The slaying in Southlake Town Square of a Mexican attorney with reputed ties to drug cartels was a brazen and well-coordinated assassination that illustrates the increasingly long and lethal reach of the brutal criminal organizations, security experts say. The flamboyant public hit was unusual because Mexican cartels try to stay off the radar on this side of the border. But it underlines an ominous trend: Dallas-Fort Worth has become a key "command and control" center for moving drugs and people across the country, top state and federal law enforcement officials confirm. [continues 1640 words]
Cagey Mexican drug cartel farmers appear to be back at work growing marijuana in thickly forested areas in North Texas, law enforcement officials say. It's still early in the growing season, but the Ellis County Sheriff's Department has already unearthed nearly 30,000 high-grade marijuana plants on two plots of private property discovered about 40 miles south of Dallas, Lt. James Saulter said. Last year, Texas law enforcement officials destroyed a record 62,000 pot plants, with most grown in sophisticated operations in Ellis and Navarro counties. [continues 584 words]
Mexico's nimble drug cartels are leapfrogging tightened border security and establishing sophisticated marijuana-growing operations in North Texas and Oklahoma, law enforcement officials say. "There is no doubt" that three big marijuana fields uncovered this month in Ellis and Navarro counties "have a tie to the border and a Mexican drug cartel," said a drug investigator for the Department of Public Safety. "They brought the tenders up here from Mexico to do the work. "This is not Joe Bob growing some marijuana to smoke. These are professional drug operations," said the investigator, who asked not to be identified for security reasons. [continues 1709 words]
I think it is about time to put the drug testing in schools issue to a rest! You people who keep crying like babies about your freedoms being impinged upon need to rethink the whole issue. First of all, your children's public education and other school activities are not provided because of any rights or freedoms that they have. They are privileges that are freely given to them by our federal, state, and local tax dollars. You, however, do have the freedom to remove them from school, if you are under the impression that you could successfully home-school them. [continues 142 words]
