Speaker Recap for February 27, 2012
John “Jackrabbit” Dillinger; Lester “Baby Face Nelson” Gillis; John “Teflon Don” Gotti, Jr.; Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano; Ted “the Unabomber” Kaczynski: What do all these notorious fellows have in common, you might ask? Did they all join John “Photo Op” Frisch on one of his annual “Dive Bar” tours? Indeed. But, more importantly, they were all tracked down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation! Hence, we were especially proud to have had Mr. Herbert Brown, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Sacramento Division, grace our club with his presence this past Monday. Agent Brown provided a provocative overview of his office’s current efforts to fight crime in our area.
Agent Brown joined the Sacramento Division in December, 2010, and prior to that was the section chief for the Gang Criminal Enterprise Section, in which he oversaw all domestic and international gang/drug operations. A graduate of U.C.S.B. (Go Gauchos!), Agent Brown started out in law enforcement as a “beat cop” for the Capitola and San Jose Police Departments from 1979-87. After joining the FBI as a special agent in 1988, he has held prominent positions in the Denver, Los Angeles, and West Covina Divisions. He has spent years as a full-time under-cover agent, as a SWAT Team leader, and also as the agency’s crisis response commander in Athens, Greece, during the 2004 Olympics. More recently, he served in Afghanistan and Mexico, as part of the Organized Crime Sections. Obviously, we are fortunate to have such a “heavy weight” leading the Bureau’s efforts to protect our greater Sacramento area for the foreseeable future.
Agent Brown reported that some of his Division’s major areas of concern center on fighting drug and human trafficking by the myriad gangs and cartels active (and growing) in our region. He noted that his group works closely with local, state, and other national law enforcement agencies to coordinate efforts. His Division encompasses 34 northern California counties, 90,000 square miles, and around 8.5 million citizens, so it is important that his group works closely with the hundreds of local police and sheriff’s departments to investigate criminal activities. He noted that while we are “winning” the so-called “war on drugs,” the “war” will be never-ending, given that a part of our population seems forever drawn into addiction, and another part into the cash driven underground economy that supports it.
As Agent Brown was quick to point out, illegal drug use is far from a “victimless” crime. Indeed, in his view the victims include the addict’s family members and friends who are inevitably drawn into the addict’s circle of deceit and denial, as well as those who are robbed or cheated to obtain the cash to feed the habit, not to mention the violence that erupts when drug related gang members have to mark out and then defend their “territories.” So, from Agent Brown’s perspective, perhaps the best we can hope to do is to stem the rising tide in the growth of the illegal drug industry in our area and the far reaching circle of destructive activity that comes with it. We are thankful to have Agent Brown overseeing the FBI’s efforts on all of our behalves, and we thank him for taking the time to educate us this past week.