June 7, 2024 • 17 mins
Welcome to "First Fridays with the FBI," the show that offers a community approach to everyday citizen and law enforcement interaction. In this episode, FBI experts discuss the concerning issue of gang activity within the U.S. military. They explore how street gangs and outlaw motorcycle clubs have infiltrated various branches of the armed forces, the risks this poses, and efforts to combat the problem. Local agencies, such as El Paso PD, DEA, and FBI, provide valuable resources for parents. Find the warning signs and what to watch for by visiting nationalgangcenter.gov, stopwesttexasgangs.org, and fbi.gov. They have information on effective communication strategies and programs that can help youth already involved in gangs transition out safely. The FBI provides actional steps to protect military members from gang recruitment and influence. Stay tuned to "First Fridays with the FBI" to stay informed and vigilant. Subscribe now and join us. FBI El Paso New Gangs in the Military | First Fridays with @midlifemocha and Guest: SSA Carlos Armendariz - #fbielpaso
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So Carlos, tell us a littlebit about yourself before we get into our
topic of the day, which isgangs in the military. All right,
So my name is Carlos Amanadas.I am with the FBI. I'm a
supervisor for the gang Section, andI've been in law enforcement for sixteen years,
eight of those years here locally withthe Opaca Police Department. I worked
everything from patrol to I was adetective. I worked attack, which is
(00:25):
burglary robberies, and I also workhomicides. And in the FBI, I
have been doing gangs for eight years. Okay, so we're going to get
right into it. So tell usabout the presence of gangs within the military
and particularly here along the border inAlpaso. All right, So here in
in Opasso, we have just aboutevery gang that you can think of,
(00:45):
but I think we see higher trendsamongst the black gangs, like the Bloods,
the Crips, and every variation thereof, because it's not just you know,
one group. You have many sexwithin these groups, and then you
also have bundi those and we've seensome bad us take us as well mixed
in there. So we do havea good mix of all these gangs in
(01:08):
the military, and I'm going tocome back to this other question. Let
me just keep straight here. Whatare the most common types of things?
I would say probably the two biggerones are the bloods and the crypts and
the military. Yes, and wellhere locally here like with the all and
all the sex that they come with. So what are some of the key
(01:30):
challenges the FBI places when it comesto addressing gang activity. So there's there's
a bunch of challenges that we have. One of them is that they've evolved,
right, So you have things likesocial media and encryption. I think
that's that's a huge one. Encryptionmeaning that you know, they've they've come
onto our trip to our techniques,right, and so they'll use more of
(01:53):
the encrypted stuff. We can alwaysget around it, but it makes it
harder to investigate. So you know, that's one of the challenges that law
enforcement in general face when dealing with, you know, people using WhatsApp and
stuff like that. We also havegangs that have evolved. They're very decentralized
now, so you don't see thetypical hierarchy where there's one guy at the
(02:15):
top kind of running everything. Youkind of have these cells, and even
enemies or gangs that are enemies thatare supposed to be working with each other
or supposed to be fighting each otherare working together. I mean, you
see really bizarre stuff. But gangshave evolved. So that's another chance that
we have. On top of that, we especially as it pertains to the
(02:37):
military, we see a lot offinancial crimes. So gangs are kind of
shifting from that. You know,their primary they still make a lot of
money from narcotics and stuff like that, but which is your traditional stuff.
But now they're also getting involved ina financial crime, which is like bank
fraud. I don't want to expectedI guess the technical part of it.
(02:58):
So when you say they evolve,that includes like you know, internet and
exactly a lot of Internet scams.Okay, I don't think most people think
about that when you say gangs,No one I think relates it to technology.
Yeah, but we've seen a hugetrend towards that. Ok So,
how does the gangs in military lifediffer from traditional street gangs. One of
(03:22):
the bigges things is training, Right, So here you know you have somebody
in the military, they receive yearsand years of training where it's firearms training.
How to handle certain equipment and stufflike that. So I think that's
that's probably the biggest difference. Usuallywhen when a military guy goes bad,
it goes bad, right, Sothat's where you have the really bad consequences.
(03:43):
And we'll get into some examples later. Yeah, with the impact of
how it is with border security,you know, how is the overall security
situation here in the All passa regionas far as border security, I mean,
I'm not going to say it's ahuge, huge problem, right,
like that we should be extremely,extremely worried about, but it certainly impacts
(04:04):
us, right. So one ofthe examples that I can give is whenever
you have a shooting, right,I can give you an example that happened,
you know, maybe about eight yearsago. It was a service member
who was a gang member. Hewent into one of the clubs downtown and
he got kicked out of the club, you know, because he was causing
(04:24):
a problem there. He went backto his car, he came back,
and he sprayed the whole place.He ended up, you know, shooting
seven people. One of them wasalmost killed, and then several others were
hit by fragments and or you know, non lethal hits. So anytime you
have an impact like that, youknow you have unintended consequences. Right,
(04:45):
people don't want to go out,they don't feel safe, you know,
Tourism maybe impacted stuff like that ingeneral. And then not too long ago,
maybe about a year ago, wehad a service member that went to
Mexico and killed his girlfriend and hewas also so suspected to be involved in
alien smuggling. So anytime you haveyou know that type of violence, it
(05:05):
impacts the area, whether you likeit or not. Because people read the
news, you know, you havea lot of warnings that get put out.
So anytime there's like an increase inviolence or anything of that nature,
you see people are wary about goingout and doing things. Another question is,
you know, I probably didn't purposeit before, but is it more
(05:27):
prevalent along the border when it comesto the gangs in the military. So
I have another example, right,So we have we had a case where
it was an ex service member.So this guy had just retired from the
military. He used his training andeverything that came with that, and he
was milling out guns right left andright ars and he was sending them down
(05:48):
south to the to the cartels.So he was selling all these weapons,
and so what happens is you haveessentially you have somebody supplying weapons to the
cartels because that's what they need tofight their wars against each other over there,
and so it destabilizes the region,right, So that's a huge,
(06:08):
huge thing. Like I mean,if you want to go to Mexico,
right, the Department of State hasthese issues, these warnings where hey,
it's safe to go or it's notsafe to go, please avoid these areas
of Mexico and things like that.So it impacts travel, it impacts tourism.
There's a lot of unintended consequences becauseyou know, these weapons are making
(06:30):
it out there. So we're inthe border and it's a unique problem.
You're typically not going to see alot of movement of weapons, and you
know, cities that are up northand you see it more towards the border.
They get these people to either facilitatethe transportation of weapons south and the
(06:50):
consequences is pretty severe. Yeah,I have a good question. So do
you believe that some of the gangslike they encourage their members to join the
military specifically for that Other than anecdotalevidence, I don't think that's a.
I wouldn't say that's a huge trend. Yeah, I can't think of an
instance where we we've talked to agang member and they specifically say, hey,
(07:15):
you can certainly see why they would, right, So, but I
don't think there's any real evidence tosay that that gangs are encouraging their members
to join. I think also themilitary does a pretty decent job of weeding
out people with criminal histories with youknow, feloniese and so a lot of
(07:35):
these members do have that background,so it's harder for them to join after
they're in a gang, if thatmakes sense, right. But a lot
of times, you know, theydo get members that join that have none
of that. So you can havea little bit of that. But are
(07:56):
there any other examples of well,I'm you know, A really good example
was last year, I think maybeackaround August, we were doing a suppression
initiative with our partners that includes Ithink even the RBCID and EPPD and just
every agency that works out at theTexas Anti Gang Center. We're doing the
(08:18):
suppression and we're going out to barsin the area monitoring for gang activity,
and one of our agents came acrossan individual at a bar that again got
kicked out. He was a servicemember. They were watching him very closely
because some remarks were made, andhe goals to his car and pulls out
(08:39):
a rifle, racks it, andthen proceeds heading back towards the bar.
Right. So, obviously our agentsdid what they needed to. EPPD was
on scene. They stopped the guy. But can you imagine what could have
happened? Right, So, there'salways little things like that that are always
happy thing that can be prevented.But that's another incident where I can think
(09:03):
of that. Like I said,when a service member goes back because of
his training and everything. I meanhe was I think the guy was even
you know, doing the tactical walkon his way back. It's like one
or two in the morning, andyou know, he was definitely probably not
having good intentions. Right. Sowe've had situations like that in the past
(09:26):
and somebody using their training to hurtpeople. I thought this was a good
topic for us because I don't thinkpeople believe that this happens like it's right
now, like it's occurring now.So is that the case, because I
know we're talking about it right now, but it's because some of this may
be recent. Yeah, no,no, I mean stuff is always happening.
(09:48):
Like the financial fraud, it's soprevalent and involves a lot of service
members that are doing that. Theyget their family members to help out,
our friends, acquaintances, a lotof recruitment through Facebook. So we have
a lot of that right now.Can you give to the more examples of
maybe the financial part of that.So have you I don't know if you've
(10:11):
heard of the fraud Bible? No, have you heard of it? Okay,
So if you look it up,you'll see it's like essentially like a
bible is just full of all sortsof scams, right, so it goes
through different variations on how to scampeople, how to scam banks, how
to scam other people. If youlook it up, you know, so
essentially it's down the line all thoselittle trick tips and tricks that these members
(10:35):
use to try to make some moneythrough scams. I'm going to look that
up to see, not that Iwant to do it, just to see
to be aware of because it's verygood to be you know, like you
could be participating in it without it. Yeah, usually you should know if
it's too good to be true.It probably is, but I think so
many people trust people in the military, so it's like, oh no,
(10:58):
they're soldier, they can't be doingany of this. So that's why I
think this conversation is good. Sothat's what I'm going to be promoted.
Just to be careful. You neverknow what are the FBI strategies for disrupting
gang networks within the military on theborder view, So we have a lot
of liaison. So our strategy iswe liaison with the folks on base.
(11:22):
Anytime that we suspect service member isa gang member, we're very quick to
try to act on that. Wecan either get them federally or we can
get them through the Code of MilitaryJustice. Right. So the military is
very good because they're not supposed tobe associating with gangs and so they have
all these rules that they can useagainst the service member to get them out,
(11:46):
right, So we use that.So we have a lot of liaisons,
and if there's an actual crime thattook place, you know, you
know, for the ones that arehey, we just think this guy is
he's a gang member, he's posing, he's doing everything that's indicative of gang
membership, we forward that information tothe folks on base and need to know
(12:07):
it on e CID, and we'regood about trying to get them kicked down.
Some of them even have clearances andstuff like that. So it's it
can be a conflict. Well,how does the FBI work with other law
enforcement agencies such as military police andlocal police departments when it comes to combating
gang activity. So, like Isaid, we have monthly meetings at the
(12:31):
text antig Accenter sponsored by the HAIDA, which is a high intensity Drug Trafficking
Area group and essentially and that's wherewe share all the information. We discuss
the trends, what's going on,and so we try to address those accordingly.
Well, can you share some successfuljoint operations or intelligence sharing efforts that
(12:54):
have led to maybe arrest or prosecutionsof gang members without really giving any actual
example, the I think that theclosest thing would be, like, for
example, let's say somebody in thatmeeting says, hey, you might want
to talk to this person because thatperson might have information on a particular gang,
whether it's you know, somebody fromBOP or from the state prison that
(13:18):
he's like, hey, this gangmember might have info and he might may
want to talk to you guys,and so we'll go out and we'll talk,
and we've had a lot of successwith that type of sharing. What
advice would you give to members ofthe military who may be at risk of
gang recruitment or involvement. That's adifficult question, but I think idleness is
(13:43):
the devil's workshop. Have you everheard of that? Saying? Right,
So, a lot of times theseindividuals that get placed here through the military,
they get stationed here, they tendto be single, they tend they
tend to be from out of town. So stay busy, right, and
try to instance yourself from individuals thatdo kind of exhibit that type of behavior,
(14:03):
because even though you may not beinvolved in it, but you know,
they tend to be like the popularguys that that very charismatic and have
this tough personality, and so avoidthat type of engaging that in that type
of behavior. I'm not going tosay avoid all night life, but it
certainly helps to listen to what themilitary advices. You know, they have
(14:26):
certain bars that they prohibit service membersfrom going. So if they tell you
don't go there, don't go there. And also, you know, participate
in different activities right, organize recreationalactivities, things that are healthy for the
for the body and for the mind. And you know, crime doesn't pay,
It does not, It really doesn't. But you know what does over
(14:48):
time. So if you're if youneed extra money, you know, do
some overtime. I don't know howhow that would fit into the military,
but I think there's ways of tryingto get extra money that doesn't involve,
you know, illegal stuff. Yeah. Well, I wanted to share this
with the community because I think it'simportant to know and ever since we've been
(15:11):
doing this first writea is with theFBI all the different types of situations people
are listening and their understanding in thisone. Because we are a border town
that's we have a lot of militaryhere, I think it's a pretty big
deal for people to add that tosituational awareness. Is there anything else you
would like to share? Yeah,So again to help us help the community,
(15:35):
right, one of the most importantthings is to report crimes, right,
So if you see something you know, reach out to our website.
We have plenty of tip lines.We also have the website for Stop West
Texasgangs dot Org. Again, there'svarious tip lines that we also have through
our website. You know, also, if you suspect that there's a a
service member that's a gang member andyou could be a threat to our national
(15:58):
security, report it, right.You can report it, you can remain
anonymous, and we can look intoit, right, but be specific about
what this person is doing or whatthe allegation is. You know, if
you think he's a gang member andhe's posing on social media and he's throwing
all the signs and everything just left, so we'll look into it and we'll
keep you out of it. LikeI said, there's many ways that we
(16:21):
try to essentially kick out that memberso that he doesn't cause any issues.
Also, also, I think that'sthat's probably the most important thing. And
you know, just let the communityknow that we're very hard at work.
I think people would be surprised athow many hours the typical FBI agent on
gangs puts towards the job. Imean, I have guys that literally work
(16:41):
Monday through Monday, that are hardat work and trying to keep the community
safe. And we have some wehave some pretty cool stuff coming up,
and I think you guys will hearabout it. So okay, oh you
said so to say one, canwe expect it? Well, we never
give a time, right, Iknow we have several you guys keep giving
(17:03):
me limited information, but I understand, I understand. Yeah, we have
some stuff coming up that I thinkthe community will be very happy. Is
community impact type? Okay, okay, Well, I appreciate you for coming
on. Can you that website again, it's stop West Texasgangs dot org.
Yes, okay, okay. We'lldefinitely share all the other websites also with
(17:25):
everyone. But I really truly thankyou for coming on and sharing this with
us, and I'm sure you'll beback with this project. I'm sure whatever
is, So let us know howwe in the community can help to thank you.
So Carlos, tell us a littlebit about yourself before we get into our
topic of the day, which isgangs in the military. All right,
So my name is Carlos Amanadas.I am with the FBI. I'm a
supervisor for the gang Section, andI've been in law enforcement for sixteen years,
eight of those years here locally withthe Opaca Police Department. I worked
everything from patrol to I was adetective. I worked attack, which is
(00:25):
burglary robberies, and I also workhomicides. And in the FBI, I
have been doing gangs for eight years. Okay, so we're going to get
right into it. So tell usabout the presence of gangs within the military
and particularly here along the border inAlpaso. All right, So here in
in Opasso, we have just aboutevery gang that you can think of,
(00:45):
but I think we see higher trendsamongst the black gangs, like the Bloods,
the Crips, and every variation thereof, because it's not just you know,
one group. You have many sexwithin these groups, and then you
also have bundi those and we've seensome bad us take us as well mixed
in there. So we do havea good mix of all these gangs in
(01:08):
the military, and I'm going tocome back to this other question. Let
me just keep straight here. Whatare the most common types of things?
I would say probably the two biggerones are the bloods and the crypts and
the military. Yes, and wellhere locally here like with the all and
all the sex that they come with. So what are some of the key
(01:30):
challenges the FBI places when it comesto addressing gang activity. So there's there's
a bunch of challenges that we have. One of them is that they've evolved,
right, So you have things likesocial media and encryption. I think
that's that's a huge one. Encryptionmeaning that you know, they've they've come
onto our trip to our techniques,right, and so they'll use more of
(01:53):
the encrypted stuff. We can alwaysget around it, but it makes it
harder to investigate. So you know, that's one of the challenges that law
enforcement in general face when dealing with, you know, people using WhatsApp and
stuff like that. We also havegangs that have evolved. They're very decentralized
now, so you don't see thetypical hierarchy where there's one guy at the
(02:15):
top kind of running everything. Youkind of have these cells, and even
enemies or gangs that are enemies thatare supposed to be working with each other
or supposed to be fighting each otherare working together. I mean, you
see really bizarre stuff. But gangshave evolved. So that's another chance that
we have. On top of that, we especially as it pertains to the
(02:37):
military, we see a lot offinancial crimes. So gangs are kind of
shifting from that. You know,their primary they still make a lot of
money from narcotics and stuff like that, but which is your traditional stuff.
But now they're also getting involved ina financial crime, which is like bank
fraud. I don't want to expectedI guess the technical part of it.
(02:58):
So when you say they evolve,that includes like you know, internet and
exactly a lot of Internet scams.Okay, I don't think most people think
about that when you say gangs,No one I think relates it to technology.
Yeah, but we've seen a hugetrend towards that. Ok So,
how does the gangs in military lifediffer from traditional street gangs. One of
(03:22):
the bigges things is training, Right, So here you know you have somebody
in the military, they receive yearsand years of training where it's firearms training.
How to handle certain equipment and stufflike that. So I think that's
that's probably the biggest difference. Usuallywhen when a military guy goes bad,
it goes bad, right, Sothat's where you have the really bad consequences.
(03:43):
And we'll get into some examples later. Yeah, with the impact of
how it is with border security,you know, how is the overall security
situation here in the All passa regionas far as border security, I mean,
I'm not going to say it's ahuge, huge problem, right,
like that we should be extremely,extremely worried about, but it certainly impacts
(04:04):
us, right. So one ofthe examples that I can give is whenever
you have a shooting, right,I can give you an example that happened,
you know, maybe about eight yearsago. It was a service member
who was a gang member. Hewent into one of the clubs downtown and
he got kicked out of the club, you know, because he was causing
(04:24):
a problem there. He went backto his car, he came back,
and he sprayed the whole place.He ended up, you know, shooting
seven people. One of them wasalmost killed, and then several others were
hit by fragments and or you know, non lethal hits. So anytime you
have an impact like that, youknow you have unintended consequences. Right,
(04:45):
people don't want to go out,they don't feel safe, you know,
Tourism maybe impacted stuff like that ingeneral. And then not too long ago,
maybe about a year ago, wehad a service member that went to
Mexico and killed his girlfriend and hewas also so suspected to be involved in
alien smuggling. So anytime you haveyou know that type of violence, it
(05:05):
impacts the area, whether you likeit or not. Because people read the
news, you know, you havea lot of warnings that get put out.
So anytime there's like an increase inviolence or anything of that nature,
you see people are wary about goingout and doing things. Another question is,
you know, I probably didn't purposeit before, but is it more
(05:27):
prevalent along the border when it comesto the gangs in the military. So
I have another example, right,So we have we had a case where
it was an ex service member.So this guy had just retired from the
military. He used his training andeverything that came with that, and he
was milling out guns right left andright ars and he was sending them down
(05:48):
south to the to the cartels.So he was selling all these weapons,
and so what happens is you haveessentially you have somebody supplying weapons to the
cartels because that's what they need tofight their wars against each other over there,
and so it destabilizes the region,right, So that's a huge,
(06:08):
huge thing. Like I mean,if you want to go to Mexico,
right, the Department of State hasthese issues, these warnings where hey,
it's safe to go or it's notsafe to go, please avoid these areas
of Mexico and things like that.So it impacts travel, it impacts tourism.
There's a lot of unintended consequences becauseyou know, these weapons are making
(06:30):
it out there. So we're inthe border and it's a unique problem.
You're typically not going to see alot of movement of weapons, and you
know, cities that are up northand you see it more towards the border.
They get these people to either facilitatethe transportation of weapons south and the
(06:50):
consequences is pretty severe. Yeah,I have a good question. So do
you believe that some of the gangslike they encourage their members to join the
military specifically for that Other than anecdotalevidence, I don't think that's a.
I wouldn't say that's a huge trend. Yeah, I can't think of an
instance where we we've talked to agang member and they specifically say, hey,
(07:15):
you can certainly see why they would, right, So, but I
don't think there's any real evidence tosay that that gangs are encouraging their members
to join. I think also themilitary does a pretty decent job of weeding
out people with criminal histories with youknow, feloniese and so a lot of
(07:35):
these members do have that background,so it's harder for them to join after
they're in a gang, if thatmakes sense, right. But a lot
of times, you know, theydo get members that join that have none
of that. So you can havea little bit of that. But are
(07:56):
there any other examples of well,I'm you know, A really good example
was last year, I think maybeackaround August, we were doing a suppression
initiative with our partners that includes Ithink even the RBCID and EPPD and just
every agency that works out at theTexas Anti Gang Center. We're doing the
(08:18):
suppression and we're going out to barsin the area monitoring for gang activity,
and one of our agents came acrossan individual at a bar that again got
kicked out. He was a servicemember. They were watching him very closely
because some remarks were made, andhe goals to his car and pulls out
(08:39):
a rifle, racks it, andthen proceeds heading back towards the bar.
Right. So, obviously our agentsdid what they needed to. EPPD was
on scene. They stopped the guy. But can you imagine what could have
happened? Right, So, there'salways little things like that that are always
happy thing that can be prevented.But that's another incident where I can think
(09:03):
of that. Like I said,when a service member goes back because of
his training and everything. I meanhe was I think the guy was even
you know, doing the tactical walkon his way back. It's like one
or two in the morning, andyou know, he was definitely probably not
having good intentions. Right. Sowe've had situations like that in the past
(09:26):
and somebody using their training to hurtpeople. I thought this was a good
topic for us because I don't thinkpeople believe that this happens like it's right
now, like it's occurring now.So is that the case, because I
know we're talking about it right now, but it's because some of this may
be recent. Yeah, no,no, I mean stuff is always happening.
(09:48):
Like the financial fraud, it's soprevalent and involves a lot of service
members that are doing that. Theyget their family members to help out,
our friends, acquaintances, a lotof recruitment through Facebook. So we have
a lot of that right now.Can you give to the more examples of
maybe the financial part of that.So have you I don't know if you've
(10:11):
heard of the fraud Bible? No, have you heard of it? Okay,
So if you look it up,you'll see it's like essentially like a
bible is just full of all sortsof scams, right, so it goes
through different variations on how to scampeople, how to scam banks, how
to scam other people. If youlook it up, you know, so
essentially it's down the line all thoselittle trick tips and tricks that these members
(10:35):
use to try to make some moneythrough scams. I'm going to look that
up to see, not that Iwant to do it, just to see
to be aware of because it's verygood to be you know, like you
could be participating in it without it. Yeah, usually you should know if
it's too good to be true.It probably is, but I think so
many people trust people in the military, so it's like, oh no,
(10:58):
they're soldier, they can't be doingany of this. So that's why I
think this conversation is good. Sothat's what I'm going to be promoted.
Just to be careful. You neverknow what are the FBI strategies for disrupting
gang networks within the military on theborder view, So we have a lot
of liaison. So our strategy iswe liaison with the folks on base.
(11:22):
Anytime that we suspect service member isa gang member, we're very quick to
try to act on that. Wecan either get them federally or we can
get them through the Code of MilitaryJustice. Right. So the military is
very good because they're not supposed tobe associating with gangs and so they have
all these rules that they can useagainst the service member to get them out,
(11:46):
right, So we use that.So we have a lot of liaisons,
and if there's an actual crime thattook place, you know, you
know, for the ones that arehey, we just think this guy is
he's a gang member, he's posing, he's doing everything that's indicative of gang
membership, we forward that information tothe folks on base and need to know
(12:07):
it on e CID, and we'regood about trying to get them kicked down.
Some of them even have clearances andstuff like that. So it's it
can be a conflict. Well,how does the FBI work with other law
enforcement agencies such as military police andlocal police departments when it comes to combating
gang activity. So, like Isaid, we have monthly meetings at the
(12:31):
text antig Accenter sponsored by the HAIDA, which is a high intensity Drug Trafficking
Area group and essentially and that's wherewe share all the information. We discuss
the trends, what's going on,and so we try to address those accordingly.
Well, can you share some successfuljoint operations or intelligence sharing efforts that
(12:54):
have led to maybe arrest or prosecutionsof gang members without really giving any actual
example, the I think that theclosest thing would be, like, for
example, let's say somebody in thatmeeting says, hey, you might want
to talk to this person because thatperson might have information on a particular gang,
whether it's you know, somebody fromBOP or from the state prison that
(13:18):
he's like, hey, this gangmember might have info and he might may
want to talk to you guys,and so we'll go out and we'll talk,
and we've had a lot of successwith that type of sharing. What
advice would you give to members ofthe military who may be at risk of
gang recruitment or involvement. That's adifficult question, but I think idleness is
(13:43):
the devil's workshop. Have you everheard of that? Saying? Right,
So, a lot of times theseindividuals that get placed here through the military,
they get stationed here, they tendto be single, they tend they
tend to be from out of town. So stay busy, right, and
try to instance yourself from individuals thatdo kind of exhibit that type of behavior,
(14:03):
because even though you may not beinvolved in it, but you know,
they tend to be like the popularguys that that very charismatic and have
this tough personality, and so avoidthat type of engaging that in that type
of behavior. I'm not going tosay avoid all night life, but it
certainly helps to listen to what themilitary advices. You know, they have
(14:26):
certain bars that they prohibit service membersfrom going. So if they tell you
don't go there, don't go there. And also, you know, participate
in different activities right, organize recreationalactivities, things that are healthy for the
for the body and for the mind. And you know, crime doesn't pay,
It does not, It really doesn't. But you know what does over
(14:48):
time. So if you're if youneed extra money, you know, do
some overtime. I don't know howhow that would fit into the military,
but I think there's ways of tryingto get extra money that doesn't involve,
you know, illegal stuff. Yeah. Well, I wanted to share this
with the community because I think it'simportant to know and ever since we've been
(15:11):
doing this first writea is with theFBI all the different types of situations people
are listening and their understanding in thisone. Because we are a border town
that's we have a lot of militaryhere, I think it's a pretty big
deal for people to add that tosituational awareness. Is there anything else you
would like to share? Yeah,So again to help us help the community,
(15:35):
right, one of the most importantthings is to report crimes, right,
So if you see something you know, reach out to our website.
We have plenty of tip lines.We also have the website for Stop West
Texasgangs dot Org. Again, there'svarious tip lines that we also have through
our website. You know, also, if you suspect that there's a a
service member that's a gang member andyou could be a threat to our national
(15:58):
security, report it, right.You can report it, you can remain
anonymous, and we can look intoit, right, but be specific about
what this person is doing or whatthe allegation is. You know, if
you think he's a gang member andhe's posing on social media and he's throwing
all the signs and everything just left, so we'll look into it and we'll
keep you out of it. LikeI said, there's many ways that we
(16:21):
try to essentially kick out that memberso that he doesn't cause any issues.
Also, also, I think that'sthat's probably the most important thing. And
you know, just let the communityknow that we're very hard at work.
I think people would be surprised athow many hours the typical FBI agent on
gangs puts towards the job. Imean, I have guys that literally work
(16:41):
Monday through Monday, that are hardat work and trying to keep the community
safe. And we have some wehave some pretty cool stuff coming up,
and I think you guys will hearabout it. So okay, oh you
said so to say one, canwe expect it? Well, we never
give a time, right, Iknow we have several you guys keep giving
(17:03):
me limited information, but I understand, I understand. Yeah, we have
some stuff coming up that I thinkthe community will be very happy. Is
community impact type? Okay, okay, Well, I appreciate you for coming
on. Can you that website again, it's stop West Texasgangs dot org.
Yes, okay, okay. We'lldefinitely share all the other websites also with
(17:25):
everyone. But I really truly thankyou for coming on and sharing this with
us, and I'm sure you'll beback with this project. I'm sure whatever
is, So let us know howwe in the community can help to thank you.
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