Southwest
Oklahoma investigation finds leaders ‘grossly negligent’ in management of pandemic relief funds
A newly unsealed multicounty grand jury report in Oklahoma found mismanagement of millions of dollars in the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER).
The report stated that they found a “grossly negligent handling of federal grant money” and misspending of $40 million leaving the citizens of Oklahoma unable to get the help they truly needed.
“Nevertheless, we find the grossly negligent handling of federal grant money and utter lack of internal controls and oversight over the grant-funded initiatives to be irresponsible, disappointing, and indefensible. What’s more, the waste and misspending of millions of dollars in emergency aid was easily preventable. This mismanagement prevented the most vulnerable Oklahomans from getting help they desperately needed during a global pandemic. Citizens deserve more from their Government,” the jury said.
The report claims there were other troubling practices and actions, but ultimately there was no sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed.
“Although our investigation uncovered deeply troubling practices and actions (and inactions) by the state offices, non-state entities, and private individuals tasked with establishing and administering the BTG and SIS initiatives, we ultimately find insufficient evidence exists to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a crime was committed. Nor do we find willful or corrupt misconduct or willful malfeasance,” the report stated.
WASHINGTON STATE DIVERTED $340M IN FEDERAL COVID FUNDS TO IMMIGRANTS, INCLUDING VIA $1,000 CHECKS
The report highlighted that the grand jury ultimately found a majority of the issues resulted from the state’s disregard of existing administrative safeguards, “EKCO Director’s authorization of all integrated vendors on the platform effectively disregarded all internal control options offered by the Company.”
It went on to point out that as a result, “no limit was placed on the items families could purchase with BTG funds in the first instance, and nobody was monitoring purchases to ensure they complied with program requirements on the back end. It should come as no surprise then that a massive portion of BTG awards—over $1.7 million by the State Auditor’s assessment—went to the purchase of items that could not reasonably be deemed to serve an emergency educational purpose.”
Some of the items listed were common household luxuries and had nothing to do with the education system.
“Such unallowable purchases included but were not limited to: 817 televisions, 385 watches or smartwatches, 179 doorbell cameras, 174 cell phones and related accessories, 71 refrigerators, 27 Xbox systems, and 3 Christmas trees. Not only did the use of these funds to purchase non-education items breach the State’s duty to ensure GEER Fund money was only used for pandemic-related emergency educational assistance, but that money could have been directed to provide intended pandemic relief where it was actually needed,” the report stated.
DEM STATES, CITIES OVERRUN BY MIGRANTS FUNNELED MILLIONS IN FEDERAL COVID-19 AID TO SUPPORT ILLEGALS
“The State bestowed these individuals and organizations with control over millions of dollars in federal funding without any vetting process or formal agreement assuring their accountability to the State,” the grand jury said.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education also released a statement on the investigation’s findings.
“Superintendent Walters has prioritized carefully and efficiently using taxpayer funds. Unfortunately, in this case, the vendor involved did not adhere to the same standards. Superintendent Walters’s deep commitment to fiscal responsibility and taxpayer accountability has been borne out during his time as Secretary and now as State Superintendent. Under his leadership, OSDE has instituted the highest standards to ensure the most efficient use of taxpayer money possible,” the department said.
Read the full article from Here
Los Angeles, Ca
High-tech crosswalk placed at Los Angeles intersection where hit-and-run crash took teen’s leg
A Los Angeles intersection where a 13-year-old boy lost his leg in a hit-and-run crash last year and that Boyle Heights residents have said is known to be dangerous is getting a new high-tech crossing light Friday.
Joshua Mora, who was in the eighth grade when he was struck by a motorcyclist in March of 2023, is expected to attend Friday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony being held where the crash occurred at Whittier Boulevard and Orme Avenue.
Mora was left with life-altering injuries and lost his leg as a result of the crash but will be on hand with his family to share his story of recovery and to unveil a new High-Intensity Activated Crosswalk (HAWK) pedestrian light at the intersection.
The $250,000 project is funded by the Department of Transportation and Bureau of Street Services.
“The new HAWK pedestrian light is more than just a piece of infrastructure; it’s a lifeline for the families, students, and elders who cross these streets every day,” according to a statement issued by Councilmember Kevin De Leon’s office.
Locals have complained for some time about the intersection, which previously had no signal lights or visible traffic signs.
The motorcyclist, identified by police as 29-year-old Erwin Majano of Banning, was arrested and charged with felony hit-and-run.
A GoFundMe page was set up following the crash to help pay Mora’s medical expenses.
“We wanted your support in helping him towards recovery and possibly towards a Prosthetic leg,” the post read.
Southwest
Who is Tren de Aragua? Vicious Venezuelan gang 'following in the path of MS-13' in America
In New York City, children as young as 11 are accused of robbing residents at knife and gunpoint in gang-related initiation rites.
Surveillance video from Aurora, Colorado purportedly shows an employee of a management company brutally beaten by a group of men for refusing to accept a bribe. And in the border state of Texas, two foreign nationals were arrested last month for their alleged role in a conspiracy to illegally transport firearms which were likely to be used in other violent crimes.
The suspects in these recent criminal acts, spread across the nation, are connected to a street gang from Venezuela, known as Tren de Aragua, or TdA. The outfit has grown in infamy in the United States after a spree of heinous crimes that have grabbed national headlines and raised alarm among law enforcement and policymakers, who warn that Americans are in danger so long as the gang operates in the United States.
“TdA is nothing more than a thug-for-hire organization. And that is dangerous to Americans,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, who has followed the gang’s activities closely. Gonzales represents Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which comprises two-thirds of the Texas border. He has for months sounded the alarm about Tren de Aragua’s growing influence in border communities that are ill-equipped to combat the gang’s brutality.
NEW REPORT WARNS BLOODTHIRSTY VENEZUELAN GANG’S FOOTPRINT WILL REMAIN IN US ‘FOR DECADES’
“Tren de Aragua is an invading criminal army from a prison in Venezuela that has spread their brutality and chaos to U.S. cities and small towns,” Gonzales and other GOP lawmakers wrote to President Biden in March, requesting that the president designate the gang as a Transnational Criminal Organization. “If left unchecked, they will unleash an unprecedented reign of terror, mirroring the devastation it has already inflicted in communities throughout Central and South America, most prominently in Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru.”
Who is Tren de Aragua?
South of the border, Tren de Aragua has built an international criminal empire on corpses left in the wake of its drug and human trafficking operations. Its members are said to have committed murders, rapes, extortion, kidnapping and other horrific crimes. Now, authorities warn, the brutal gang’s criminal activities are an increasing threat to American communities.
“They’re the worst of the worst,” Gonzales told Fox News Digital in an interview. “They have no rules or code of ethics.”
Researchers have traced the origins of Tren de Aragua, which translates to “train of Aragua,” to the Tocoron prison in the Aragua state in Venezuela, sometime between 2013 and 2015.
“Under the Maduro, and before him, Chavez regime, one of their ideas was to reduce incarceration and prison reform, by which they basically meant letting people out early. And this really gave the gang an enormous sort of manpower surge,” said Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.
One of the founders is Hector Guerrero, who was jailed years ago for killing a police officer, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that monitors organized crime in the Americas. Guerrero, better known by his alias El Nino, Spanish for the “boy,” later escaped and then was recaptured in 2013. He fled prison again more recently, as Venezuela’s government tried to reassert control over its prison population, and is believed to be residing in Colombia.
EX-ICE OFFICIAL WARNS TREN DE ARAGUA HAS GROWN FASTER INSIDE US THAN MURDEROUS RIVAL GANG: ‘PUT THEM OUT NOW’
Authorities in countries such as Chile, Peru and Colombia — all with large populations of Venezuelan migrants — have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence in a region that has long had some of the highest murder rates in the world. Some of its more sensationalist crimes, including the beheading and burying alive of victims, have spread panic in poor neighborhoods where the gang extorts local businesses and illegally charges residents for “protection.”
“With a particular focus on human smuggling and other illicit acts that target desperate migrants, the organization has developed additional revenue sources through a range of criminal activities, such as illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, and the trafficking of illicit drugs such as cocaine and MDMA,” said John Torres, a former Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) with 27 years experience working with DHS and the Justice Department.
Torres, who is now president of security and technology consulting for Guidepost Solutions, a global security, compliance and investigations firm, explained in comments to Fox News Digital that TdA has leveraged its transnational networks to traffic people, especially migrant women and girls, across borders for sex trafficking and debt bondage.
“When victims seek to escape this exploitation, TdA members often kill them and publicize their deaths as a threat to others,” he said.
Since its founding more than a decade ago, TdA has rapidly expanded throughout South America. It has laundered funds through cryptocurrency and allied with other gangs, such as the Brazil-based Primeiro Comando da Capital.
The gang’s activities eventually landed on U.S. law enforcement radar and in September 2023, Homeland Security Investigations announced a partnership with the Peruvian government to form a Transnational Criminal Investigative Unit (TCIU) in Peru to crack down on TdA operations. By then, the TdA organization had expanded into Colombia, Peru, Chile and other countries.
Tren de Aragua in the U.S.
According to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Tren de Aragua has been operating in Texas since at least 2021, when gang affiliates were arrested for human trafficking. The governor last month designated TdA as a “foreign terrorist organization” and launched a statewide operation to aggressively go after the gang.
At a Sept. 16 press conference, Abbott said more than 3,000 illegal immigrants from Venezuela have been arrested in Texas for crimes including human smuggling, many with ties to the gang. The governor noted that more than 100 TdA members were arrested at the Gateway Hotel in downtown El Paso, a city officials have called “ground zero” for the gang’s activities. The El Paso County Attorney’s Office had issued a temporary and permanent injunction to shut down the hotel because of “habitual criminal activity” after 693 police calls were placed at the property in just two years for suspected illegal and gang-related activity, according to a complaint.
Abbott’s action came after surveillance video went viral showing heavily armed men kicking down an apartment door in Aurora, Colorado. It purportedly showed alleged members of Tren de Aragua who had reportedly taken over apartment buildings in the city and were extorting residents for protection payments.
TEXAS GOV. ABBOTT DESIGNATES VENEZUELAN GANG, TREN DE ARAGUA, AS A FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION
The video catapulted TdA into the spotlight of the 2024 presidential campaign, with Republican nominee former President Trump vowing to “liberate Aurora” from illegal alien criminals he claimed were “taking over the whole town.”
Aurora police have called allegations that gangs had “taken over” buildings in the city an exaggeration, although they have acknowledged the presence of TdA in the community.
Four people with possible connections to the gang were later arrested at the Ivy Crossing Apartments in Aurora on “a variety of charges” including drugs and stolen vehicles, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. Local officials said another 10 confirmed TdA members were arrested on Sept. 11 on charges including child abuse, attempted first-degree murder, illegal discharge of a firearm, and more.
However, CBZ Management, which operates 11 apartment complexes in Colorado, has claimed that TdA members have commandeered entire apartment buildings in Aurora by threatening its employees and tried to extort the company for a cut of rent money in exchange for their continued operation of the properties.
Read the full article from Here
Los Angeles, Ca
7-year-old boy found shot to death in Lancaster home
Authorities are investigating after a 7-year-old boy was found shot to death in Lancaster Thursday.
Los Angeles County deputies responded to a home on the 44100 block of Dahlia Street at around 3:46 p.m.
Inside, deputies found a 7-year-old boy with a critical gunshot wound. Despite life-saving measures, he was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
The circumstances leading up to his death remain unclear. However, LASD said no foul play is suspected.
Inside the home, another child and an adult were located and are being interviewed by detectives.
No further details were released as the incident remains under investigation.
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