Vultures are covering the tower in feces and corrosive vomit.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Vultures are causing a major headache for U.S. Customs and Border Protection near the Mexican border in southern Texas.

A 320-foot radio tower for CBP in Kingsville is covered in feces, vomit and urine, Quartz reports.

About 300 vultures are roosting on the tower and disrupting communications because of the corrosive excrement.

The agency plans to clean and repair the radio tower and the install a “Vulture Deterrence Netting System” by August before the carnivorous birds’ roosting cycle begins in the fall.

Photo via Border Patrol

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Border Patrol agents were attacked and hospitalized by migrants trying to enter the country illegally in Laredo, Texas, on New Year’s Eve.

The National Border Patrol Council said an undisclosed number of agents sustained injuries ranging from broken bones and lacerations, and eight people were detained, KENS5-TV reports.

It’s unclear whether the attacks were related to an hours-long gun battle a day earlier between cartel members and Tamaulipas State Police in Nuevo Laredo. The shootout prompted Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar to warn residents on Facebooks to avoid crossing the border in to Mexico.

Shooting captured on a live-streaming video on YouTube.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A former FBI agent who was serving as a voluntary clergy security guard reportedly fatally shot a gunman who opened fire at a Texas Church on Sunday.

The quick actions of the security guard were caught on a video that the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement was live-streaming on YouTube around 10:50 a.m.

The gunman, who had a rifle stashed under his coat, fatally shot two people before the church security guard quickly returned fire. The identity of the security guard has not yet been identified.

Another congregant, who also was serving as a voluntary security guard, returned fire as well, according to media reports.

“Two of the parishioners who were volunteers of the security force drew their weapons and took out the killer immediately, saving untold number of lives,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said at a press conference.

Former FBI agent and security expert Greg Shaffer said the quick response by armed guards demonstrates that more houses of worship should consider armed security.

“This incident certainly drives home the critical need of having an armed response,” Shaffer told 5NBC-TV. “Had they not been there, there would have been dozens upon dozens of casualties in that church.”

The 5-year-old Belgian Malinois died at the scene.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A Border Patrol K-9 was killed during a shootout that occurred as agents tried to execute a search warrant at a home in El Paso.

The 62-year-old suspect shot at agents from his backyard at 6 a.m. Tuesday, striking the 5-year-old dog, The El Paso Times reports. The Belgian Malinois named Boulder died at the scene.

The suspect was fatally shot with return fire.

The arrest warrant involved illegal firearms.

No one else was injured.

.@CBPWestTexas, your partners at @FBIElPaso mourn along with you at the loss of K-9 Agent Bulder. He was killed in the line of duty today while executing federal warrants. #NeverForget

Picture by US Border Special Operations Group pic.twitter.com/7hXxyPZ2bO

— FBI El Paso (@FBIElPaso) December 18, 2019

Dudley Bernard

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A Customs and Border Protection officer has been charged with murder after police say he shot his wife, also a CBP employee, at their Texas home on Thanksgiving night.

Dudley Bernard, 40, was arrested in his front yard after police responded to reports of gunshots at the League City house just after 11 p.m.

Police said Chauntelle Bernard, 42, was found dead at the front door of the home.

Dudley Bernard was an agriculture specialist who oversaw the Houston Seaport environment. Chauntelle Bernard was a supervisor CBP officer in Houston, according to a CBP statement.

“No words can express the sense of loss SCBPO Bernard’s death brings to her colleagues and friends in CBP,” a CBP spokesperson said.

Border Patrol agent makes an arrest. Photo via Border Patrol.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A record number of undocumented immigrants were arrested by Border Patrol’s Del Rio Sector so far this year.

The sector, which covers 210 miles of land between the Rio Grand River and Lake Amistad in Texas, apprehended migrants from more than 30 countries since Oct. 1, more than twice the number this time last year, The Epoch Times reports.

“The apprehension of migrants from countries such as Brazil, Haiti, China, and countries of Africa have increased significantly this fiscal year,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L. Ortiz said.

He added, “We continue to work with our law enforcement partners to combat threats in an effort to protect our country and the community.”

FBI sketches of D.B. Cooper.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz jokingly confessed that he is the notorious skyjacker D.B. Cooper.

“I did it,” Cruz said, retweeting a post from the FBI on Sunday that read, “#OTD in 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper parachuted from a plane he had just hijacked, clutching a bag filled with stolen cash. Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? What happened to the stolen money? Read about this unsolved mystery.”

I did it. https://t.co/xNA9CGCmxT

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 24, 2019

But why would the conservative Texas senator crack the joke?

For at least a year, people on Twitter have suggested Cruz bears a striking resemblance to FBI sketches of D.B. Cooper. Around the same time, Twitter users jokingly suggested Cruz was the Zodiac Killer.

In case you don’t know about Cooper, he boarded a plane in Portland, Ore., and claimed to have a bomb and had the plane fly to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where he got the ransom money. He subsequently parachuted from the plane and was never found.

Here’s what Cruz looks like. You be the judge.

Sen. Ted Cruz

Luis M. Quesada

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Luis M. Quesada, who began his career in law enforcement as a Miami police officer, has been named special agent in charge of the FBI’s El Paso Field Office in Texas.

Quesada, who most recently he served in the Training Division in Quantico, joined the FBI as a special agent in 1995 and began working in the Miami Field Office, where he investigated violent crimes with a focus on bank robberies, extortion, and kidnappings. In 1998, Quesada voluntarily transferred to the San Juan Field Office in Puerto Rico before returning to Miami in 2001 to investigates drugs. In both offices, Quesada served on the SWAT teams.

Quesada was promoted in 2003 to supervisory special agent and began working in the Counterterrorism Division of the Terrorist Screening Center, which manages and operates the nation’s terrorist watch list.

In 2005, he transferred to the FBI Academy in Quantico as a defensive tactics instructor. Quesada returned to Miami two years later as the supervisor of the violent gang and high-intensity drug trafficking area task force. He later became the acting assistant special agent in charge of Miami’s Criminal Branch.

In 2010, Quesada became the assistant legal attaché in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he promoted FBI interests in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

In 2012, Quesada was promoted to a unit chief position in the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, focusing on counter-narcotics efforts in Latin America and the U.S. Southwest border.

In 2014, Quesada became legal attaché of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, focusing on counterterrorism threats throughout the Balkans and the U.S.

A year later, Quesada became the assistant special agent in charge of the Criminal Branch in the Jackson Field Office in Mississippi. In 2017, he was appointed to assistant section chief in the Training Division, and a year later was promoted to section chief of the division’s Training Services Section.

Quesada earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies from Florida International University.