Border Patrol Agents Ordered To Run, Hide From Shooters

Mexican drug-cartel violence is at an all-time high along the
southern border yet the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has
ordered federal agents on the front line to “run away” and “hide” when
encountering a shooter.

This may seem like a really bad joke, but it’s reality in the Obama
DHS, which as we all know is headed by an official (Janet Napolitano)
who is in deep denial about the severity of the crisis along the border.
It wasn’t that long ago that Napolitano, who as Arizona governor
advocated for illegal immigrants, declared the Mexican border “is as secure as it has ever been” and that violence in the area is merely a mistaken “perception.”

Those famous words, ridiculed in the press worldwide, came days after
U.S. Border Patrol agents engaged in a violent gunshot battle with
Mexican drug smugglers along the Rio Grande in Texas. The federal
officers came under siege during a bust that netted half a ton of
U.S.-bound marijuana. Yet the nation’s Homeland Security Secretary stood
stoically at an El Paso port of entry called the Bridge of the Americas
assuring that the area is safe and that “misinformation about safety”
is negatively impacting border communities by driving visitors away and
hurting local businesses.

DHS agents on the frontline, from the U.S. Border Patrol, know
better. That’s why they are outraged that their delusional big boss has
ordered them to flee when confronted with an armed person in public. The
preposterous directive, intended to be kept quiet, was made public by
the nation’s largest Border Patrol Union, which is located in Tucson
Arizona. A nonprofit dedicated to studying the impact of immigration in
the U.S. subsequently wrote about it in its blog.

The Border Patrol union reveals on its website that
agents are forced to take lengthy computer courses known as “Virtual
Learning Center” where they are taught in an “Active Shooter” course
that if they encounter a shooter in a public place they are to “run
away” and “hide.” Only if cornered by a shooter, as a last resort,
should agents become “aggressive” and “throw things” at the attacker.
They are also advised to “call law enforcement” and wait for their
arrival.

This is downright insulting considering the U.S. Border Patrol is a
law enforcement agency with officers that carry weapons for a reason. In
the last few years violence in the southern border area has
skyrocketed. In fact, DHS records show that as far back as 2008 there
was a sharp increase in violence along the U.S. border with Mexico. The
Obama Administration fought hard to keep the records secret but Judicial
Watch forced their release with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit. Read the report here.

More recently a State Department report
exposed a “dramatic increase in violence” along the Mexican border and
warned of “recent violent attacks and persistent security concerns” in
the area. It lists tens of thousands of narcotics-related murders
attributed to sophisticated and heavily armed drug cartels competing
with each other for trafficking routes into the U.S. The agency
repeatedly attributes the crisis to “narcoterrorism.”

In Texas the situation is so bad that state officials created a web site to track Mexican drug-cartel violence
that’s transformed chunks of the southern border into a war zone. The
Texas Department of Agriculture started the web site to keep farmers and
residents informed about the growing danger created by Mexican drug
cartels illegally crossing into the state. It’s occurring at an
“increasingly alarming rate,” according to Texas Agriculture
Commissioner Todd Staples and Washington is ignoring the crisis.