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FBI Investigates Brutal Threats Against Officers & Their Families
FBI Investigates Brutal Threats Against Officers & Their Families 11/12/12
November 12, 2012
Midland, TX -Violent threats against West Texas lawmen and their families now have the attention of federal agencies.
The FBI and Homeland Security are investigating threats found under a public forum on topix.com by a person disguised as “El Diablo.”
We first learned the online posts were targeting Midland city and county officials but “El Diablo" is also spreading its viral terror to other West Texas cities. The threats target specific officers as well as family members in Midland, Fort Stockton and Pecos.
In the posts, Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter, Police Chief Price Robinson, Sgt. Ben Chavez and even specific names of some of their family members are targeted.
The writer of these brutal threats says no MPD employees or family members are safe.
It doesn't stop there; El Diablo also takes aim at the entire city. Claiming on December 25th, there will be pipe bombs in public places that will create carnage unimaginable.
In Fort Stockton the person says they are sending Special Forces with high caliber weapons to wipe out the police department.
In each case El Diablo claims racism and corruption as the motive.
Officers we spoke to say at this point, even just the validity of these posts is under investigation. But still, they tell us it's the first time threats of this magnitude have been made and they have no choice but to take it seriously.
We spoke with numerous officers and city officials, all of which were unable to speak with us on camera because of the delicate nature of the case. Several of our sources have told us that the IP address for the posts has been traced to Juarez, Mexico. All posts on the forum have since been removed from the site.