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Crime

San Antonio police chief to criminal Venezuelan gangs: ‘We’re coming for you’

Published

1 year ago

6 minute read

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

Venezuelan Gang members being arrested in San Antonio, Dallas, Houston: 300 apartments cleared

Texas law enforcement agencies are aggressively arresting men illegally in the country who are confirmed members of the violent Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua (TDA).

Recent arrests are in San Antonio, Dallas and Houston.

San Antonio Police Chief Bill McManus announced the results of a multi-agency task force operation launched after the SAPD received complaints “about multiple narcotics violations, human trafficking, and threats to apartment personnel” at an apartment complex in the northern part of the city.

The task force had information that TDA members “were in control of the area and committing various crimes” at the complex, he said. SAPD officers and DPS troopers cleared nearly 300 vacant apartments there on Saturday and processed over 20 people they arrested. Four are confirmed TDA members; one is a confirmed enforcer for the gang, he said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Enforcement and Removal Operations officers took all four into custody.

Of the 20 arrested, 19 have 15 ICE holds against them, he said. Several arrested have confirmed warrants; multiple individuals already had removal orders, he said.

“We want to assure the community and members of the public that we are committed to their safety,” he said. “We are on top of this TDA issue” and Saturday’s operation “is just one example of that commitment.” The apartment complex they targeted was “just the first one. We’ve got other places that we are going to hit,” he said.

The operation is ongoing, had been in the works for weeks and the gang had been operating in the city for several months, he said.

He also issued a warning to TDA gang members, saying: “We are on to you and we’re coming for you. We know where you are and we’re coming for you.”

Farther north, four Venezuelan TDA gang members were recently arrested for aggravated robbery of a woman in her home near the Dallas Fort Worth Airport after an hours-long stand-off with police, Fox 4 News reported. The robbery survivor was beaten with a gun, tied up and threatened to have her fingers cut off, WFAA News reported.

All four Venezuelan men arrested are illegally in the country and have ICE detainers. One was previously arrested by Colleyville police and was released one day before the robbery. Two others aren’t in custody.

In Houston, a Texas DPS special agent assigned to the Texas Anti-Gang Center arrested a TDA member also in the U.S. He was scheduled for an asylum hearing Oct. 7, Texas DPS announced.

He “was wanted out of Pearland, Texas for theft,” DPS said. “Over the course of the investigation, investigators observed tattoos on Cova’s arms including a five-point crown and a clock and roses – all known TDA markings.”

The arrests were made after Texas DPS officers arrested TDA members in El Paso and a judge ordered a hotel be shut down there after numerous reports of alleged criminal activity.

The efforts come after Gov. Greg Abbott declared the TDA a foreign terrorist organization and directed resources for law enforcement to pursue them. The designation allows the state to “bring the full weight of the government against the TDA,” he said. It enables “Texas courts to halt their operations using civil asset forfeiture, take their property, and use enhanced criminal penalties to keep them in jail behind bars for longer periods of time.”

Abbott directed law enforcement to aggressively pursue TDA gang members he argues are terrorizing Texans after they illegally entered the U.S., weren’t vetted, and were released into the country because of Biden-Harris administration “open border policies.”

Texas DPS is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of TDA gang members.

“Tren de Aragua has spread terror and carnage in every country they’ve been in, and Texas will not allow them to gain a foothold in our state,” Abbott said. He announced the reward “for any information that leads to the identification and arrest of known or suspected members of this gang who have been or are involved in heinous crimes. Texas will not let these thugs use our state as a base of operations to terrorize our citizens.”

TDA gang members are known for brutal violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, bribery and human and drug trafficking, Abbott said, and are linked to more than 100 law enforcement investigations nationwide.

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Crime

Canada’s safety minister says he has not met with any members of damaged or destroyed churches

Published on October 11, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Minister Gary Anandasangaree said his priorities are getting a new border bill passed and tackling illegal immigration.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister admitted that he has yet to meet with anyone from 123 Christian, mostly Catholic, churches that have been either reduced to ashes or seriously vandalized over the past four years.

Speaking recently before a committee to discuss upcoming fall bills, Minister Gary Anandasangaree was grilled by opposition Conservative MPs on a host of issues from public safety and illegal migrants to church arsons.

He said his priorities are getting a new border Bill C-12 passed while tackling illegal immigration but made no specific mention of tackling the rise of Christian hate in Canada.

Asked by Conservative MP Dane Lloyd about whether he met with any of the 123 and counting church congregations, he replied that he has not, but he claimed he has met with “many members of different church and faith groups.”

“You said you met with synagogues and mosques, which I do appreciate,” noted Lloyd, adding, “Those communities need your support, Minister, but Christian communities also need your support.”

“Why have you not met with any of those communities?” he asked.

Anandasangaree said he was “concerned (about) every incidence of hate at any place, including churches,” but stopped short of promising anything.

He was also asked about allegations that a government employee who works on a local military base near Montreal was the one responsible for throwing smoke bombs into a church service this summer.

Anandasangaree said he is “concerned” about these allegations but did not add any other context.

Canadian Conservative pro-life and pro-family MP Leslyn Lewis called out the hypocrisy of a new Liberal “hate” speech bill recently for being silent regarding rising “Christian hate,” because it does not even mention church arson.

Hate-motivated attacks against Christians are on the rise in Canada. In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some Canadian residential schools. The reality is, after four years, there have been no mass graves discovered at residential schools.

However, as the claims went unfounded, since the spring of 2021, over 120 churches, most of them Catholic, many of them on indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada.

The Canadian media has been rather silent on the church burnings.

The government-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) went as far as blaming the fact that it has not covered the arson attacks much on “staffing shortage.

Indeed, the absence of reports about church burnings was uncovered by former CRTC chair Peter Menzies, who could not find any information on the recent arson attack against All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox in Bellis, Alberta.

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Crime

Florida teens credited for averting school shooting plot in Washington state

Published on October 10, 2025

By

From The Center Square

By 

Two teenage boys in Florida are being called heroes for their response to a five-second TikTok video last month that may well have averted disaster all the way across the country.

The video, which has since been taken down, reportedly showed plans for a mass school shooting at Kamiakin High School in Kennewick, Wash.

“The contents of the TikTok were a map of a high school, and it had classrooms that were identified and labeled as targets,” said Kennewick School Board member Brittany Gledhill in a Thursday interview with The Center Square. “It had other classrooms that were labeled as potential targets. It had labeled exits, and it had the security department of the school listed as a potential threat.”

The map in the video did not indicate the location or name of the school.

“But this young man who lives in Florida decided to show it to a brother, and then together they decided that they needed to tell the authorities,” Gledhill said.

She explained that local authorities in Florida contacted the FBI, and within hours, the investigation was underway to determine the TikTok poster’s location.

That was September 19, a Friday.

“We got involved on Sunday, so that we were able to sweep the campus and provide a secure and safe environment for our students and staff, and that was in conjunction with KPD, or Kennewick police department,” said Kennewick School District Superintendent Lance Hansen.

At that point, the suspect, a 14-year-old Kamiakin High School freshman, was already in custody.

According to the Tri-City Herald, the FBI was able to match the layout and room numbers shown in the TikTok video to Kamiakin High School, and at that point, the FBI contacted the internet provider about the IP address linked to the account.

Officials were able to narrow down the location to a few dozen potential residences in Kennewick, and according to the Herald, law enforcement further narrowed the list based on the times the TikTok account was active.

The address was further narrowed to the boy’s home, where he reportedly lived with his grandparents, and more than two dozen firearms were located.

Hansen told The Center Square that officials believe the young man was most likely to carry out his plan had the boys in Florida not done the right thing.

“It was smart and courageous at the same time, and I think that they can be an example or model for others who may see something and think it’s not a big deal. Just the thought that they would recognize this isn’t right and have the courage to speak up … that’s really where I believe the story is,” Hansen said.

Gledhill said the school board, administration and staff members from Kamiakin High School are putting together a gift basket and thank-you notes for the boys in Florida who reported the TikTok post to authorities.

“We averted a terrible tragedy because of these two young men,” she said. “This is my home high school, and I have two of my own children [who] go to that school.”

Hansen said the school community is still reeling from what could have happened, but is also trying to find a lesson in it.

“In times where information can flow so quickly and there’s some level of anonymity that is created in ways that we communicate, like with social media, it sometimes creates some boldness in youth, which I think is a false positive,” he said. “I mean, there are benefits to the way that we communicate, and there [are] some unintended consequences of that. Having said that, as I reminded our parents, every person who’s on a campus is responsible for the safety of the campus. That’s students, staff, whoever is there. So that model … needs to be applied for everything.”

Given that the accused is 14, he is being charged as a juvenile. Assuming he pleads guilty or is convicted, he could only be confined until he turns 21.

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