By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

An off-duty Border Patrol agent rescued a girl trapped by churning water in a river in Texas.

Agent Adan Sanchez junked into the top of a dam on the Comal River in New Braunfels and save the stranger, News 4 San Antonio reports. 

“She could have drowned. She was going under. I think her feet were sideways, and she was just rolling and rolling,” Sanchez said.

The agent clutched onto the girl and rescued her from the strong current.

“Kind of hoping somebody would have done it if my child was drowning as well. So, I don’t know. I just reacted. I just did it. I don’t know why. I just did it,” he said.

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By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Border Patrol plans to test new drones in Arizona, Texas and Vermont in September as part of an increased effort to curb illegal immigration and drug smuggling.

The different models range from quadcopters that are capable of flying for 30 minutes to larger aerial vehicles that can stay airborne for hours, Arizona Public Media reports. 

Border Control currently uses large drones that are flown out of an airstrip at Fort Huachuca in Cochise County.

No specifics were given about the time and locations of the tests.

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James Matthew Bradley Jr.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

They were packed inside a sweltering, pitch-black tractor-trailer, taking turns breathing from a small hole in the semi. The immigrants had no water and banged on the walls of the trailer in vain.

Then they started dying.

James Matthew Bradley Jr., the 60-year-old driver of the tractor-trailer, told authorities Monday he had no idea there was anyone in the truck until he arrived at a Walmart in San Antonio on early Sunday morning. When he opened the door to the trailer, he said “he was run over by ’Spanish’ people and knocked to the ground,” the complaint reads, according to CNN. 

The Florida man said bodies were “lying on the floor like meat.”

Ten people died. More than a dozen more were in life-threatening condition.

If convicted, Bradley could be sentenced to death on one count of transporting illegal immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death.

Tractor trailer found with 39 people packed inside at a Walmart parking lot in Texas.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A Florida truck driver was arrested Sunday after a Walmart security guard discovered nearly 40 people packed into a sweltering tractor trailer parked outside of a Walmart in San Antonio, Texas.

Nine of the people died and more than a dozen others suffered life-threatening injuries in what authorities are describing as a “horrific” case of human trafficking, the Washington Post reports. 

The driver, James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Fla., is expected to be charged as early as Monday.

The people were discovered at 12:30 a.m. Sunday by a Walmart security guard who was tipped off that immigrants appeared to be inside a tractor trailer in the parking lot.

San Antonio police spokesman Sgt. Jesse Salame said the case is being handled by ICE because of suspected international smuggling.

“They have to be turned over to the custody of somebody,” he told the Post. “They don’t have anywhere else to go.”

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The FBI’s handling of the investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election has spurred distrust in the bureau among Republicans, at least in Texas, according to a new poll.

The poll of 1,200 registered Texas voters found that 35% of Texas Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of the FBI, while 43% have a favorable view. About 22% had no opinion.

The results surprised many GOP officials because conservatives typically have favorable opinions of law enforcement.

“I think all of this reflects the fact that almost everything connected with Donald Trump being in the White House right now is falling into an intensely partisan field” Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, which designed and analyzed the poll, told NPR. 

“On a deeper level, it means one more institution that is the subject of a real crisis in faith in the general public,” Henson said. “And I think it is worrisome.”

Pollsters believe the eroding support among Republicans is the result of disparaging remarks by Donald Trump and his supporters, who have blasted the bureau by suggesting it’s on a “witch hunt” to unseat the president.

Border Patrol Agent Issac Morales, via Gofundme.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

An off-duty Border Patrol agent has died after he was stabbed in the face early Saturday morning in front of his girlfriend in El Paso, Texas. 

Issac Morales, 30, was pronounced dead Wednesday.

Police said Morales was walking to his car in the parking lot of Union Drafthouse Bar shortly before 2 a.m. when 39-year-old Hisais Justo Lopez allegedly stabbed him. Police said the stabbing occurred after Morales identified himself as a Border Patrol agent.

Lopez was arrested and later charged with murder after Morales died.

To donate to the family, visit their Gofundme page. 

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Former Secret Service Agent Thom Bolsch, owner of Saddle River Range in The Woodlands, Tex., has figured out a trap for thieves.

He has installed a custom-made FastFog System from a company in Canada. The system is triggered when a thief breaks in his store. It essentially spews fog and blinds a thief, making it difficult to see the guns, KTRK reports. (See video below)

File photo of guns, via ATF

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The ATF released a disturbing new report that shows national firearm theft and losses in gun shops increased 20% in 2016. 

The report indicates that 18,394 weapons were stolen last year, and a vast majority were pistols, rifles, revolvers and shotguns.

“Losses and thefts of firearms have increased dramatically in terms of the gun stores,” ATF Special Agent Michael Knight told WHNT19 News. 

He added: “Also, what has increased extremely, at a high rate, is the armed robberies, and this is a violent crime. This means that the public could potentially be at arms length of the criminal element who are focusing on these gun stores.”

Georgia led the nation with 1,539 stolen or missing firearms in 2016. Florida followed with 1,260 and Texas with 1,247.

Hawaii, by contrast, reported just three stolen or missing firearms.

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