McALLEN, Texas — The top law enforcement agencies in south Texas will be getting a new intelligence center aimed at targeting Mexican drug cartel activities and gangs.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw recently met with the McAllen Police Chief, the Hidalgo County Sheriff and various politicians to present a check on behalf of DPS for the construction of the Texas Transnational Intelligence Center.
The building will be used to gather, catalog and disseminate information on cartel activity, gang activity, border crimes and crime trends in a timely manner in order to better coordinate law enforcement response to threats along the border, McCraw said.
“We can not use law enforcement metrics from the 1930’s to address the challenges along the border,” the DPS director said referring to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. “We need better information across the board, to address this threat we need to know about kidnappings, extortions, home invasions, and splashdowns.”
As Breitbart Texas has reported in the past, the UCR report only looks at certain crimes such as murder, car theft, rape and robbery but overlooks others that are specific to the border or to Mexican drug cartel operations in Texas.
The TTIC will be located in McAllen in what used to be the old police station, said Police Chief Victor Rodriguez. The building is in the process of being revamped with state of the art technology to house the new intelligence center.
“This (TTIC) will bring data from all law enforcement agencies along the border to once central place where it can be analyzed and then disseminated in real time,” Rodriguez said.
Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra told Breitbart Texas that what happens is that law enforcement agencies collect massive amounts of information pertinent to their individuals cases but that information is often times not shared.
“What this center does is get all those pieces of information and helps put the puzzle together,” Guerra said.
An example used by Guerra deals with a member of a smuggling group wanted by one city who may be a suspect in another city in connection with car thefts or other crime that may appear to not be connected.
“Putting all that information together allows us to better target this individual and his associates, ” the sheriff said.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project and you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
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