Tag: crime

Lawmakers Debate Whether Marijuana Legalization Helps Or Hurts Organized Crime At Hearing On Chinese-Linked Illicit Grows

A GOP-led House committee held a hearing on Thursday focused on Chinese criminal organizations behind large-scale illicit marijuana grows, taking testimony from a group of law enforcement officials and a researcher who each attempted to link the issue to state-level legalization.

But one Democratic lawmaker took the opportunity to make the case for cannabis rescheduling and broader federal reform to mitigate the issue.

The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, & Accountability hearing was titled “Invasion of the Homeland: How China is Using Illegal Marijuana to Build a Criminal Network Across America.”

While there was some talk among experts and lawmakers about differentiating state-sanctioned cannabis cultivation from the illicit market, the conversation largely skewed prohibitionist. Witnesses included a former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, top Oklahoma law enforcement official and a researcher with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK) said in his opening remarks that “we’ve enabled these foreign organizations with potential links to the [Chinese Community Party, or CCP] to build up a sophisticated network throughout the United States, which facilitates a wide range of other criminal activity and presents a national security threat.”

“This is a convergence of organized crime, human drug trafficking, public health risks—all operating at scale and sophistication crossing the state national lines beyond the normal capabilities of state and local law enforcement to combat,” he said. “These agencies need the help of federal law enforcement to unravel these criminal networks.”

Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA), however, spoke about the collateral consequences of prohibition, saying the “federal government’s decision to criminalize marijuana has been nothing short of disastrous for our communities, for our economy and for justice in America.”

“The failed war against cannabis has especially devastated Black and brown communities. Arrest and incarceration rates for marijuana offenses have been wildly disproportionate,” he said. “Today, with most Americans supporting legalization, it is past time that we acknowledge the truth: Marijuana prohibition has failed.”

“If we want to dismantle foreign criminal networks and protect American communities, then we need to strengthen, not weaken, regulated markets,” Carter said.

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Man With Rifle Looking For Louisiana’s Republican Attorney General Taken Into Custody

A man with a rifle was taken into custody after he showed up to the Livingston Building looking for Louisiana’s Republican Attorney General on Wednesday.

“There is not an active shooter in or around the Livingston Building. The situation is under control. An individual in custody. There are no other details at this time,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said on X.

The suspect has not been identified at this time.

Per WBRZ:

Officials from the AG’s office said the Louisiana Department of Justice received information that a subject possibly suffering from emotional distress was coming to the Attorney General’s Office and was believed to be in possession of a rifle. Security protocols were initiated and the subject was located near the State Capitol.

The person was “very cooperative and just wanted to speak to agents about a situation and to file a complaint.” They were then interviewed by the AG’s office. He lawfully possessed a firearm in his vehicle and he committed no criminal acts, so he was later released.

There was no police presence at the Attorney General‘s office shortly after Murrill’s social media post.

There is not an active shooter in or around the Livingston Building. The situation is under control. An individual in custody. There are no other details at this time.

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America’s wokest DA launches shocking new soft-on-crime policy set to make Minneapolis even more dangerous

A District Attorney dubbed the ‘wokest’ in the country has launched a new ‘soft-on-crime’ policy that is set to make her city even more dangerous.

The controversial change introduced by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty takes effect October 15.

Under the new policy, if police pull someone over for a minor issue like a broken taillight and then find illegal drugs or a gun, the county attorney’s office will no longer press charges. 

Moriarty is unapologetic, claiming the stops disproportionately target black and brown drivers, rarely result in serious convictions and are ineffective at recovering contraband or improving safety.

‘Non-public-safety traffic stops do not protect public safety, and they actively harm our community,’ Moriarty said on Wednesday. ‘This policy is grounded in research and best practices.

‘This policy is grounded in research and best practices that clearly demonstrate these stops deeply undermine community trust, which has a significant negative impact on law enforcement’s ability to investigate crime and our ability to prosecute cases.’

Under the new policy, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office will decline to prosecute felony charges, including weapons or narcotics possession, if they result from stops based solely on infractions like a broken headlight, missing side mirror, or cracked windshield. 

Exceptions will be made only in cases involving clear public safety threats.

Other infractions that will now be overlooked include, expired plates, a broken tail light, items dangling from the rearview mirror, excessively tinted windows, failure to signal a turn and a dim license plate light.

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Woman charged in shooting at Illinois state senator’s home; attack not politically motivated, police say

A woman has been charged with firing shots that damaged two homes Tuesday morning in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, including the home of Illinois state Sen. Meg Loughran Cappel

Dana Thompson, 32, of Hammond, Indiana, has been charged with two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, and one count of aggravated possession of a firearm in a vehicle.

Police said the shootings were not politically motivated, and no one was injured.

Shortly before 5 a.m. Tuesday, officers responded to a report of gunfire in the area of Ca Crest Drive and Highland Drive, but were not able to locate anyone who had been shot, or any evidence of damage.

About two hours later, police received a call from the 500 block of Bethany Drive, a short distance away from the first call, where a house had been damaged by gunshots. Police found three bullet holes from a small caliber firearm. No one in the home was injured.

Police then received a call that Cappel’s home, about a half mile away, had been damaged by a single gunshot.

Based on surveillance video footage from several homes and license plate reader technology, detectives were able to identify the vehicle used in the shooting, and Thompson was taken into custody within 30 minutes in south suburban Lansing, near the Indiana state line.

During questioning, Thompson confessed to the shootings, and said her intended target was an estranged relative who lives in the area. Police said the shooting was not politically motivated, and Thompson was not at the home she intended to target.

Cappel said she’s relieved the accused shooter is in custody.

“I’m able to speak about this because I’m an elected official, and I really wanted to talk about it first and foremost because the rumor mill is going,” she said. “The first thing we think about now is that it could be a politically motivated thing. So, to know that it’s not is a total relief. And actually what’s more of a relief for our family is that they caught the person.”

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Man who killed 3 officers in York County was camouflaged, shooting from cornfield: report

New developments surrounding the shooter who killed three police officers reveal he allegedly ambushed officers from a nearby cornfield, according to a report from CNN.

Officials state three police officers were shot and killed while serving a warrant at a residence on the 1800 block of Haar Road Wednesday afternoon. Another two law enforcement officers were injured.

The shooter was reportedly the ex-boyfriend of a woman who lived in the farmhouse on the 1800 block of Haar Road, according to multiple law enforcement officials in communication with CNN.

The ex-girlfriend had previously alerted police about the shooter on Tuesday, saying that he was in a nearby cornfield stalking the residence, according to CNN. Northern York Police then got a search warrant and restraining order for him, but were unable to serve him on Tuesday night.

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Fugitive Vaccine Researcher Behind Infamous ‘No Autism Link’ Study ARRESTED for Stealing $1 Million from CDC

Breitbart News has reported that Poul Thorsen, the Danish researcher whose work has been used for two decades to dismiss any link between vaccines and autism, has finally been arrested in Germany after more than a decade as a fugitive.

Thorsen, 64, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta in 2011 on 22 counts of wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors allege that from 2004 to 2010, he stole more than $1 million in CDC research funds—money intended to study autism, infant disabilities, genetic disorders, and fetal alcohol syndrome. According to the indictment, Thorsen funneled funds into his own accounts using fraudulent invoices on CDC letterhead.

He has been on the HHS “Most Wanted” list for over a decade. Acting on an INTERPOL red notice, German authorities finally took him into custody in June. The Department of Justice is now working with Germany to extradite him for trial in the United States.

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If Mental Health Experts Can’t Identify Murderers, What’s The Backup Plan?

A profound mental health crisis lies at the heart of violence in America. Decarlos Brown Jr., the man who brutally stabbed to death the Ukrainian woman in Charlotte, North Carolina, was in a mental hospital earlier this year, and diagnosed with schizophrenia. But doctors wouldn’t have released him if they had viewed him as a danger to himself or others.

Similarly, the killers at Minneapolis’ Annunciation Catholic School and Nashville’s Covenant School both struggled with mental illness. Nearly all mass shooters also battled suicidal thoughts.

“We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health,” Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles warned after the stabbing death. “Mental health disease is just that – a disease. It needs to be treated with the same compassion.” After the Minneapolis attack, House Speaker Mike Johnson underscored the issue: “The problem is the human heart. It’s mental health. There are things that we can do.”

Yet, despite the fact that more than half of mass public shooters over the past 25 years were already under the care of mental health professionals, not a single one was identified as a danger to themselves or others. An entire body of academic research now explores why mental health experts so often fail to predict these attacks.

When professionals cannot identify threats before tragedy strikes, society must ask: What is the backup plan?

The Minneapolis school murderer admitted: “I am severely depressed and have been suicidal for years.” After the Nashville school shooting, police concluded the killer was “highly depressed and highly suicidal throughout her life.” Yet even with regular psychiatric care, experts found no signs of homicidal or suicidal intent.

The 2022 Buffalo supermarket killer showed the same pattern. In June 2021, when asked about his future plans, he answered that he wanted to attend summer school, murder people there, and then commit suicide. Alarmed, his teacher sent him for evaluation by two mental health professionals. He told them it was a joke, and they let him go. Later he admitted: “I got out of it because I stuck with the story that I was getting out of class and I just stupidly wrote that down. It was not a joke, I wrote that down because that’s what I was planning to do.”

Many well-known mass killers saw psychiatrists before their attacks. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, was himself an Army psychiatrist. Elliot Rodger (Santa Barbara) had received years of high-level counseling, but like the Buffalo killer, Rodger simply knew not to reveal his true intentions. The Army psychiatrist who last saw Ivan Lopez (the second Fort Hood shooter) concluded there was no “sign of likely violence, either to himself or to others.”

Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes’ psychiatrist did warn University of Colorado officials about Holmes’ violent fantasies shortly before his attack, but even she dismissed the threat as insufficient for custody. And both a court-appointed psychologist and a hospital psychiatrist found Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho posed no danger to himself or others.

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Review of domestic terrorism after Kirk’s murder shows Biden politicized issue, intel, fudged data

Auseful picture of the domestic terrorism threat in America in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk has not yet come into focus, as the actual threat-scape has been muddled by the politicization of intelligence and by an overbroad use of the phrase “domestic terrorism.”

A review of the Biden administration’s application of the phrase shows that the phrase was used as a justification for targeting January 6 rioters, parents concerned about what their children were being taught in schools, and a wildly uneven treatment of those groups when compared to the widespread violence and destruction caused by Antifa and other progressive groups. 

The issue came to light as authorities announced last week that they had arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson in connection to the killing of Kirk, a popular conservative influencer and ally of President Donald Trump. Robinson allegedly gunned down Kirk last Wednesday at Utah Valley University. Kirk’s murder comes after two attempted assassinations of Trump and years of the Biden administration pointing to the January 6 riots and claiming “rightwing” extremism or “domestic terrorism” as the main domestic threat facing the U.S. 

Nonetheless, it took the FBI years to acknowledge that the mass shooting at a Republican congressional group practicing baseball —  by self-professed “Bernie Bro” James T. Hodgkinson — was an act of domestic terror.

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What’s happening in red state Utah? Another left-wing terror plot unfolds…

Utah isn’t exactly the place most people picture when they think of trans chaos and furry extremism. It’s one of the reddest, most religious states in the country, a place where family, faith, and tradition are supposed to be the backbone of everyday life. But beneath that squeaky-clean surface, something very disturbing has been festering… and the house of cards came crashing down after the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk.

We now know that the killer wasn’t some lone drifter with no ties to the left. Instead, his personal life points straight to a growing underground scene in Utah that most Americans have no clue about. In the one of the reddest states in the union, there exists a tangled web of transgender activism and furry subculture. This is the foundation of all toxic  and rage and confusion we’ve seen fueling violence over and over. Sadly, we’ve all watched this trans-rage play out so many times before. The trans movement was never about “acceptance” and “inclusion.” It’s a powder keg of anger, confusion, mental illness, and violence. And now Utah, of all places, is being drowning in it.

But here’s where things take another dark turn.

Just days after Charlie’s assassination, Utah was rocked again. Two Middle Eastern men in Salt Lake City were arrested by the FBI for attempting to blow up a news van with an incendiary device. The van was reporting on the Charlie Kirk assassination.

When federal agents moved in, they found anti-Trump flags and banners hanging outside, including one that chillingly read: “Is he dead yet?” This looks like yet another deliberate act of political violence, carried out in the shadow of a conservative leader’s brutal assassination in front of his wife and kids.

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“I’ve Never Experienced Crime Of This Magnitude Before”: 20-Year Veteran Austrian Police Spox

More than 30 victims of a Syrian youth gang, known as “505,” have been recorded n the cities of Graz and Vienna.

The suspects range in age from 17 to 20, with police reporting they dealt a “severe blow” to the group with mass arrests.

“I’ve never experienced a dimension (of crime) of this magnitude before, and I’ve been in this business for 20 years,” said police spokesman Fritz Grundnig.

The organized gang is accused of a long series of extremely violent assaults between November 2024 and June 2025, mostly in Graz. Styrian police have released details to the national media about the group, including their involvement in the narcotics trade.

“A total of over 20 crimes have been reported, with over 30 victims injured and assaulted by this gang,” said Grundnig.

“The men are suspected of having intentionally committed grievous bodily harm, aggravated assault, robberies, dangerous threats, and coercion in Graz since the end of 2024, with varying degrees of involvement, and of having joined forces in a criminal organization,” an additional press release reads. The investigation revealed that the “505” group used blunt and stabbing weapons. Among the victims were minors, according to media outlet Die Presse.

Despite the gang being focused in Graz, a number of arrests were made in Vienna as well.

Many victims faced extreme violence.

“For example, in June, the group stabbed another man at Griesplatz. He suffered a stab wound in the thigh,” Grundnig reported.

The police spokesperson also said that the gang is involved in the narcotics trade.

“During the house searches, which were of course carried out as part of this operation, a considerable quantity of drugs was found,” he stated.

The gang apparently named itself after another Arab clan gang, which participated in brutal clashes between Chechens, Turks, and Syrians, who gathered under the name 505 or 505/515, in Vienna in 2024.

Those clashes saw gun battles, multiple stabbings, and routine violence.

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