News

Shootout with human trafficking suspects send 4 ICE agents to hospital in Phoenix, 1 woman dead

April 12, 2019 | | Print Article
Screengrab Fox10

The dangers President Donald Trump speaks of when he endeavors to fix our broken immigration system play out in the streets of America on a daily basis, more often than not with little media fanfare, but an incident Thursday in the Phoenix area put those risks on the front page — at least, locally.

Four Homeland Security Investigation agents were taken to the hospital following a shoot out with suspects in the Ahwatukee area of Phoenix Thursday morning, Fox 10 reported.

According to a statement from police, federal agents from the investigative arm of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency were conducting a human smuggling investigation and tried to stop a car to make an arrest when gunfire was exchanged.

There were reportedly five people in the vehicle being stopped. A woman in the truck was pronounced dead at the scene, while the others were taken to the hospital. Their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, according to the Fox affiliate.

The four HSI agents were taken to the hospital for evaluation of undisclosed injuries, though reports say 2 of the officers were shot. Those injuries were also not believed to be life-threatening.

Local residents told Fox 10 that the shootout sounded like a war zone.

“It sounded like you were in a warzone, like in Syria or something, or Iraq,” said Nick Dalton.

Another resident added: “All of a sudden, I heard this ‘dah dah dah dah dah’, you know, gunshots. And then, it went silent. And then, it was again and again and again, so it ended up being, like, it was about 70 gunshots.”

President Trump addressed human trafficking in his State of the Union address back in February.

“Human traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide-open areas between our ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States and to sell them into prostitution and modern-day slavery,” he said at the time.

Remarkably, a Washington Post “fact-checking” analysis awarded Trump “Four Pinnochios,” claiming “the president’s rhetoric on human trafficking far exceeds the available data.”

Their logic included pointing out that prosecutions for human trafficking were down 18 percent in 2018, and that the reasoning is far more often for labor purposes, not for sex. But primarily because the paper said most traffickers use legal points of entry.

The one thing not disputed, even if it was downplayed, is that human smuggling is happening. A lot.

Here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!

$10
$15
$25
$50
Other
$
Success! Thank you for donating. Please share BPR content to help combat the lies.
Tom Tillison
Latest posts by Tom Tillison (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

PLEASE JOIN OUR NEW COMMENT SYSTEM! We love hearing from our readers and invite you to join us for feedback and great conversation. If you've commented with us before, we'll need you to re-input your email address for this. The public will not see it and we do not share it.

Latest Articles