GOUDARZI PROTECTIVE SERVICE

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER

2010-08-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER
Forging Ties in Tijuana

FBI Special Agent Mike Eckel, left, is one of the Bureau's five border liaison officers. He meets about once a week with counterparts like Alejandro Lares of the Tijuana Police Department.

Amid the car horns, engine exhaust, and constant flow of people on foot and in cars, Special Agent Mike Eckel inched through traffic at the San Ysidro Port of Entry—the world’s busiest land border crossing—on his way from San Diego to Tijuana. Although the Mexican city can be a dangerous place for Americans, in his role as one of the Bureau’s five border liaison officers, Eckel makes the trip about once a week.

“The idea behind the border liaison program is to build relationships and to exchange information with Mexican law enforcement,” said Eckel, who speaks fluent Spanish. “We try to take geography out of the equation so we can share intelligence and help each other and bring criminals to justice on both sides of the border.”

In the past, such relationships were difficult to cultivate in Tijuana because of the level of corruption there, according to U.S. and Mexican officials. “But the tide is turning,” Eckel said. “There is less corruption now, and the FBI and other federal entities have established solid working relationships with our Mexican partners.”

Less than an hour after crossing the border, Eckel sat in a small office in a busy Tijuana police substation. He was speaking with officer Alejandro Lares about the Nevada murder fugitive and other matters, including suspected cartel members who live freely in San Diego, where they have committed no crimes. Lares, who has been on the Tijuana force for four years, has served as the liaison officer for U.S. law enforcement for the past year.

“Today, the cartels have less power than they had in the past,” Lares said, largely because the Mexican federal government has exerted its military presence in the area. “We are moving in the right direction,” he added, but acknowledged that the crime and corruption associated with the drug trade will never disappear completely.

Thanks to drug money, the cartels have enormous power—and they use it to bribe, intimidate, and murder. To get what they want from police and government officials in Tijuana and elsewhere along the Mexican border, the cartels offer “the silver or the lead”: the silver being money and the lead being bullets.

Even well-intentioned public servants who refuse outright bribes might be compelled to look the other way if their lives—or the lives of their families—have been threatened. “And these are not hollow threats,” Eckel said. “They will kill you.”

But efforts such as the border liaison program and the determined, collaborative work of law enforcement on both sides of the border are making a difference.

“Sharing information is the key,” Eckel said. “By being able to gather intelligence and quickly analyze and share it, we can actually save lives. I have seen that happen.” Working with the Mexicans as well as other U.S. partner agencies, he added, “We help keep each other safe. We all get along extremely well, because our lives can depend on it.”

Next: A Drug Buy in El Paso
From: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/august10/border_081610.html

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER

2010-08-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER
When Violence Hits Too Close to Home

Emerging from the port of entry’s administrative offices into a sunny San Diego morning, Special Agent Dean Giboney spoke in fluent Spanish with the man whose temporary U.S. visa he had just helped renew. The man was smiling, happy to be out of Mexico, even though he understood that being on U.S. soil was no guarantee of safety from the Tijuana drug cartel that has put a price on his head.

The kidnappings, beatings, and murders that mark the extreme drug-related violence of Mexican border cities such as Tijuana and Juarez have increasingly spilled over the border. Agent Giboney is hoping the man—we’ll call him José —can provide information that will help in the Bureau’s efforts to dismantle the cartels and the criminal enterprises they fuel.

A few years ago, José started working for the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) in Tijuana to earn extra money. But when he saw how routine the act of murder was for the cartel—leaders thought nothing of having even their own people killed for real or perceived insubordination—he started to fear for his life and contacted the FBI to help him flee the country.

Sources like José are just one of many ways the Bureau gathers intelligence to combat border crime. Agent Giboney is particularly interested in gaining information regarding fugitives in the Los Palillos case, one of San Diego’s most notorious examples of so-called “spillover violence.”

Los Palillos—the “Toothpicks”—was a rogue spinoff from the AFO. From 2004 to 2007, the San Diego street gang carried out a brutal crime spree in which 13 people were abducted and nine were killed. Bodies turned up in cars, on jogging paths, and inside houses in quiet, residential neighborhoods.

The group’s leader, Jorge Rojas-Lopez, is serving a life sentence without parole for the crimes, and several of his henchmen are also in prison. But five members of the gang are still at large.

Rojas-Lopez—a former AFO member—was fighting the cartel for a piece of the billion-dollar drug trade, but he was also fighting for revenge, because the AFO had ordered the murder of his brother.

“This level of extreme violence is very typical of the way the cartels operate south of the border,” Giboney said. Unfortunately, Los Palillos is not an isolated case north of the border, either.

What explains this level of brutality? “The cartels and the gang members they employ want to be Al Pacino in the movie Scarface,” Giboney said. During raids on the homes of cartel members, he has seen movie posters of the machine-gun-wielding Pacino, who played a vicious drug kingpin. “They want to live that lifestyle—the nice cars, going out to clubs, throwing money around. But once you’re in that lifestyle,” he explained, “it’s hard to get out, even if you want to.”

José understands how difficult it is to get away from the cartel. The “narcos,” as he calls AFO members, are powerful as well as ruthless, and their influence is felt at every level of Mexican society. “Whatever they want to know about you they can find out,” he said. “They will stop at nothing to protect their interests, even if it means crossing the border.”

Next: A Trip to Tijuana

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER

2010-08-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER
Public Corruption: A Few Bad Apples

In the surveillance footage taken hours before his arrest, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Michael Gilliland can be seen nonchalantly waving a car through his lane at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego. He was knowingly allowing illegal aliens across the border, and he would do this several more times throughout the evening. His actions that night would earn him nearly the equivalent of his annual salary—and eventually a five-year prison term.

Gilliland, a former U.S. Marine and veteran Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer with 16 years of experience, has been in jail since 2007. But his case continues to illustrate the pervasive problem of corruption along the Southwest border and the damage that can occur when officials betray the public's trust.

Although the vast majority of U.S. government employees working on the border are not corrupt, as one senior agent who investigates such crimes noted, “Even one bad apple is too many.”

Of our 700 agents assigned to public corruption investigations nationwide, approximately 120 of them are located in the Southwest region. We work closely with many federal agencies, including CBP and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The result has been more than 400 public corruption cases originating from the Southwest region—and in the past fiscal year more than 100 arrests and about 130 state and federal cases prosecuted.

About This Series

FBI.gov recently visited the Southwest border region for a firsthand look at what the Bureau and its law enforcement partners are doing there to combat crime.

We have 12 border corruption task forces in the Southwest, which consist of many state and local law enforcement agencies as well as our federal partners. Recently, we established a National Border Corruption Task Force at FBI Headquarters to coordinate the activities of all regional operations.

At our Border Corruption Task Force office in San Diego, Special Agent Terry Reed—who headed the Michael Gilliland investigation—points out the “Wall of Shame.” Displayed are pictures of a dozen former officials convicted of public corruption offenses in the San Diego area. They are a diverse group of men and women from a variety of state and federal government agencies. They were all in it for the money, sex, or both—a fact not lost on the drug cartels.

“The cartels have developed into very sophisticated businesses,” said El Paso Special Agent Tim Gutierrez. “Despite their brutality and violence, they use sophisticated tactics.”

The cartels actively engage in corrupting public officials. They recruit by exploiting weaknesses, sometimes gaining intelligence through surveillance methods usually employed by law enforcement. Cartel members have been known to observe inspectors at ports of entry using binoculars from the Mexican side of the border. Maybe an inspector has a drinking or gambling problem. Maybe he flirts with women and could be tempted to cheat on his wife. Maybe an employee is simply burned out on the job.

“If you’re an inspector and you are legitimately waving through 97 out of 100 cars anyway,” Gutierrez said, “and you realize you can make as much as your annual salary by letting the 98th car go by, it can be easy to rationalize that.”

“The cartels are always looking for the next Michael Gilliland,” Agent Reed said. “But using our combined investigative and intelligence gathering skills, the task force has been very successful in rooting out corrupt public officials at the border.”

Next: When Violence Hits Too Close to Home

Resources:

- http://www.fbi.gov
- CBP Officer Pleads Guilty to Alien Smuggling and Bribery (8/05/10)

On the Southwest Border

2010-08-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Southwest border, by the numbers: 2,000: approximate number of miles the U.S. Southwest border shares with Mexico; $18-39 billion: estimated number of illegal dollars that flow annually from the U.S. accross the Southwest border to enrich Mexican drug cartels; 2,600: number of drug-related muders in Juarez, Mexico in 2009; 28,000: number of drug-related muders in Mexico since 2006; 93%: estimated amount of all South American cocaine that moves through Mexico on its way to U.S. customers; 701,000: kilograms of marijuana seized during the first five months of 2010 in the Southwest border states (Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas); 6,154: total number of individual seizures of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine during the first five months of 2010 in the Southwest border states; 12: the number of FBI border corruption task forces operating along the Southwest border; 1: the number of corrupt border guards it would take to allow a terrorist carrying a weopon of mass destruction into the U.S.

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER Corruption, Drugs, Gangs, and More

2010-08-04T11:19:00.000-07:00

The U.S. border with Mexico extends nearly 2,000 miles, from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas. At too many points along the way, criminals ply their trade with surprising ease and devastating results.

Drug cartels transporting kilos of cocaine and marijuana, gangs who think nothing of kidnapping and murder, traffickers smuggling human cargo, corrupt public officials lining their pockets by looking the other way—any one of these offenses represents a challenge to law enforcement.

Taken together, they constitute a threat not only to the safety of our border communities, but to the security of the entire country.

During the next several weeks, FBI.gov will take you to the Southwest border for a firsthand look at their efforts there to fight crime. They will take you to San Diego—home of the world’s busiest port of entry—and across the border into Tijuana. They will also visit El Paso, Texas, whose sister city in Mexico—Juarez—has become as deadly as any war zone thanks to the drug cartels.

In articles, pictures, and video, they will chronicle the Bureau’s efforts to combat border crime through our participation in drug, violent crime, and public corruption task forces; our extensive intelligence-gathering efforts; and our vital partnerships with Mexican law enforcement.

Despite their continuing successes, however, much work is left to be done.

Assistant Director
Kevin Perkins
“With such a great expanse of territory to cover,” said Kevin Perkins, assistant director of our Criminal Investigative Division, “there are places where the border is permeable. In some areas of the desert, people can cross illegally at will, and they do. The U.S. government has built fences and other barriers that our adversaries are continually trying to defeat, and in some cases they are defeating them,” he added. “Either they're tunneling under, flying over, or actually cutting through the various defenses we've put up.”

The cartels make billion-dollar profits trafficking drugs. Gaining and controlling border access is critical to their operations. They maintain that control through bribery, extortion, intimidation, and extreme violence. Some areas on the Mexican side of the border are so violent they are reminiscent of the gangster era of Chicago in the 1930s or the heyday of the Mafia’s Five Families in New York. In Tijuana, for example, a man who came to be known as "The Strew Maker"—El Pozolero—worked for one of the cartels dissolving hundreds of murder victims in acid to dispose of the evidence. In Juarez, decapitated heads of murdered cartel members have been displayed on fence posts to intimidate rivals.

“We think al Qaeda is violent,” said one of our senior agents in El Paso, “but the cartels here are often just as willing to resort to extreme brutality and bloodshed to carry out their objectives.”

The disturbing level of violence sometimes overshadows the national security risks along the border, Perkins said. “Unfortunately, there are border guards who are corrupt—people who can wave vehicles through checkpoints. Those vehicles could contain narcotics or illegal aliens, but they could also be pieces to the next dirty bomb brought into the country by terrorists. We are working very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Goleta Man Indicted in Connection with Murder-for-Hire Plot Targeting Bel Air Resident and Others

2010-07-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES—A federal grand jury returned an indictment this morning charging a Goleta man with soliciting the murder of his former business partner and others, announced Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles; André Birotte Jr., United States Attorney in Los Angeles; and Leroy Baca, Sheriff of Los Angeles County.

Eugene Darryl Temkin, 50, of Goleta, California, was arrested at his residence on July 14, 2010, without incident. At that time, a criminal complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles outlining the scheme by Temkin to hire a third party to murder his former business partner, the man’s wife, and the man’s business partner.

According to the criminal complaint, the investigation began in late 2009 when a source provided information to detectives indicating that Temkin planned to hire a professional killer to murder his former business partner. Over the following several months, undercover law enforcement personnel, posing as professional killers for hire, met with Temkin to discuss how the plot should be carried out. According to the complaint, Temkin wanted the victim forced to pay him $15 million to settle his portion of a failed business venture, and then wanted the victim, his wife and his business partner murdered. Throughout the undercover meetings, Temkin proposed various forms of murder and torture to be exacted on the victims by the undercover law enforcement officers, whom he believed were professional killers.

During the final undercover meeting, which occurred July 8th in Encino, California, Temkin paid the undercover agent the first installment of a $30,000 fee to carry out the murders. According to the plan agreed on by Temkin and the undercover agent, the murders were to be carried out in Spain, where Temkin believed the victims were vacationing, according to the complaint. Temkin provided to the undercover agent, photographs of the victims, as well as other identifying information. Temkin also gave the undercover agent the information he would need to deposit the $15 million into a bank account Temkin established in his name in Montevideo, Urguay.

The indictment charges Temkin with one count of soliciting a crime of violence, one count of attempting to interfere with interstate commerce by threats and violence, and one count of using interstate facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire.

Temkin is currently being held without bond at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, and is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on August 2, 2010.

If convicted on all counts, Temkin faces a statutory maximum sentence of fifty years in prison.

This investigation was conducted by detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and agents with the FBI. This case is being prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty.

FROM:

FBI Los Angeles
Contact: Public Affairs Specialist Laura Eimiller
(310) 996-3343

2010-07-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

San Diego awarded $16 M in grants from U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (AP)
The city of San Diego was awarded $16.2 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for emergency preparedness and anti-terrorism efforts, it was announced Thursday.

The grants were among $832.5 million in Urban Areas Security Initiative, or UASI, grants announced Thursday by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to 64 metropolitan areas.

Last year, San Diego was also awarded $16.2 million in UASI grants.

According to San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders' office, the city will use the money to strengthen an emergency communications network and improve the region's ability to respond to a chemical or biological attack.

2010-05-30T04:52:00.000-07:00

FBI Releases Preliminary Annual Crime Statistics for 2009

Preliminary 2009 statistics indicate that violent crime in the nation decreased 5.5 percent and property crime declined 4.9 percent when compared with data from 2008, according to the FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, which was released today. Data in the report came from 13,237 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to 12 months of data in both 2008 and 2009.

Violent Crime

All four violent crime offenses—murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—declined nationwide in 2009 when compared with 2008 data.

Robbery dropped 8.1 percent,

murder decreased 7.2 percent,

aggravated assault declined 4.2 percent,

and forcible rape decreased 3.1 percent.

Violent crime fell in all city groupings. The largest decrease, 7.5 percent, was in cities with populations ranging from 500,000 to 999,999 inhabitants. Violent crime declined 4.0 percent in the nation’s metropolitan counties and 3.0 percent in nonmetropolitan counties.

Cities with 25,000 to 49,999 inhabitants were the only city population group to report an increase in the number of murders, 5.3 percent. The number of murders in the nation’s nonmetropolitan counties also rose, 1.8 percent. Forcible rape trends dropped in all city population groups. The largest decrease was 7.3 percent in cities of less than 10,000 residents. Metropolitan counties reported a 3.7 percent decline in the number of rapes, but the number of rapes reported in nonmetropolitan counties rose slightly, 0.3 percent. All population groups reported decreases in the volume of robbery in 2009. Of the city groups, cities with populations of 100,000 to 249,999 had the largest decrease at 10.3 percent. Metropolitan counties reported a 6.7 percent drop in robberies; nonmetropolitan counties reported a 0.7 percent decline.
The number of aggravated assaults declined in all population groups, with cities of 500,000 to 999,999 inhabitants reporting a 6.3 percent decrease. Aggravated assaults declined 3.7 percent in nonmetropolitan counties and 3.0 percent in metropolitan counties.

All four regions in the nation showed decreases in violent crime in 2009 when compared with data from 2008. Violent crime decreased 6.6 percent in the South, 5.6 percent in the West, 4.6 percent in the Midwest, and 3.5 percent in the Northeast.

Property Crime

All property crime offenses—burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft—decreased in 2009 when compared with 2008 data. Motor vehicle theft showed the largest drop in volume at 17.2 percent, larceny-thefts declined 4.2 percent, and burglaries decreased 1.7 percent.
The nation’s largest cities, one million or more inhabitants, reported the greatest decrease, 7.9 percent, in property crime overall. Of the city groupings, this population group also reported the biggest decreases in the offenses that comprise property crime: a 21.1 percent drop in motor vehicle theft, a 5.7 percent decline in burglary, and a 5.5 percent decrease in larceny-theft. In the nation’s nonmetropolitan counties, larceny-thefts fell 9.5 percent; in metropolitan counties, larceny-thefts declined 5.9 percent. The only population group to indicate a rise in any type of property crime was in nonmetropolitan counties, where burglary rose 0.5 percent.
In comparing 2008 data and 2009 data by region, law enforcement agencies in the West reported the biggest decline in property crime, with a decrease of 6.8 percent. Property crime declined 5.6 percent in the Midwest, 5.3 percent in the Northeast, and 3.2 percent in the South.

Arson

Arson offenses, which are tracked separately from other property crimes, declined 10.4 percent nationwide. All population groups reported decreases in the volume of arson offenses. In addition, arson fell in all four of the nation’s regions: 11.6 percent in the West, 10.6 percent in the South, 9.2 percent in the Midwest, and 8.6 percent in the Northeast.

The complete 2009 Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report is available exclusively at www.fbi.gov/ucr/prelimsem2009/index.html.

Cal State San Marcos

2010-05-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

“Cal State San Marcos will be the site of a major emergency training exercise from 9 am until 5 pm on Tues, May 18th.” from San Diego County Sheriff's Department : Nixle:

"Cal State San Marcos will be the site of a major emergency training exercise from 9 am until 5 pm on Tues, May 18th.
This exercise is part of a statewide Operation Golden Guardian drill.

The City of San Marcos, San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, San Diego County Office of Emergency Services, Cal State San Marcos and numerous other public safety agencies will be involved in a statewide terrorism response training exercise called Operation Golden Guardian on Tuesday, May 18 from 9 am to 5 pm.

Residents and motorists may notice ambulances, emergency vehicles, law enforcement and fire personnel on and around the campus of Cal State San Marcos, 333 S. Twin Oaks Valley Road. Motorists may experience some traffic control measures near the campus.

THIS IS ONLY A DRILL.

The purpose of this exercise is to give emergency responders an opportunity to train and rehearse in disaster and terrorism response. The Golden Guardian statewide exercise series was first implemented by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 and has become an annual
statewide exercise."

Copy Machine Security

2010-05-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

Is your confidential info is stored on a copy machine?

A CBS News.com investigation. Copy Machine Security Video.

Guns in California

2010-05-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives News Release
Los Angeles Field Division
May 11, 2010

www.atf.gov
Contact: Michael Hoffman,

Special Agent – PIO
Office: (818) 265-2507
Cell: (951) 538-4803
michael.hoffman@atf.gov

ATF Posts 2009 Los Angeles Crime Gun Data
Crime Gun Statistics Available On-Line
LOS ANGELES — John Torres, Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), announces the release of aggregate trace data for crime guns recovered in Los Angeles and submitted to ATF for tracing for calendar year 2009.

A review of the trace data compiled from January 1 to December 31, 2009 (from a data set run between March 29, 2010 and May 3, 2010) of several regions within Southern California revealed the following:

•32,964 crime guns were recovered by statewide California law enforcement agencies and submitted to ATF to be traced.
•16,162 firearms were traced by Los Angeles County law enforcement agencies with the majority traced by the LA County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles Police Department.
•Statewide, recovered handguns outnumbered long guns by nearly 2 to 1.
•50% of all firearms recovered in California were recovered in Los Angeles County, and 21% were from the City of Los Angeles.
•In Los Angeles, recovered handguns outnumbered long guns by more than 2 ½ to 1.
•1,238 crime guns were traced by Orange County law enforcement agencies in 2009.
•1,521 crime guns were traced by Los Angeles ATF Agents as part of ongoing investigations in 2009.
•There were over 3,000 crime guns recovered and traced in Southern California from youths 18-24 years of age.
A key component of ATF’s enforcement mission is the tracing of firearms on behalf of the thousands of nationwide federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement agencies. Analyzing the comprehensive trace results gives ATF Los Angeles the ability to track illegal trafficking patterns and dismantle the organizations that put firearms into gang members and violent felons’ hands. ATF also gains insight regarding the types of criminal offenses committed in Southern California.

ATF views the most pertinent information gathered from a firearms trace as the individual purchaser and the time-to-crime (TTC) statistic. The TTC refers to the time period from the initial sale of the weapon by the federal firearms licensee to its recovery by law enforcement. Every gun with a TTC of less than two (2) years is looked at by ATF analysts, with an intense focus on those guns with a TTC of less than one (1) year. Time-to-crime less than one year may be a very strong indicator of illegal firearms trafficking.

“I attribute our successes as a federal agency to the positive interaction and collaboration with our state and local partners in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Tracing this amount of guns has given us a good baseline in determining the source of crime guns in Southern California. We are following up diligently on these leads,” said Torres. On January 1, 2002, the state of California enacted mandatory crime gun tracing through ATF.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guns Recovered by Police Agencies in California & Traced by ATF [a] State of California Los Angeles County City of Los Angeles Notes
Trace Totals 32,964 – 16,405 50% 6,882 21% (% based on % of total CA traces)
Handguns 21,312 65% 10,699 65% 4,947 72% (% based on % of State, County or City traces, i.e. 65% of guns recovered in LA County were handguns)
Long Guns [b] 11,580 35% 5,785 35% 1,925 28% (% based on % of State, County or City traces, i.e. 35% of guns recovered in LA County were long guns)

a.The Southern California Regional Crime Gun Center validated trace data for these entries prior to submission to the NTC. Date of study is 1/1/09-12/31/09
b.(Rifles, Shotguns, Destructive Devices, Machine Guns)

San Diego County Honors its Fallen Peace Officers.

2010-05-06T07:05:00.001-07:00

San Diego County honors its fallen peace officers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKwhYMjszqY

Fallbrook/Bonsall residents hear demonstration of military might!

2010-05-05T07:48:00.001-07:00

SAN DIEGO - The public got a lofty demonstration of military air might and aviation prowess today as a formation of 25 Marine helicopters flew from Camp Pendleton to San Diego and back.

The aircraft, AH-1Z Cobras and UH-1Y Hueys, crossed over the county in three chevron-shaped groups, roared south along Interstate 15 to the skies over Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, and looped back for the trip north to Pendleton.

The exercise was intended to develop and demonstrate "flight leadership skills," USMC spokesman Cpl. Derek Carlson said.

"We are giving Marine aviators experience in flying in large formations, and information about aircraft behavior in large formation flying," he added.

The copters left about 11 a.m. from a Camp Pendleton airfield near Fallbrook and flew to the Miramar area over Escondido, Rancho Bernardo and the northern reaches of San Diego. The formation returned to the North County USMC base on the same vector, landing shortly before 2 p.m., Carlson said.

North County Cosmetic - North County residents will get a demonstration of military might and training today, as a large formation of Marine helicopters is scheduled to fly from Camp Pendleton to San Diego and back.

"People will see three chevron-shaped groups of aircraft fly south from Pendleton, along Interstate 15, to Miramar and back," said Cpl. Derek Carlson at Marine Corps Airs Station Miramar.

"The formation of three waves of aircraft will demonstrate flight leadership skills," he said. "These are the new generation of aircraft, the AH-1Z Cobras. We are giving Marine aviators experience in flying in large formations, and information about aircraft behavior in large formation flying."

The choppers were scheduled to leave about 11 a.m. from an airfield near Fallbrook, at the post's eastern side, and fly above Interstate 15 past Escondido and Rancho Bernardo to Miramar. The formation will fly back to Miramar on the same vector and land about 1 p.m.

The Cobras will be accompanied by UH-1Y Hueys, Carlson said.

Valley News
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010.
Issue 18, Volume 14.

Geezer Bandit

2010-05-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

FBI Seeks Public’s Assistance to Identify the “Geezer Bandit”

May 3, 2010 - The FBI, San Diego Police Department, and San Diego Sheriff’s Department are seeking the public’s assistance to identify the unknown male bank robber dubbed the “Geezer Bandit.” The Geezer Bandit is believed responsible for robbing eight banks in San Diego County. Three different rewards, totaling $16,000, are being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the Geezer Bandit.

Today, April 30, 2010, the suspect entered the U.S. Bank, located at 1301 E. Vista Way (inside Albertson’s), Vista, California, and produced a demand note for cash. He held a small revolver in his left hand as he robbed the teller.

Witnesses describe the robber as follows:

Sex: Male
Race: White
Age: 60-70 years old
Height: Approximately 6’0”
Weight: Approximately 190 pounds
Build: Average
Clothing: Baseball cap, blazer, button-down shirt, sunglasses.

The Geezer Bandit is believed to be responsible for robbing the following San Diego County banks:

August 28, 2009 US Bank 9643 Mission Gorge Rd., Santee
September 12, 2009 San Diego National Bank 7877 Ivanhoe, La Jolla
October 9, 2009 US Bank 4627 Carmel Mountain Rd., San Diego
October 26, 2009 Bank of America 17008 Avenida de Acacias, Rancho Santa Fe
November 16, 2009 Bank of America 7680 Girard Ave., La Jolla
January 27, 2010 San Diego National Bank 1075 Rosecrans, San Diego
April 20, 2010 California Bank & Trust 140 Escondido Ave., Vista
April 30, 2010 US Bank 1301 E. Vista Way, Vista

Anyone with information concerning this robbery is asked to contact the FBI at telephone number (858) 565-1255, San Diego Sheriff’s Department at (858) 565-5200, San Diego Police Department at (619) 531-2299, or anonymously to Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.