PRESCOTT VALLEY, AZ – The
Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (YCSO) has asked for the
public’s help in finding the person who fired multiple rounds
into a deputy’s home early on Thursday morning that barely missed
hitting a four-year-old.
The incident occurred at about 2:25 a.m. on December 3rd at the
home of a Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office deputy located in the
8300-block of East Loos Drive in Prescott Valley, according to a
press release posted to YCSO’s official Facebook page.
“One of the rounds passed directly over the head of a
sleeping 4-year-old child, nearly striking the
child.”
Scott Mascher, Yavapai County Sheriff, released the following
official statement:
“This was not just an attack on law enforcement and
one of our deputies, but a cowardly act against his young family.�
Several local law enforcement agencies are working this incident
and using whatever means available to find, arrest, and prosecute
this assailant.
“Silent Witness (crime tips reward program) has
offered a minimum $6,000 reward for tips, and I want the coward to
know that we will find you and bring you to justice. You can run,
but we will get you.
“As sheriff, I am aware we have historically enjoyed
overwhelming support for law enforcement in Yavapai County, but
unfortunately this is a sign of the times now present in our own
community.â€
Craig Brown, Chairman of the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors
commented:
“Yavapai County Chairman Brown and the Board of
Supervisors condemn this type of behavior toward law enforcement
and their families.
“Law enforcement is here to protect our communities
and we support our law enforcement officers throughout Yavapai
County. They provide the thin blue line between us and
chaos.â€
Yavapai County Sheriff-Elect David Rhodes said:
“As your next sheriff, I cannot condemn harshly enough
the cowardly and brazen ambush on our Yavapai County Sheriff’s
deputy and his family today. We will never accept, tolerate, or
allow violent unprovoked attacks on innocent people.
“The specific targeting of vulnerable people chills
all of us. We will find those responsible and swiftly bring them to
justice.â€
Yavapai County is an exceptionally large county that houses
towns like Prescott, Wickenburg, and Sedona. Yavapai County is
usually a very quiet area where people vacation, have ranches, or
retire. This shooting and other recent events have changed that
normal routine.
In the eastern part of the county, near Cordes Junction, a woman
was taken into custody following a traffic stop by Yavapai County
deputies where thousands of fentanyl pills and multiple pounds of
cocaine and marijuana were found in her vehicle early last Tuesday
morning.
According to a press release from YCSO, a deputy stopped a white
Dodge Ram with Ohio license plates for speeding and swerving out of
their lane. During the traffic stop, the deputy smelled an
“overwhelming odor of fresh marijuana,†the release said.
The deputy said the driver, identified as 39-year-old Crystal
Briley of Ohio, was nervous during their interaction and deceptive
when answering questions.
YCSO said because of the odor and her behavior, the deputy
believed she was involved in drug activity. He asked if there were
illegal drugs in the car and Briley said all she had was a small
amount of marijuana in her purse.
The deputy asked if he could search the truck and Briley denied.
The deputy then requested a K-9 unit to the scene to conduct a
“free air†exterior sniff around the truck. The K-9 alerted to
the smell of illegal drugs.
The truck was searched, and deputies found 280 pounds of
marijuana, four pounds of cocaine and about 8,000 fentanyl pills.
Briley denied that the items were hers. She was arrested on
charges including possession and transportation of marijuana for
sale, possession of a narcotic drug and narcotic drug for sale.
Her bond is set at $500,000.
Although fairly uncommon, drug trafficking stops do occur in
Yavapai County as Interstate 17 runs through the eastern part of
the county, and the county lies between Phoenix and Flagstaff.
Terror fears at the border: Teen caught with 63 fake U.S. and
Mexican passports, firearms and drugs
October 8, 2020
JUAREZ, MEXICO – Federal authorities are
investigating the possible organized crime links of a 19-year-old
man. Alberto Alvarado Holguin was caught with 63 fake U.S. and
Mexican passports, firearms, and marijuana.
How many potential terrorist
and cartel members have bought fake passports and have entered the
US?https://t.co/0ECGyaHvAv— Reaper#2 (@rlc_TMASllc)
September 30, 2020
Juarez police arrested Alvarado while looking for street drug
dealers in a neighborhood just south of the Rio Grande.
Alvarado allegedly pulled out a gun after being stopped for
questioning by officers in a city patrol car. He took off running.
The officers chased the teen to a house a few blocks from the
river.
They took him into custody without exchanging any gunfire,
according to a police report.
Police took Alvarado’s 9mm gun, along with a suitcase they
allegedly found in the house that contained two additional guns.
One was a .380 and the other a .25 caliber gun. Additionally, it
contained a bag with 8.2 ounces of marijuana, 54 fake Mexican
passports, and nine bogus U.S. passports,
according to WRBL.
Chihuahua Deputy Attorney General Jorge Nava said Alvarado has
been turned over to federal authorities. Nava said he didn’t know
if the fake documents were intended for retail sale, or part of a
migrant or drug smuggling operation.
The guns were sent to a police lab to determine if they were
used in recent unsolved homicides.
Police looking to see if there is a connection between the
19-year-old and gang-related activity is not unusual. In fact,
it’s quite normal. He has probably been recruited to help smuggle
people to the U.S. as young as 12.
Sessions: Cartels are using
migrant kids to smuggle drugs into US!!! https://t.co/1XvTS133tb— Trump Super Elite 🇺🇸 (@TrumpSuperElite)
June 26, 2018
In a
2017 story by Al Jazeera, a 14-year-old boy involved with
Mexican cartels received $200 for every Mexican he helped cross
into the United States and $500 for every non-Mexican. This
includes people from Central or South America. He takes two to four
people at a time, moving them by night. The boy’s father isn’t
impressed by the money he makes.
The father explains:
“They could shoot him to avoid paying him and just
leave him there lying on the ground. I’ve seen so many things
living here at the border. That’s why I’m
fearful.â€
Cartels fighting over smuggling drugs and people is not
uncommon. The squabble over the routes can cause considerable
collateral damage. At the end of the last decade, 2010, the city
was dubbed the “murder capital of the world.â€
Children have been part of the smuggling business for at least
20 years. However, little is known about their involvement in the
Mexican cartels. This is due to Mexican child privacy laws.
Another problem with analyzing their involvement with cartels,
is that both the U.S. and Mexican governments count them together
with all unaccompanied minors. What experts and officials in Mexico
and the U.S. do agree on, is that the cartel involvement has meant
a significant increase in the number of children involved.
These cartels are operating at several points along the border.
They cross migrants from Tijuana to neighboring San Diego,
California, Nogales to Arizona, and Matamoros to Brownsville,
Texas.
One day after a vigilante
group revealed that it was using children as young as 8 as
“recruits†for armed defense patrols, Mexico’s president said
Thursday that drug cartels too are recruiting ever-younger kids.
https://t.co/t2CSU8w8H3— KYMA (@KYMA11)
January 24, 2020
As a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Romero, has witnessed this
first-hand:
“We definitely saw the shift in which they [the
cartels] started using more juveniles than adults, whereas in the
past there were typically more adults. It used to be a mom and pop
operation, and people would pay between $350 and $500 to get
smuggled into the US.â€
Juvenile smugglers are typically between 12 to 17 years old.
Social workers and experts say that people smuggling often isn’t
just about the money.
It’s also about power, respect, and belonging. Juvenile
smugglers are almost universally male, and it plays into the
Mexican macho aspiration, Gilberto Solis said:
“Adolescents get together and want to prove their
manhood. They put themselves to the test to feel part of a
group.â€
It is not just about impressing their friends. There are
thousands of orphans in Juarez. This is another result of the
killings that the city has lived through. For many boys their
cartel boss becomes a father figure, pulling them deeper into the
alternate ‘family’ of organized crime.
The only thing that has changed is the increase of using
children. Mexican cartels also use American children as young as 12
to help smuggle drugs and weapons across the U.S. border.
According to the
Washington Examiner, the number of kids arrested for narcotics
along the U.S. Mexico border in Arizona has jumped since 2018.
Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent Alan Regalado said:
“It’s a problem, we know it’s there. We’re
trying to mitigate that issue through education and
prevention.â€
Cartel’s using American kids
11-12 years old to smuggle drugs“They are using females more than males, even Caucasian
females and males, to do the transshipment of narcotics,†said
Raul Rodriguez, a detective for the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s
Office.https://t.co/29sXgFyq8z— Rob (@_ROB_29)
November 7, 2019
Thirty-six children were arrested in fiscal year 2018, 57 were
arrested in 2019, and 17 arrests have been made, so far, in fiscal
year 2020. The Santa Cruz Attorney’s Office told Fox it had
already prosecuted three children this year.
The border patrol agent, however, has a plan to help stop the
number of children being recruited by drug cartels – the Together
Educating and Mentoring Kids or T.E.A.M. Kids program.
Border patrol agents visit students in elementary school,
warning them of cartel recruiters during the four-week
program.
“There are kids now being recruited in Phoenix,
Tucson, not only for northbound activity but also southbound, where
they are taking weapons from the United States into Mexico. So
it’s not just the narcotics coming from Mexico into the United
States.â€
These programs to help stop the drug cartels from using children
can be helpful. However, children can be impressionable. As for the
teen who got caught with 63 passports, he can be legally prosecuted
in the United States as an adult.
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Gunman shoots into Arizona sheriff deputy’s home, barely missing
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