Just a quick post to let everyone know that for the next few weeks, book promo activity will taper off until this fall, when a number of speaking engagements will be announced. For now, I’ll be spending more time on my other blog, Security in Latin America.

My publicist just emailed to say that the book has been listed on Amazon’s “mover and shaker” list! Over night, the book jumped from a sales rank of somewhere in the mid-5,000 range to #166! This is exciting news!

We’ll see how this rank holds as the week progresses…

287(g): This otherwise obscure code for a federal program means very little to most people.

But for those individuals who are illegally residing in the United States to work for a time, or those who are in the U.S. legally and still worried about deportation, for any number of reasons, this number is very important.

It is a federal program that allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deputize local law enforcement so they may legally arrest someone simply for being an illegal alien. The feds then place a “detention” on them, streamlining them for deportation.

I blogged about the fallacies of this program recently on my other blog, Security in Latin America, drawing largely from an excellent post at Standing Firm.

Now, on Friday, the DHS announced that it was expanding the 287(g) program, but that local law enforcement should focus on major crimes (threats to public security), not use the program as a “guise to initiate removal proceedings“.

At least one editorial criticizes this program’s expansion, argueing that DHS should “deep-six” the program, and citing a Police Foundation study that concludes the costly program is not worth the money.

I have to agree with the NYT. I think this program should be scrapped and replaced by a fresh policy regime that muzzles ICE agents, preventing them from staging raids on hard working illegal immigrants and channelling their energy and resources on going after serious public security threats, such as members of the MS-13.

Echoing the NYT, I wanted to add that many Sheriffs and policemen across the country have resisted joining this program for a number of reasons, including budgeting, but others, such as Sheriff Arpaio in Phoenix have taken this program beyond what I think even the Bush administration intended - a classic case of unintended consequences.

Moving forward, we will have to see how the implementation of this new edict for an old program trickles down to the street. But with growing numbers of Latino street gang members across the country and shrinking budgets, it’s important that law enforcement focuses on the worst-case criminals first, like the guys who shot a young man in San Francisco for wearing red, before they go after undocumented farm hands or carpenters.

Talk show hosts have asked me many times about success(es) at the federal level to crackdown on the MS-13. Here’s one example.

Late last week, the Crime blog on the Dallas Morning News website posted a short piece on Operation FALCON.

“…the sweep picked up the fugitives over the course of several days. Included in the North Texas haul were suspected MS-13 gang member Giovanni Najarro, who was arrested on federal firearms charges and accused murderer Santiago Rubio, the primary suspect in the execution-style slaying of Alfredo Hernandez Goana inside a Dallas pool hall in October 2008.”

FALCON stands for Federal And Local Cops Organized Nationally, and is an excellent example of the successes derived from federal/local communication. Again from the Crime blog:

“Nationwide, Operation FALCON netted more than 35,000 fugitives. This is the fifth year of the operation, which has now seen the arrest of more than 91,000 outlaws.”

I don’t know how many MS-13 guys have been caught up in this net, but it’s probably a safe bet to say that a fair share have been pulled off the streets as a result of this operation. Soon, I’d like to blog about Operation Community Shield.

Fortunately no early shows today…

1. WJFK/FM - Washington - Big O and Dukes - 11:00AM - listen to the show here.

2. LATalk Radio - Sam & Suzy - 12:30PM - listen to the show here (segment starts at about 0:32.00)

In today’s SF Chronicle, a tragic story ran on the MS-13 and the tragic death of a hard working young man, killed because he was wearing red, cops say.

In Daly City (see photo), Moises Frias Jr. and a few other friends were in a Buick at a stop light  near the BART metro stop, when two alleged members of the MS-13 jumped out of their car and sprayed the car with an AK-47 and a pistol before jumping back in the stolen Honda and driving away.

The focus of the story is the fact that one of Moises’ friends was wearing red, the color of the norteños. The MS-13 is a sureños aligned gang; their color is blue, so they “carry the blue” in gang parlance.

But this doesn’t mean they attack everyone wearing red.

I suspect there is something the journalist is not telling us, or something the cops are not telling the journalists.

As tragic as this story may be, it seems unlikely to me that two MS-13 members would lie in wait for some random person in red to pull up to a stop light before attacking them. Then again, it is possible that these guys are that stupid.

There is a lot we don’t know about these MS-13 guys, and about Moises, who unfortunately died from his gunshot wounds on the way to the nearest medical center.

I can tell you that within the MS-13, Hondas are favored over other cars for theft because they have a number of spaces where guns can easily hide out of sight. I can also say that SF is likely a growing battle ground for the MS-13, a sureño gang, and any norteño gangs in the future.

I’ll keep an eye out for more stories on this shooting or MS-13 activity in the SF area, adding them as updates to this post

Thanks Jonathan for sending this one over!

It’s 7AM, and I’ve already had one live interview. Maybe it was a little too early to talk about violent street gangs?

Today’s line up contains mostly taped shows, with the exception of The Brad Davis Show on  Talk of Connecticut at 9:10AM (15 minutes live).

I have to admit, live shows are more fun. And there’s no way to know when the taped shows will be aired!