A DEA agent shot and wounded a man who allegedly tried running him over Saturday in a hotel parking lot in Houston, the Houston Chronicle reports.

The shooting happened in the afternoon at the Houstonian Hotel.

The Chronicle reports that a DEA task force showed up in the employee parking lot of the hotel as part of a probe into several suspects. One of the suspects floored the vehicle, heading toward the DEA agent, who opened fire and struck the suspect several times.

The suspect was treated at the hospital for non-life threatening wounds. Three other people were arrested at the scene.

Steve Neavling

The DEA continues to crack down on medical marijuana stores in states where voters legalized the use of medical pot.

The latest law enforcement effort is targeting medicinal pot shops cropping up in metropolitan Seattle, Q13 Fox reports.

The DEA sent letters to shops that are close to schools or playgrounds and appear to be sending out more letters, the Fox station reported.

Some neighbors are relieved. Anna Ioannides lives next to one shop. She voted against I-502.

“Just like having a gun shop in the neighborhood; it would make me uneasy as well,” Anna Loannides said. “Same idea.”

Others weren’t so concerned.

“Once they moved in, to be quite honest, I hadn’t even noticed they moved in,” Kelley Scholz told Fox. “It’s pretty quiet; you don’t even realize they’re there.”

Steve Neavling

The DEA has alarmed marijuana advocates after sending cease-and-desist letters to 11 dispensaries in the Seattle area, the Seattle Times reports. 

Although state law permits medical-marijuana dispensaries, federal law bans all forms of pot. 

The letters, however, don’t signal a war against state marijuana laws, according to the DEA.

The dispensaries were within 1,000 feet of schools, the Seattle Times reported.

Recipients of the letters were told to stop selling marijuana within 30 days or they face seizure.

California dispensaries also are being targeted by Federal authority, Gawker reports.

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• ATF Assists Investigation into Little Rock Church Fire
• Fallen ATF Agent Who Died in Pharmacy Robbery Awarded Badge of Bravery
• Actor Colin Firth Joins Movie ‘The Secret Service’

Steve Neavling

The DEA cannot eavesdrop on Apples’s iMessage chat service because of secure encryption, Slate.com reports.

That’s good news if you’re concerned about privacy. 

But for law enforcement, the inability to monitor iMessages sent between two Apple devices is problematic.

Wireless technology has challenged law enforcement’s ability to monitor suspicious activity.

The problem became evident in San Jose, Calif., when agents complained of being unable to intercept iMessages “regardless of the cell phone service provider.”

Part one of this report discussed the menace of a new generation of synthetic designer drugs from China causing a public health crisis in Europe. In America, in the last two years, enterprising rogue Chinese chemists have introduced hundreds of these new chemical combinations into the market.

This plague in America  is steadily growing worse.  Law enforcement and medical experts believe that the tens of thousands of reported cases in hospitals in the last year are just the tip of the iceberg. These numbers have essentially doubled just in the last year. The rate of reporting by the agencies like DAWN, which records emergency room admissions, and NFLIS, which keeps track of law enforcement laboratory tests on drugs, is a bleak harbinger of things to come.

Unless aggressive action is taken, we can expect the same panic the British are experiencing from this onslaught. On a more optimistic note, there are positive steps that can be taken and virtually all individuals and groups can have a role in this defense. This part will outline a strategy which can meet this oncoming crisis.

Parents —– Since the victims are largely teenagers living at home, the first line of defense has to be the parents. At a minimum all parents of teens and pre-teens should have a frank and two-sided conversation to educate their children on the life-threatening effects of these drugs, which are deceptively packaged and marketed as a “legal high.”

Teens think they are immortal and the prospect of some exciting new forbidden experience can be irresistible. Information and misinformation about the synthetics are spread by friends and acquaintances, and the availability is cheap and accessible. Many of these new consumers are naïve about drugs in general, as well as their dangers.

A teenage boy in North Dakota is currently facing murder charges because he gave a single tablet of a synthetic drug to a friend. The friend died shortly after ingesting it at a party. The consequences of such single acts are beyond the comprehension of most teens.

Read more »

Louis Diaz

Ex-DEA agent Louis (Louie The Actor) Diaz,  testified last week in Brooklyn federal court in the trial of a  Gambino mobster that he did some devilish things himself while working undercover, Gang Land News.

Mob expert Jerry Capeci, editor of Gang Land News, reports that Diaz testified  in the racketeering and murder trial of Bartolomeo Vernace.  Diaz was a DEA agent from 1975 to 1996, and authored a book in 2010 with NY Daily News reporter Neal Hirschfeld: “Dancing With The Devil.” He also has had bit acting parts on TV.

Capeci writes about his testimony:

 Diaz, who grew up with wiseguys and wannabes in Red Hook, Brooklyn, prided  himself on being true to his badge. But once, he testified, he looked the other way when an informer tipped him that an old neighborhood pal was dealing drugs and guns.

Then there was the time when Diaz was posing as a mobconnected drug dealer, helping to make a case against Harlem heroin merchant Leroy (Nicky) Barnes. On the stand, he testified that he not only violated Drug Enforcement Administration regulations by letting an informer keep and carry his own gun; on a day when his stool pigeon forgot his own piece, Louie The Actor graciously provided him one from the DEA’s own arsenal.

To read more go to Gang Land News. (Gang Land is a subscription-based website).

President Obama will name Julia Pierson as director of the U.S. Secret Service, the first female to head that agency, USA Today reported.

An official announcement is expected Tuesday afternoon.

Pierson, 53, now serves as the service’s chief of staff, USA Today reports.

Other women who head law enforcement agencies include Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security and Michele Leonhart, who heads the DEA.

To read more click here.

Steve Neavling

The DEA is refusing to answer questions about three of its agents who are still on the federal payroll despite their alleged involvement in a prostitution scandal in Colombia, the Washington Examiner reports.

The accusations are serious. DEA agents are accused of paying for a prostitute for a Secret Service supervisor and obstructing the investigation by lying and destroying evidence, the Examiner wrote.

“And they are still on the job a year later,” state Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA said. “That’s just not a good thing.”

The scandal broke in April 2012 when a dozens Secret Service agents were in Cartagena, Columbia, to prepare for a trip by President Obama.