Colorado Murder Rates Show Rapid Rise After Legalization of Pot

[From article]
According to the latest reports coming out of Colorado, marijuana is a major cause of homicides in the state, and the problem is only getting worse.
Regular readers will know that Colorado has seen a massive increase in crime since it legalized pot. The numbers just keep getting worse. Over the first four months of 2016, total crime in Denver is up 10% over the same period from 2015. This rate of increase is five times the population growth rate and adds to equally large increases in 2015 and 2014, as well as the period in 2013, after which the state government signaled marijuana legalization was forthcoming.
The cops in Colorado knew this would happen. They predicted it, and it has come to fruition.
Now a prosecutor in the state has gone on the record with his concerns. Arapahoe County district attorney George Brauchler provides some disturbing statistics: 10 of the last 15 murders in his jurisdiction were connected to marijuana.
[. . .]
The pot legalization advocates told us that legalized marijuana would reduce crime and effectively eliminate the black market. Now we have experienced and respected prosecutors saying they are seeing, firsthand, the exact opposite.
The legalization proponents overlooked a basic fact that District Attorney Brauchler's comments make clear – you will always require money to purchase pot, whether it is legal or not, and it is that need to acquire currency to procure the addictive drug that is a primary driver of marijuana-related crime.
[. . .]
And then there are the road hazards from legalized pot:
A report by the AAA Foundation released Tuesday found that traffic fatalities involving drivers in Washington where marijuana was involved had doubled between 2013 and 2014. Marijuana became legal in the state in 2012.
Similar trends were observed in Utah, where "officials say the number of fatal car wrecks in Utah in which drivers tested positive for marijuana has more than doubled in the last three years."
This social experiment has failed miserably. Time to recriminalize marijuana in all jurisdictions as a means of minimizing, as best as practical, the damage already done.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/06/colorado_prosecutor_marijuanarelated_murders_are_skyrocketing.html

June 1, 2016
Colorado prosecutor: Marijuana-related murders are skyrocketing
By Sierra Rayne

Is Colorado Following NJ Down The Marijuana Tubes?

[From article]
The state of Colorado seems to be going to pot — literally.
John Denver used to sing about a Colorado Rocky Mountain high, but he almost certainly never imagined that someday that theme would apply to America’s innocent school kids.
In a Colorado State House committee meeting on Monday, patient advocates will be pushing for the use of medical marijuana, in the form of edible pot, in their state’s public schools. In the Centennial State, this decision is left to individual school districts — and no school district currently allows it.
So advocates will be pushing hard to make Colorado join New Jersey — the Garden State — as the second state in the country to allow medical marijuana in schools.
Colorado had recreational and medical marijuana sales of $996 million in 2015, according to The Cannabist. The state also collected more than $135 million in taxes and fees, and ironically, more than $35 million is earmarked for school construction projects.
There are several obvious problems with medical marijuana on school grounds — for one, making sure that the patient is the only person who has access to the drug. Secondly, having a school nurse administer medical edible pot when that same school employee is responsible by law for reporting any usage of that same substance is nonsensical. Confusion and opaqueness reign in this debate.
The fight against marijuana in schools is not without concern for any and all students dealing with medical issues, but about the safety and well-being of all students. "School boards do not lack compassion for students that benefit from medical marijuana," Jane Urschel, a member of the Colorado Association of School Boards, told the Associated Press. "How do you begin to deal with those difficulties in different venues?"
The federal government, anxious to involve itself in progressive issues like LGBT rights in public schools, backs off when it comes to marijuana in or near schools, pushing it back on individual states.
[. . .]
"Poor old Colorado; if their schools allow edible marijuana on school grounds, they are simply out of their gourds," said Carla Lowe, the founder of CALM, Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana.
Lowe has been fighting legalized pot in her home state of California and the rest of the U.S. for 40 years. "'If we could just get it accepted as a medicine’ has long been the plea — but that has always been a red herring," said Lowe. "The potency of the drug has been increasing right alongside the movement to legalize it."
Lowe is concerned with the uptick of THC in the product, as well as its long-term effects.
"The problem is that cannabis is a complex drug," she told LifeZette. "There are over 400 chemicals in it. THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, is fat-soluble, so it leaves the bloodstream very quickly. But it then circulates the body until it finds a fatty organ, where it begins to very slowly break down. The brain and the sex organs are the fattiest organs, so they are natural repositories for THC. It takes 25 years for the human brain to be fully developed. Kids are smoking pot, and it's affecting their developing brains."
Lowe says the rise in potency is startling. When she began fighting legalizing pot in California years ago, the level of THC in the product was about one-half to one percent. Now, she says, the potency of street pot in California is 18 to 24 percent THC.
LifeZette asked Lowe to weigh in on another pot issue some states are facing — the proximity of pot shops to public schools.
More than two dozen schools in Denver are now closer than 1,000 feet to shops selling medical or recreational marijuana, as the Denver Post has reported.
[. . .]
A Denver parent who requested anonymity told LifeZette, "Colorado is headed down the tubes, as far as I’m concerned. Our state and its schools seem more concerned with these new businesses — and the tax dollars they bring — feeling comfortable in our state than it does with our kids’ futures. And the mood is, ‘It’s not harmful; it’s just pot.’"
Said Lowe of the country’s acceptance of pot, "We are looking at a diminished generation, a diminished future, and a diminished America."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/04/18/colorado-is-headed-down-tubes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

'Colorado is Headed Down the Tubes'
Published April 18, 2016
Fox News
Lifezette

Updated(3): Rising Crime Rates In Washington, DC, Denver, Alaska and Seattle After Pot Legalized

Posted March 17, 2016 10:33 PM ET; Last updated April 13, 2016 10:35 PM ET

[Updated April 13, 2016 10:35 PM ET]

[From article]
Washington, DC, did indeed legalize marijuana on February 26, 2015, and since then, violent crime has increased substantially.
According to the latest crime data from the Metropolitan Police Department, the number of violent crimes during the first three months of 2016 is up 15% compared to the same time frame last year. By comparison, population growth in the area is only 2% per year.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/dc_legalizes_marijuana_violent_crime_increases.html

March 30, 2016
DC legalizes marijuana, violent crime increases
By Sierra Rayne

* * *



[Updated March 23, 2016 8:51 PM ET]

[From article]
In February of 2015, it became legal to grow and consume marijuana in Alaska. And, as has happened in Denver and Seattle, crime immediately began to increase after being stable or declining in the pre-legal pot era.
[. . .]
Channel 2 KTUU out of Anchorage reports that the 2015 "spike in Anchorage's murder rate along with other violent crime underscores why more patrol officers and detectives are needed on the streets, according to police, victims' advocates, union officials and city promoters."
More police are needed, along with a repeal of Alaska's legal marijuana experiment. The relatively small tax revenues from legalized weed do not come close to offsetting the corresponding economic and social costs.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/alaska_legalizes_pot_crime_explodes_in_anchorage.html

March 19, 2016
Alaska legalizes pot, crime explodes in Anchorage
By Sierra Rayne

* * *



[Updated March 18, 2016 5:34 PM ET]
[From article]
As 2016 starts, crime is up yet again in the post-marijuana legalization metropolis of Denver, Colorado.
[. . .]
Population increase doesn't come close to explaining the trend. Annual growth rates for population in the Denver and Metro Denver areas have been consistent at just 2% over this period, meaning the crime rate is rising rapidly.
And yet, somehow the Denver Post claims that "in any given year, marijuana-related crimes in Denver make up less than 1 percent of all offenses counted in the Uniform Crime Report
[. . .]
There is no reliable way to determine what percentage of the reported crimes are due to marijuana legalization. Some offenses, when investigated by authorities, will show an unequivocal direct cause to marijuana use. But it is simply impossible to accurately measure all offenses directly caused by pot use.
[. . .]
Consequently, the low rate of proven direct associations between crime in Denver and marijuana use is expected, and it tells us nothing about the actual direct causes of marijuana use on crime in the region. It is simply an unknowable question.
Equally important is the indirect effect of marijuana use. The legalization of pot sends a powerful anti-societal message to many, and its use can lead to socio-economic decline for individuals and families – the results of which may take a long period to show their real effects and be essentially impossible to link to marijuana use without a suite of equally long (and expensive) case studies. We lack the resources for these investigations, and, as a result, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
[. . .]
But what we do know is that the number of crimes in Denver skyrocketed started at the same time the legalized marijuana policy was implemented, and this empirical evidence, combined with what science tells us about the harmful psychological effects of marijuana use, is, while not conclusive, strongly suggestive that the social fabric is starting to unravel in the Mile-High City due to pot legalization.
And now we see that "Colorado's Governor is cautioning other states from legalizing marijuana." According to a report by Channel 7 ABC in Denver, Gov. John Hickenlooper made the following statements at a conference in Dallas on Tuesday:
You get all those young people who do certain things that some of us oppose and aren't crazy about, like legalizing marijuana. Let me tell you, if you're trying to encourage businesses to move to your state, some of the larger businesses, think twice about legalizing marijuana.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/crime_continuing_to_rise_in_denver_in_the_legal_pot_era.html

March 12, 2016
Crime continuing to rise in Denver in the legal pot era
By Sierra Rayne

* * *



[From article]
Between 2008 and 2012, the number of total crimes and property crimes in the city was stable or declining, consistent with trends at the national level. Since adult possession of marijuana became legal in December 2012, the number of crimes has risen rapidly.
[. . .]
Given that we see the same pre-/post-pot legalization crime pattern in Denver, while correlation is not necessarily causation, it is certainly suggestive based on the data from these geographically distinct regions.
Time must also be taken to debunk a key talking point of legal marijuana proponents: equating the difficulties of alcohol prohibition with marijuana prohibition. These two drugs present very different law enforcement challenges. The former can never be effectively eliminated, whereas availability of the latter can be substantially reduced via criminalization.
[. . .]
In short, a prohibition on the materials from which alcohol is derived would lead to immediate mass starvation and, soon thereafter, the extinction of the human species (i.e., we would need to pretty much ban the biosphere), whereas a prohibition on the materials from which THC is derived requires us ONLY to criminalize a single largely commercially irrelevant, plant species. Attempting to equate these two efforts is intellectual nonsense and belies a clear lack of knowledge regarding the underlying science behind the two drugs.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/in_seattle_number_of_crimes_way_up_compared_to_prelegal_pot_era.html

March 16, 2016
In Seattle, number of crimes way up compared to pre-legal pot era
By Sierra Rayne

Are Researchers Scientists? Should Massachusetts Learn From Colorado's Experience?

Lynn Zimmer, was a sociologist at Queens College, New York. Dr. John P. Morgan was a physician and professor of pharmacology at CUNY Med School. Their 1997 book is a collection of articles about marijuana and legalization. They are researchers but are they, as cited, "scientists?" Holmes says, "But listening to police is no way to find out what’s going on." Then cites an advocate for legalization as if she knows. Police are in tune with the streets, even if they pretend otherwise. "I am shocked to find gambling in this establishment." Does Holmes recommend not being soft on opioids, but soft on marijuana is OK? Rep. Sannicandro, who favors legalization, says “Politicians are overly influenced by law enforcement[.]” More than the marijuana industry and contributions from George Soros? Unmentioned is removing criminals from the pot industry. But illegal pot is still sold in Colorado. Undiscussed is the preponderance of arrests of small street dealers, instead of big time traffickers. Money launderers need to explain their income.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160217/NEWS/160216883

Column: Fighting yesterday's war on pot
By Rick Holmes
Opinions/Mass. Political Editor
Posted Feb. 17, 2016 at 7:59 AM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

New York City Prison Guard Charged With Trading Pot For Sex, Rape

Nicole Bartley

Photo: Reuters
[From article]
The nearly 70 gram package was confiscated, and Bartley was collared on charges of rape in the third degree, sexual misconduct, official misconduct, promoting prison contraband, and criminal possession of marijuana in the fourth degree, authorities said.
“Such corrupt and indecent actions contribute to the troubling conditions on Rikers Island, and undermine safety and security there,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said in a statement.
Bartley, who has worked at Rikers since May 2014, faces up to four years in prison on the top charge.
The New York City Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters said her arrest marks the 26th Corrections employee nabbed since the DOI began probing corruption at Rikers in 2014.

http://nypost.com/2016/02/07/rikers-guard-accused-of-exchanging-drugs-for-sex-with-inmate/

Rikers guard accused of exchanging drugs for sex with inmate
By Emily Saul
New York Post
February 7, 2016 | 4:15pm

Crime Increases In Colorado After Marijuana Legalization

[From article]
Colorado's marijuana legalization experiment, Denver's 2015 crime wave cranks up yet another notch.
November's crime data is out for the city, and it doesn't tell a pretty story. There were another eight murders in Denver during November, bringing the year-to-date total to 50, which is more than 72 percent higher than last year's numbers.
[. . .]
In 2014, marijuana legalization advocates were claiming that the opposite trends would take place. Crime should decrease, they said, because marijuana use doesn't lead to criminal behavior, and the decriminalization of the substance should reduce organized crime associated with the sale of a formerly illicit drug.
If the data so far is any indication, the Pollyannas were wrong.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/denvers_2015_postmarijuana_legalization_crime_wave_intensifies.html

December 19, 2015
Denver's 2015 post-marijuana legalization crime wave intensifies
By Sierra Rayne

Massachusetts High Court Bars Police Stops For Smell of Marijuana While Driving

It appears that five of the Justices are smoking too many of those funny cigarettes.

[From article]
A divided Supreme Judicial Court voted 5-2 that police aren’t allowed to stop a car if they only have “reasonable suspicion” that the driver is committing the civil infraction of possessing marijuana. The case involved a 2012 stop by a New Bedford cop who reported smelling pot coming from a moving vehicle.
[. . .]



Since the possession of small amounts of marijuana was decriminalized in 2008, the state supreme court has systematically issued rulings protecting pot smokers.
The court has previously ruled that the smell of burnt marijuana is not enough for a police officer to order someone out of a vehicle when they have been stopped for some other reason. The court also ruled that the odor of weed — burnt or otherwise — does not give police probable cause to search a vehicle without a warrant.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/09/sjc_cops_can_t_stop_cars_over_pot_smoke

SJC: Cops can’t stop cars over pot smoke
Police chiefs rip ‘troubling’ ruling
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
By: Bob McGovern, O’Ryan Johnson
Boston Herald

Boston Police Commissioner Opposes Legal Pot, Fears Home Invasions

Seldom discussed except for this official is that the same arguments for sanctuary cities is that illegal aliens fear reporting crime to police and fear cooperating with police because of their immigration status. Well the same fears apply to otherwise law abiding citizens who sell and/or store marijuana in their homes. Nothing to stop home invasions as Evans suggests because the owner of the marijuana will not call the police to report crime or to cooperate as witnesses to crime. Funny how liberals use arguments for one issue but argue the opposite when it suits them. One more reason to recognize that liberals are always promoting propaganda, and are not to be believed. 

[From article]
“A lot of home invasions seem to revolve around someone smoking marijuana, young college kids tying to supplement their income,” he said. “We get a half-dozen every year where they invite regular city kids over and next thing you know, their door is getting knocked down and they are getting robbed.”
[. . .]
“I worry about someone picking up their (medical marijuana) supply, walking two blocks down the street, and someone else there waiting to rob them,” Evans said.
Evans was joined by Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh in studio. The mayor says he will oppose any ballot question that legalizes marijuana. He said he has received mixed reviews on how well legalization has worked in Colorado.
“The intent of the marijuana law in Colorado is to get rid of the drug dealers, but they are still dealing because it’s cheaper than what you can buy from the state,” Walsh said.
“We have such an opiate problem out there now, I don’t think it’s the right time to get into making another drug so readily available,” Evans added. “There is no doubt in my mind it’s a gateway drug. ... I am not for it by any means.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2015/08/evans_thinks_new_marijuana_initiatives_will_lead_to_home

Evans thinks new marijuana initiatives will lead to home invasions
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
By: Chris Villani
Boston Herald

Cambridge Weakly Editors Want More Clemency

Editors state, "the U.S. government is waking up to the realization that it cannot jail its way out of a drug problem." (EDITORIAL: "Facing up to the failed War on Drugs," May 10, 2014, CAMBRIDGE Chronicle) Yes, but government policy makers still believe it can jail its way out of it's troubled persons problem, by jailing any and all persons they do not like or do not understand. Some believe that persons they do not trust should be jailed too. These are the people that they say are "crazy." If drug dealers and users will no longer be jailed someone has to fill the empty cells. Ready and waiting are the crazy people. Do the editors suggest disbanding prison guard unions? Who will fund the luxurious lifestyles of union leaders? And then there are the prison guards themselves, who will be unemployed. No way, Jose. Bring on the crazies to keep the cells filled. Best of all Due Process is unnecessary to incarcerate crazy people. 

The editorial notes "Congress, locked in dysfunction, hasn't [. . .] done anything else toward meaningful drug reform." Is it dysfunction that prevents them from acting? Or is it opposition to legalizing recreational drugs? Are there no downsides to legalizing marijuana? Perhaps US Congressmen are not "cool." Maybe they have different (elderly) ideas than the editors and the lawless Obama-Holder team. If the majority of the population wants to legalize murder for offensive speech should Congress make it legal?

The editors celebrate clemency and encourage the lawless Obama-Holder leadership to increase its use. They say, "More than half of Americans favor legalizing marijuana. And the issue is increasingly a bipartisan affair." Oh? More than half of Americans oppose Obamacare and want it repealed. Do the editors support repealing that too?

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20140510/NEWS/140519940

EDITORIAL: Facing up to the failed War on Drugs
Posted May. 10, 2014 @ 12:17 pm
CAMBRIDGE Chroncile

NY Gov. Maligns NYPD

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/eon0607hm.html

HEATHER MAC DONALD
Pot Possession and the Police
Reforming marijuana laws is one thing; demonizing the NYPD is another.
7 June 2012

Marijuana Sales Are Big Business

Crimson says, "the College—and, in a broader sense, the U.S. government—must do everything in their power to ensure the safety of the individuals they exist to protect." Few elected officials would agree that they are focused on protecting individuals. They are primarily focused on getting re-elected. Police are not obligated to stop crime. Like prosecutors and judges police have discretion. Citizens must protect themselves from government which treats citizens as enemies. Why else do politicians lie so often to voters? As for Harvard, when in loco parentis died didn't the obligation to protect students die with it? Regarding purchasing and distributing marijuana as dangerous, the main issue is profits. A few deaths are merely the cost of doing business, as long as enough consumers can get product there is no problem. Consider the thousands of deaths in Mexico each year.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/4/26/marijuana-drug-more-safety/

A Drug that Kills
The Kirkland shooting trial exposes the dangers in the disconnect between the health and legal consequences of marijuana
By The Harvard Crimson Staff
Published: Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Cocaine, Not Marijuana

Cocaine, Not Marijuana

Ginger Otis reports Obama’s history of drug use as “a teenager experimenting with marijuana.” (Ginger Adams Otis, “Drug Slap goes back and forth,” New York Post, October 19, 2008, Page 4) But the Washington Post and others report that he admitted using cocaine in high school. (See

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201359_pf.html

Effect of Obama's Candor Remains to Be Seen
Senator Admitted Trying Cocaine in a Memoir Written 11 Years Ago
By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Page A01)

Is this more of the double standard giving Obama breaks on errors he admits?

Roy Bercaw - Editor ENOUGH ROOM

Safe Business

Safe Business

The laws regarding marijuana possession will remain as they are for business reasons. It is a good and safe business for police, prosecution and defense lawyers, the courts and especially the corrections officers. Police need to make it appear that they are addressing the drug problem by arresting harmless pot heads. If they really wanted to rid America of illegal drugs State police, FBI and the DEA would have ended the wholesale importing of the drugs into the country by drug cartels in Central and South America, Asia and Europe. US Coast Guard vessels are stopping submarines loaded with cocaine from Colombia off the coast of Mexico and Southern California. Too many US officials earn money taking bribes. Lawyers and bankers get even more laundering money for the drug corporations. Voters elect politicians who get financial support from the drug dealers and their lawyers. Legalizing these harmful substances will reduce corruption, add tax revenue, increase quality and uniformity of the drugs, and stop the violence against ordinary citizens who are not part of the drug empires. Fat chance any of that happens among the current delightful politicians who run for office. They like it the way it is. Spineless candidates fear criticizing the FBI for wholesale murders of citizens who report crimes to them.

Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x1272965082/Guest-commentary-Decriminalizing-marijuana-use-a-dangerous-idea

Guest commentary: Decriminalizing marijuana use a dangerous idea
By Gerry Leone and Rev. Jeffrey Brown
Cambridge Chronicle
Fri Oct 10, 2008, 06:14 AM EDT

Dope Causes Mental Illness Causes Crime?

Dope Causes Mental Illness Causes Crime?

"Someone whocares," says [in comments to article] (Jessica Heslam
and Jessica Fargen, "High teens down and out of it," May 10, 2008)
"Unfortunately we live in a society where the authority is the truth
rather than the truth being the authority." That applies to most
authorative studies and reports. The desire to conform and to obey
authority is well documented by other authorities.
Several other alleged addictions besides smoking dope are
suggested as causing or exacerbating depression. But gambling is
omitted. Is that because Harvard Law and MA Governor Cadillac Deval
Patrick, promotes casinos?
More importantly scientific studies show that healthy young
brains are damaged physically by Ritalin. But schools and
psychiatrists and taxpayers continue to promote and fund ingesting
harmful chemicals. 5-year-old babies are killed by drug company
cocktails and the obedient politicians stay paid and permit this abuse
to grow.

Roy Bercaw - Editor ENOUGH ROOM

[Article comments]
http://tinyurl.com/6d6dcm

High teens down and out of it
White House study shows link between depression, pot use
By Jessica Heslam and Jessica Fargen
Saturday, May 10, 2008 - Updated 13h ago

Immigration Laws and Police

Immigration Laws and Police

Do police say if they enforce pot smoking laws and gambling laws that they
would not be able to solve other crimes? (Casey Ross, "‘Out of control’
Immigration laws make local enforcement a joke," and "Police fear backlash in
crime-fighting," Boston Herald, June 5, 2006)
Wakefield Police Chief Rick Smith said “We have to operate within the
rules.” Lowell Police Superintendent Ed Davis said, “We clearly need some
direction from the federal government.” I thought police took an oath to defend
the Constitution. What are state laws for?
Immigrant advocates and police lament, "You can’t have significant numbers
of your population afraid to call the police." This is disingenuous.
American citizens are reluctant to cooperate with the police. During
prohibition, the Volstead Act, ordinary citizens feared cooperating with the
police then too.
So it is not the immigration laws which are the problem. Perhaps it is a
problem with the police. If FBI agents likely cooperated with organized crime
hitmen in New York and in Boston, why should citizens trust local police?
Therefore, police don't enforce immigration laws because illegal immigrants
fear reporting other crimes. Police don't enforce pot smoking laws because pot
smokers would not help police in other investigations. And, police do not
enforce gambling laws because bookies would not help police solve other crimes?
Do the Herald editors and reporters believe this?
If those laws are not enforced criminals know they can exploit illegal
immigrants, pot smokers and gamblers too. It is a question of priorities.

--
Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA

‘Out of control’ Immigration laws make local enforcement a joke
By Casey Ross
Boston Herald Reporter
Monday, June 5, 2006 - Updated: 05:44 PM EST

Police officials statewide are decrying revolving-door treatment of illegal
immigrants they are forced to release when overwhelmed federal authorities fail
to take action, a Herald review found.
Immigration and the law
Police fear backlash in crime-fighting
ICE query statistics
Even in cases when cops verify a person is illegal, police chiefs say their
officers often can do nothing because federal immigration agents with the power
to detain them are seldom available to respond.
“It’s out of control,” Wakefield Police Chief Rick Smith said. “A lot of
them (illegal immigrants) are running around gainfully employed and it’s tough
to get a handle on it. We have to operate within the rules.”
The nation’s rules on immigration enforcement discourage local police from
becoming involved because authority is almost exclusively vested in Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency empowered to detain illegals
and initiate deportation proceedings.
[...]