Scene at federal wildlife refuge earlier this year.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The FBI and Oregon State Police are the targets of a potential lawsuit over the shooting of a rancher during a standoff at an Oregon wildlife refuge.

The widow of Robert “Lavoy” Finicum said she plans to sue the state police and two FBI agents over the shooting near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Finicum, 54, acted as the spokesman for the anti-government protesters who occupied the refuge to protest charges filed against local ranchers.

Brian Claypool, an attorney for the widow, Jeanette Finicum, said he was motivated to file the suit after new evidence emerged in the case, including what appears to be shell casings from the FBI, which had denied pulling the trigger.

Finicum’s family said the man was “executed in cold blood.”

Brittanee Drexel, who went missing seven years ago.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Gruesome new details have emerged in the case of a missing teenage girl who disappeared from Myrtle Beach seven years ago.

The FBI now believes 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel, of Rochester, NY, was “abducted, gang-raped, shot to death and thrown into an alligator-infested swamp,” the New York Daily News writes.

The information comes from a prison inmate, who said he was present during the killing.

“Several witnesses have told us Miss Drexel’s body was placed in a pit, or gator pit, to have her body disposed of. Eaten by the gators,” FBI Agent Gerrick Munoz said.

At least two people have been implicated in the case so far.

By Editorial Board
Portland Press Herald

A recent decision upholding the federal ban on medical cannabis was a letdown in Maine and the 24 other states where the drug can be prescribed to ease the symptoms of illness.

But the Aug. 11 announcement also offered reason for a more optimistic prognosis: The Drug Enforcement Administration is removing a major roadblock to medical studies of marijuana and advancing long-stalled efforts to research the plant’s value as a medication.

For 46 years, marijuana (along with heroin and LSD) has been a Schedule I drug, with no known medical benefits and “a high potential for abuse.” So when the DEA announced in April that it would soon decide whether to reclassify cannabis, there was widespread hope that the government was rethinking its long-held stance on the drug.

The production, distribution and consumption of marijuana all remain illegal under federal law – a fact that keeps medical cannabis patients and state-licensed suppliers in limbo.

Maine families have had to establish residency in Colorado in order to obtain the cannabis extract that helps their children’s epilepsy. Why? Because that particular strain, Charlotte’s Web, is grown in Colorado. And if parents can’t find something that works at home, they don’t have the option of crossing state lines to get it somewhere else.

Under federal law, that’s drug trafficking, even if they’re transporting strains like Charlotte’s Web that are low in THC, the chemical compound that’s the source of the high.

To read more click here. 

Martin Luther King Jr.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

FBI agents who undergo months-long training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., undergo target practice and training for surveillance and self-defense.

But one of the newest exercises involves FBI agents in training to take a trip to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

The trainees, dressed in plainclothes, were told to pick the most inspirational MLK quote etched into the stone slabs of the memorial and then discuss it, the Los Angeles Times reports. 

The point of the exercise is to show the FBI’s questionable investigations into King, which included racially motivated wiretapping and harassment.

FBI trainees receive other forms of cultural-sensitivity training, including visiting the National Holocaust Museum.

“We wanted to provide a lesson of what happens when power is abused and the responsibility that comes with being in the FBI,” said Cynthia DeWitte, a curriculum manager at the FBI academy. “We wanted this to be more than a field trip.”

Border Patrol found $3 million in cash stuffed in a trunk, via Border Patrol.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Border Patrol agents are accustomed to finding cash or drugs packed away in vehicles.

But agents in San Diego were shocked when they opened the trunk of a car and found $3 million in cash, CNN reports.

“This is one of our larger cash seizures,” said Ralph DeSio, spokesman for the San Diego office of US Customs and Border Protection.

The bust is a major victory because it hurts the drug smugglers who rely on the cash.

The money was discovered in a Volkswagen Passat.

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• Man Fatally Shot by FBI Agent Serving Search Warrants in Compton
• FBI Wants Help Identifying Body Found on Reservation
• FBI Profilers Hunt for Serial Shooter Who Killed Seven
• FBI Agent Trying to Catch Father’s Blood Donation Record