By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

A former DEA task force officer, who worked for the McAllen, Tex. police department, has pleaded guilty to providing false statements in connection with a federal conspiracy case.

On Thursday, Ricardo Ruiz Jr. agreed to plead guilty to one count of giving false statements to federal agents, in exchange government prosecutors agreed to dismiss the remaining four counts against him, including two counts of interference with commerce by threat or violence, one count of impersonating an officer, and the remaining count of making false statements to federal agents, The Monitor  reports. 

The former McAllen officer and three others originally faced conspiracy charges in connection with an incident in May 2017, when Ruiz and the others allegedly orchestrated the seizure of a 2013 Cadillac ATS from an unnamed San Juan resident, the paper reports.

Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Juan David

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

The U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of being a serial killer likely used his government-issued weapon to murder four women in September.

The .40-caliber casings found at the scene of each murder “were consistent with the agency issued .40-caliber HK p2000 semiautomatic pistol” that police found in Juan David Ortiz’s truck when he was captured on Sept. 15, the USA Today reports, citing the district attorney involved in the case.  

The Texas Department of Public Safety’s crime lab in Laredo is examining the handgun and casings to determine whether the match is precise.

Ortiz, 35, was arrested after a woman escaped his truck after suspecting that he had killed her friend.

Police said Ortiz drove four women between the ages of 28 and 42 to the side of rural roads and shot them in the head.

Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Juan David

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

A supervisory Border Patrol agent accused of being a serial killer was tracked down after a sex worker’s daring escape at gunpoint in Laredo, Tex.

Juan David Ortiz, a 10-year veteran of the agency who worked in intelligence, confessed to four September murders, including two in a five-hour span early Saturday morning, the Washington Post reports.

“We consider this man to be a serial killer who was preying on one victim after another,” Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar said. 

A sex worker who suspected Ortiz had killed her friend was in a white pickup truck with the alleged killer when he pulled out a gun and grabbed her shirt. She managed to escape, and he fled.

The woman flagged down a state trooper, and after a pursuit, police found the 35-year-old hiding in a hotel parking lots at 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

Ortiz faces life in prison on four counts of murder, aggravated assault and unlawful restrain.

All of the victims are believed to be sex workers, some of whom may not have been chosen at random.

KGNS captured video of the aftermath of the shooting.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

The FBI is investigating an alleged Border Patrol-involved shooting in Rio Bravo, Texas that left one woman dead.

The agency confirmed to KGNS a Border Patrol agent used a service weapon Wednesday after agents said they were attacked with blunt objects while investigating possible illegal activity. 

At least one round was fired at the suspects, killing 20-year-old Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez from Guatemala

One of the men detained in video captured by Texas resident.

In a Facebook live video, a woman named Martha V. Martinez is heard accusing agents of shooting and killing a woman while two men were detained near her home. 

The Texas Rangers also are investigating.

Paul “Scott” Ragsdale of Rockwall

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

ATF Agent Paul “Scott” Ragsdale of Rockwall, 41,  died Thursday from an apparent heart attack during training in Coppell, Tex., NBC 5 News reports. He was a senior operation officer in the Dallas Division and joined ATF 16 years ago

Rockwall was learning arrest techniques when he suffered an apparent cardiac arrest, ATF said.

He was rushed by ambulance to Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Grapevine where he was pronounced dead. , the ATF said in a statement.

“If you knew Scott, you knew laughter, you knew how much he loved his family, you knew a great guy,”  Jeffrey Boshek, ATF’s agent in charge in Dallas, said, according to the station. “Scott wasn’t just a colleague, he was a friend.”

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

A Border Patrol agent shot and killed a woman crossing the border illegally near Laredo, Tex., on Wednesday after the officer came under attack, federal authorities said, according to a report in the New York Times:

The officer was searching for “illegal activity” in a culvert on a residential street in Rio Bravo, a border town about seven miles south of Laredo, when a group of undocumented immigrants started to hit him with “blunt objects,” United States Customs and Border Protection said. The officer, whose name was not released, fired at least one shot with his handgun, fatally striking the woman in the head.

A woman who lives next door to the site of the shooting disputed the federal agency’s account of the events, saying that the property does not have a culvert and that she did not see any weapons that the group could have used.

“They were on the very corner on that lot where there was a tree,” the woman, Marta V. Martinez, said in an interview Thursday morning. “There was no weapon. They were hiding.”

Gun seized in Las Vegas as part of operation/dea photo

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

The FBI reported 30 active shootings in 2017, more than any year on record, according to a recently released report by the bureau. 

The 30 reported active shootings are an increase over the 20 reported in 2016.

Between 2016 and 2017, 221 people were killed and 722 people injured.

Most active shootings took place in Florida, California and Texas.

Those years also saw the deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history. The Las Vegas music festival shooting left 58 people dead and 489 injured in 2017.

In 2016, the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orland, Fla., killed 49 people and wounded another 53.

The combined 50 shootings in 2016 and 2017 came at the hands of men acting by themselves.

The Rio Grande in Big Bend.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

Building a wall along the busiest stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border – the Rio Grande Valley – has proven to be much trickier than Donald Trump suggested during his presidential campaign. 

That’s because land along the Rio Grande River in this area is essentially a floodplain where construction is prohibited under water treaties with Mexico. Much of the land also is owned by resident and businesses.

The Los Angeles Times examined communities along the river and found that erecting a wall presents a monumental challenge fraught with potential lawsuits from landowners, environmental groups and even Mexico. 

Congress approved $1.6 billion in March to build a border wall and fencing along 100 miles of land in Texas, California and New Mexico. About 33 miles of that is in the Rio Grand Valley, where Border Patrol most needs the help.

But which border towns along the Rio Grand Valley get a wall is still unclear.

Israel Cantu Amador, who lives along the Rio Grande, said he’d rather see more Border Patrol agents than a wall.

“It’s nonsense,” the 65-year-old said. “Iron gates, wooden gates — they’re going to come through.”