Triple the Circus for 2022
2023 Promising to be Even Worse
Hello friends,
Thought we’d share some statistics from the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office that will be appearing this week in the Kinney County Post, and have also been disseminated in a couple other spots— though not sure if we’ve seen them published yet, except in a brief reference on some Sinclair TV stations.
In general, they all indicate that 2022 was roughly 3 times as active as the two preceding years.
It bears pointing out-- that the numbers for 2020 and 2021 were outrageous all by themselves, with many residents and local law enforcement feeling all but overwhelmed and compelled to try and do something about it, as we’ve been documenting here at the Dispatch, and others have also covered elsewhere.
As bad as those preceding years were, 2022 is forcing a redefinition of expectations and perhaps also elasticity.
Total Felony Arrests for anything and everything in Kinney County:
2020: 125
2021: 108
2022: 877
Alien Apprehensions, including those turned over to Border Patrol:
2020: 1124
2021: 1,006
2022: 3,192
Smugglers Arrested:
2020: 169
2021: 181
2022: 741
High Speed Pursuits:
2020: 61
2021: 59
2022: 139
And finally, in a 9-month period at the end of 2022, at least 21,000 suspected illegal aliens have been counted on Operation Drawbridge cameras moving on foot either inside Kinney County, or on trails and passages that lead into the county. To the Sheriff's knowledge, none have been apprehended, and their whereabouts today are unknown.
Long time readers may recall our description about how the Operation Draw Bridge numbers are arrived at. But, basically, the Sheriff sits down almost every morning with a massive figurative stack of emails and begins counting the heads of those visible on the motion activated cameras hidden around the area.
It is exactly how such numbers are arrived at in Border Patrol, one imagines, given that’s where the bulk of the Sheriff’s Law Enforcement training has been. But we digress.
It must be noted that the cameras and sensors are not perfect. Sometimes they activate and no one is visible. A group may have been small enough to pass through the field of view before the camera triggered. Sometimes the images are suggestive of a partial capture— some of a group on camera, and others not.
The only ones counted are those visible.
It is a very time consuming process— and something the Sheriff will sometimes abandon when other matters are too urgent, hence the fact that he’s only totaled up 9-months worth of counts, and capped it at “at least 21,000.”
The fact is you could probably increase that number by a third and be relatively accurate.
It should also be noted that these statistics do not include the efforts of DPS or Border Patrol in Kinney County.
A lot of folks have been carrying on about President Biden’s visit to El Paso. We don’t have much to say about it ourselves.
We haven’t even done a terribly exhaustive search of the web for a full-spectrum of “takes.”
Here’s Byron York, in the Washington Examiner, laying out why he thinks Biden is making things even worse. We don’t see much we disagree with in his piece.
It is what it is. A distraction at best— an enabling factor at worst, that will only lead to more chaos and misery as migrants rush to register for CBP-One, get rejected, and decide to come anyway, because why not?
It will lead to more opportunities for certain border lawmakers to try and push for more tent cities and more processing facilities, rightfully calculating that it’s a great opportunity to “hook” their districts on more government jobs and pork.
We are awkwardly likening them to drug pushers here. It’s difficult. Some of these lawmakers are quite likeable. And we like likeable people, for the most part. It’s kind of interesting to note— but the criticism of border counties getting hooked on border enforcement dollars is one that first came to our attention from the left side of the political spectrum, levying it against Kinney County.
It is just our opinion, but we believe Kinney County government would much rather not be responsible for the Operation Lone Star funding coming its way, as they try to deal with and help absorb this border crisis.
It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of responsibility. And there are many potential pitfalls, with highly educated people and well-connected organizations ready to pounce at the first misstep. It seems to us that folks around here would much prefer to be living back in 2010, worrying about the deer population and getting enough water out into the pastures for livestock.
Weird.
In any event, one could argue that these likeable border lawmakers are simply bowing to some sort of inevitability and making the best of it. Why shouldn’t border area towns get some kind of assistance if this chaos is inevitable, seems to be how the internal bargaining might go.
But why? Why is it inevitable? Is it truly some inescapable thing? Many say it isn’t.
We have our own opinion of course— we ask the question, because such questions must be voiced out loud, if only to “hear” how ridiculous the propositions we are being presented are.
Nothing is inevitable if people are ultimately determined to say no. Witness what happened during the recent Coronation fandango of Kevin McCarthy in the House of Representatives.
And finally this morning, an interesting piece caught our eye in the Texas Tribune. It doesn’t really impact the Border Crisis directly, but it has a lot to say about independent journalism.
It concerns a woman well known in the Laredo area, called La Gordiloca, who has made a name for herself the last ten years or so— chasing spot news around Laredo and streaming it live on Facebook.
She’s at the center of controversy there— as local police have apparently tried to stymie her efforts.
Her situation promises all sorts of potential ramifications for the 1st amendment and what people can and can’t do in a public space with a video camera.
La Gordiloca became a feature of the Laredo market sometime long after our tenure there. We might’ve been working in Austin already by the time we first heard of her. She’s been criticized for accuracy in the past.
But, one could criticize everyone for accuracy in the Laredo market, and rightfully so at one time or another. Back in the 90s, a comedy of errors led the editor of the local paper there to publish something he must not have bothered reading too closely— a fictional piece, headlined “Agents Recover Huge Carcass” written as if true by one of the reporters— about some kind of a giant 79-foot long worm that swam its way up from the Gulf of Mexico, up the Rio Grande, came ashore in Laredo, Texas, and then “slimed” its way to the parking lot of the local Target store.
True story. Well. The story about the worm wasn’t true. But it’s true the piece was published.
That little 200 word article had people circling the parking lot of the local Target— wanting to see the giant worm. Apparently people were knocking on the windows, asking employees if they had moved the worm inside. Border Patrol was impacted— people asking where the worm was— wanting to know more about their Agents’ involvement.
It was a whole mess. The editor was fired. The reporter was fired. The publisher decided to grovel to the public in apology.
We’ve rambled away from our original point here. That being— Gordiloca might not be 100-percent accurate while chasing spot news, but as far as we know, she’s never utterly invented events. She’s accurate enough. We’ll see what the courts think.
Anyway— have a great morning. Stay limber. 2023 is looking more like a marathon instead of a sprint. Keep some gas in the tank. And if you have chickens— keep an eye on them. Eggs are about to be more dearly priced than gold, it seems. And if you leave those birds on the loose, well, we have a big heart here at the Dispatch. And a big backyard. Kidding. Mostly.
As always, this newsletter is an independent effort, kept as separated as possible from our day job at the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office. No one should mistake it for some kind of an official communication. Any mistakes, errors or other misdeeds are entirely our own.
We’ll see you again soon.
Why the world she is acting the fool, I ask? But, nay, she replies. I am not acting. Then, I speet on you. Phftt. You silly people. Yes, I laugh in your face. I pee on your grave. Avast and be done with you.