prison. Butthe challenge is growing across the nation.

(07:43):
Well, and then you've got thisidea that we need to have illegal immigrants
in this country. We need tohave some those of this particular status here
is because so many of them dothe jobs that Americans won't do. We
still have a number of these socalled jobs that businesses say we can't fill
these jobs. Meanwhile, millions ofpeople have come across our border. I

(08:05):
noticed that the shelters, the detentionspaces, all these these are jam packed.
So when when you have people cominginto a community and you still have
jobs unfilled and some of these facilitiesare packed people who aren't working. This
is not the way it's supposed towork. But this is exactly what's happening

(08:28):
in our country right now. Now. No questions that we don't need to
find smarter ways to try to fillour workforce ranks. But I think that
it's wrong to incentivize people to comeacross the border legally to try to fill
those jobs. I think everyone agrees, regardless of where you're on the float
the spectrum, there needs to beorderly immigrations. We need more population in

(08:50):
this community to do to do anyjobs, whether it be technical jobs or
entry level jobs. But you know, I think it's time for both sides
the the spectrum to buckle down.Gotta find more holistic solutions because it can't
keep going this way. Too manyinnocent people are being hurt, and too
many innocent well meeting migrants are beinghurt victimized as well. We talk a

(09:11):
lot about the dangers that people mightfind, especially young people online, and
there's a pretty fascinating story where somekid, this young man guy was twenty
years old. He flew from NewJersey to Florida to go find a guy
he'd been battling with online in avideo game so we could break into his

(09:35):
house and hit him with a hammer. Now, that's a pretty unique situation
of the dangers you might find online. A lot of it has to do
with people posing as you know,like young girls meeting young guys or vice
versa, and trying to blackmail them. This is another topic of conversation as
we're talking here with Sheriff Aaron Hansonat the National Sheriff's Association meeting in Oklahoma.

(10:01):
What more details can you provide parentsof teenagers like I have to be
able to warn our kids about thedangers online. Yeah, as a dad
myself of teenagers, this one wasespecially scary. So there's this new and
emerging international group. It's called theseven six to four group, and that
name doesn't really mean anything. You'reone of the original creators that with numbers

(10:24):
that correspond to the zip code wherethey live. But bottom line is it's
the shadowy underground online community and theywill intentionally try to identify and target young
teenagers, young people, maybe gamers, people who are online too much.
They'll try to focus on kids ormaybe in a tough family situation or maybe

(10:45):
have a mental health issue. They'llpretend to be a fellow team. They'll
ask to get pictures, like maybenaked pictures or videos of the team,
and as soon as they have thosepictures, in their possession. The blackmailing
starts and they tell them the medialea, hey, if you don't do
what we want you to do,we're going to tell your parents, we're
going to release these pictures out tothe public. And so what it means

(11:09):
is they're telling these teams, youhave to continue to do sex acts online
to our community. You have tostart to torture yourself, cutting, maybe
the torture becomes more and more violentthat they must inflict on themselves. And
these sickos are entertained by this behavior. And then what they'll do as well

(11:31):
is they'll say, do you havea pet, Yeah, I have a
cat. We'll get your cat andstrangle it to the point of unconsciousness or
cut it or kill it and doit all online. And if you don't,
we're going to out you publicly.And so you're seeing kids across the
country that are actually committing suicide.They're becoming even more mentally traumatized because they've

(11:54):
been lured into this this group's shittiuslife side, and now they're just very
deep into into this this harming,suicidal, animal killing and hurting culture.
It's very sad, very scary.It's something that you know gen xers can't

(12:15):
even fathom. I mean, wehad to deal with stuff, you know,
growing up, but not this onlinecomponent, and not the the lure
and the temptation of what you mightfind out there. I've told my kids
said, look, if you're temptedto send a you know, a dirty
picture to a you know so,to someone you're dating, and you think,

(12:37):
well, I just this is onlyfor his eyes only, and I'll
send him a little naughty picture here, then you have to understand everyone's going
to see that. He's going toshow it Too's like, hey, don't
share this with anyone. He's goingto share it to one guy. He's
going to share it with everyone.Your teachers are probably going to see this.
I said, if you're attempted todo this, then just let me

(13:01):
know. Because there's a billboard availableoutside of your grandma's window. I'll buy
the billboard and we'll pick the putthe picture up there. That way everyone
can see it and you won't haveto worry about you know, who's gonna
see it. Whin They'll be rightthere on the billboard next to Dodge Street.
And so I don't know if thisis gonna work or not, but
I try and tell them, youknow that what you think is going on

(13:26):
secretly or between two parties online isn'talways the case, and the situation you
described there is absolutely unconscionable. Whatis the matter with people? All Right?
We got to wrap up here withSheriff Aaron Hanson. I mentioned at
the start of this conversation that asyou're at this National Association of Sheriff's meeting,

(13:48):
you guys are also working on howto handle UFOs. Is this are
we talking about unidentifying flight unidentified flyingobjects or is that an acronym with which
I'm unfamiliar. Well, yeah,sheriffs and chiefs around the nation are trying
to figure out how to deal withActually, I think the term we're used

(14:11):
now so you don't have to truckletoo loud, it's actually UAP's unidentified anomalous
phenomenon. And so, for example, recently in Tucson, Arizona, there
was a UAP or a UFO thatnearly collided with a Border Patrol helicopter.
It was very hard for them tosee. All they could tell is it

(14:33):
had a green light on the bottom, moved at speeds of excess of one
hundred miles an hour. Tucson PoliceDepartment helicopter was launched and they both tried
to chase it for an hour,and again it went over one hundred miles
an hour. They could not catchup to it. They could barely see
it other than the green light onit. It didn't act like a traditional
drone, and that the speeds exceededwhat a drone could and it exceeded the

(14:56):
standard battery life of a drone.And so sheriff's and chiefs are trying to
figure out, how are we goingto deal with these UAPs? What are
they? Are they rogue nations bringingin drones to spine us? Is it
something else? We don't know?And so it's just fascinating that this is
becoming such a phenomenon around the countrythat not even local law enforcements having to

(15:18):
figure out how to deal with it. Maybe I'm getting the wrong impression here,
but that sounds super cool to me. It's very interesting, you know,
And again we don't know is thisadvanced China technology. I mean,
in this case in Tucson, theyoriginally saw it over a fuel depot near

(15:41):
an airport, and so again wesaw the route that the helicopter took and
it was interesting. I mean theywere in hot pursuit of this uap ufo
for over an hour until it hitfourteen thousand feet and went over a mountain,
which again typical drones do not getthat level. And so local law

(16:03):
enforcement is working with the military andthe PEDS trying to determine what are these
things exactly, because this is definitelya new and emergent phenomenon. Amazing China
could have these very slow moving weatherballoons, spy balloons, and also incredible
drone technology that can do all thethings you just described. Now, I'll
let you get back to the meetinghere. As you're there at the National

(16:27):
Association of Sheriff's meeting, what areyou hearing that you can come back and
implement in Douglas County based on theissues that you and I have talked a
lot about, things like juvenile crime, things like homelessness in our community.
Yeah, you know, I thinkthat the things that we're hitting in Douglas
County, the things that we're makingheadway on, we're right on. So

(16:48):
everyone across the nation as a resultof this juvenile justice reform, they're struggling.
I mean that is the area incrime where people are really struggling.
And so it's good that we're goingto stay on track with our message on
the juvenile justice reform. We needto kind of swing it back into a
little bit more common sense middle areahere a lot of people. Again,
we're right on track on the explosionof the homeless camps. But here's the

(17:12):
other thing, Scott, and I'llleave you with this. You do have
some people bragging on the federal levelsaying that crime is going down nationally.
Yeah, statistically that's true from theCOVID spike, but if you look pre
COVID twenty nineteen, homicides are stillup. They're up fourteen percent now from
pre COVID, and aggravated assaults weaponassaults are up seven percent. So we

(17:33):
are a nation that is still strugglingwith violent crime challenges, not to mention
our challenges with the exploding juvenile crime, especially for those high risk juveniles that
we deal with the most. Andwe're going to stay on track, but
having these pure connections across the countryis really going to help us keep our
own local community safe. That's whyI'm here. Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson,

(17:55):
thank you so much for the timetoday. I appreciate Scott