By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A gun battle left two FBI agents injured and the suspect dead in suburban Chicago on Tuesday.

The Chicago Tribune reports that an FBI SWAT team swarmed the Park Forest home of Melvin Toran, a reputed high-ranking member of the Black P Stone Nation gang.

The FBI didn’t release details about the shooting, but the agents suffered non-life threatening injuries.

An autopsy on Toran is expected today.

Authorities arrested at least 10 suspects as part of a crack down on narcotics trafficking by gang members.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Hawaii is poised to become the first state in the nation to enter gun owners into an FBI database.

The Associated Press reports that the database would immediately notify police when a Hawaiian resident is arrested in another state.

In other states, people who are entered into the “Rap Back” database are in “positions of trust,” such as school officials, said Stephen Fischer of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

“I don’t like the idea of us being entered into a database. It basically tells us that they know where the guns are, they can go grab them” said Jerry Ilo, a firearm and hunting instructor for the state. “We get the feeling that Big Brother is watching us.”

Supporters of the law say Hawaii would be safer with the database.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Faced with the growing threat of cybercrime, the FBI has turned to dogs to help crack down on computer crimes.

The canines are trained to sniff out electronic components that store data, News12 reports. Some of the components are tiny and hard to find.

“Cybercrime has evolved and is such a threat right now,” says the Newark FBI’s Michael Brodack.

Electronics are growingly important and can help investigators find evidence against suspects.

“It’s the gang member with a cellphone; it’s the terrorist who builds a bomb using electronic components, all of those are devices that Iris (a dog) is trained to detect,” says Phil Frigm, a supervisory special agent in the FBI’s cybercrime division.

Karla Banegas-Banegas

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A woman accused of transporting marijuana also faces a charge of animal cruelty after allegedly punching a horse in the face.

Karla Banegas-Banegas, 29, was with a group of nine people spotted with backpacks along the Barry Goldwater Bombing range in Why, Ariz., about 30 miles north of the Mexican border, AZCentral reports. 

As the group fled, agents caught up with six of the nine suspects.

Banegas-Banegas “punched a USBP horse in the face with a closed fist,” records said. The extent of the horse’s injuries was unknown.

Agents reported finding seven backpacks fun of “green, leafy plant material” that ended up being marijuana.

“The remoteness of the area makes it an ideal place for drug smugglers to attempt to smuggle narcotics into the United States,” court documents said.

Dylann Roof

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The Justice Department is seeking the death penalty for Dylan Roof, the man accused of a carefully planned shooting that killed nine parishioners in a Charleston, South Carolina, church last year.

“Following the department’s rigorous review process to thoroughly consider all relevant factual and legal issues, I have determined that the Justice Department will seek the death penalty,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement Tuesday. “The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision.”

The Washington Post reports that federal prosecutors explained why they were pursuing the death sentence, describing the shooting as racially motivated.

Roof “demonstrated a lack of remorse” and targeted a Bible study group to “magnify the societal impact” of the massacre.

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