Nashville Reporter Only Sees Racism In Moving To A Christianity-Friendly Small Town
As Venezuelan gang soldiers set up shop in Tennessee, a Nashville reporter directs ire at a handful of American families who’ve moved in.As Venezuelan gang soldiers set up shop in Tennessee, a Nashville reporter directs ire at a handful of American families who’ve moved in.Violent Venezuelan gang infiltrates every major city in Tennessee
The vicious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has infiltrated every major city in Tennessee, according to state officials.
TDA has been tied to criminal activity across the United States, including apartment takeovers in Aurora, Colorado, and violent crimes in New York City and Dallas, Texas. Thus far, the gang has primarily, but not exclusively, focused on expanding its presence in sanctuary jurisdictions, where local law enforcement agencies are forbidden to cooperate with federal immigration officials.
'They will not hesitate to attack their opponents in public and in broad daylight.'
During a budget meeting this week, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director David Rausch warned Governor Bill Lee (R) that TDA has recently become a growing threat in the state.
According to Rausch, the gang started to appear in Tennessee two years ago, but its influence has substantially expanded over the past few months. He noted that TDA is active in Memphis and Nashville.
"We first saw them a couple years ago where we uncovered a group here in a human trafficking operation," Rausch explained. "We recognized a number of the members here trafficking females that they had abducted from Venezuela and brought them here."
The bureau successfully captured several individuals involved in the illicit operation, but "many of them fled" out of Tennessee, Rausch said.
"Now what we are seeing is they are back. They are back in all of our major cities," he declared.
When TDA arrives in a new area, it starts by running trafficking operations, then expands into other criminal activities, including organized retail theft and drug trafficking, Rausch told Lee.
He expressed concerns about TDA's brazenness and its targeting of cartel members.
"They will, and they have taken on the cartel head-on, and they're very violent in their efforts," Rausch continued. "They will not hesitate to attack their opponents in public and in broad daylight."
"Recently, there was a video that they shot where they shot an individual, a cartel member, 31 times. Broad daylight, on video, and posted it to social media," he stated.
Rausch did not share how many TDA gang members he believes are in the state but noted that "they're in numbers here."
According to Straight Arrow News, the Knoxville Police Department is unaware of any TDA activity in the area.
The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly identified more than 600 individuals in the U.S. with ties to TDA, Blaze News previously reported. The federal government has confirmed the gang's activity in at least 15 states, and it may have expanded to another eight.
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FEMA Employee Fired For Bypassing Homes With Trump Signs Says She Was Following Agency Protocol
Ex-FEMA supervisor indicates bypassing Trump supporters based on their perceived hostility is a widespread occurrence.'Distressed' 911 caller told police he fell off a cliff during a bear attack. Now he's wanted for murder.
A Tennessee man called police saying he'd fallen off a cliff while a bear was chasing him. However, law enforcement is now saying the 911 caller murdered a hiker and then attempted to stage the victim's death as a bear attack.
A man called 911 dispatch at 11:34 p.m. Oct. 18 to inform authorities that he was "injured and partially in water," according to a news release from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
A manhunt is under way for Hamlett, and police said he should be considered armed and dangerous.
The "distressed hiker" told police he had fallen off a cliff while running away from a bear. The hiker told law enforcement that his name was Brandon Andrade. The call was pinged in the area of the Charles Hall Bridge on the Cherohala Skyway in Tellico Plains — a small mountain town in east Tennessee.
When first responders arrived, they searched the area and discovered a bloody corpse at the bottom of a cliff. The dead man had Brandon Andrade's identification.
But law enforcement determined that the victim was not Andrade. Investigators said the ID had been stolen and used multiple times.
Detectives with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigation Division and the Monroe County Violent Crimes Unit identified Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, as the suspect who had been using Andrade's stolen identification.
“Mr. Hamlett had used a false name when speaking with law enforcement in Knox County, TN after the distressed hiker call. Before his real identity had been verified, Mr. Hamlett is believed to have fled from his Tennessee residence,” the sheriff's office said.
Investigators said the man who was found dead at the bottom of the cliff was murdered. Police did not identify him; they referred to him as John Doe.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Hamlett for first-degree murder. A manhunt is under way for Hamlett, and police said he should be considered armed and dangerous.
Hamlett is 5'7" tall, weighs 170 pounds, and has brown hair and blue eyes.
Authorities said if you see Hamlett, call 911 or Monroe County Dispatch at 423-442-4357.
Apparently, this isn't the first time Hamlett has been accused of an incident like this.
In 2009, Hamlett was accused of holding a man at gunpoint, trying to hit him with a baseball bat, and attempting to bury him alive, according to AL.com. He was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping before pleading to a lesser offense of felony assault. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his crimes in 2012. In that case, Hamlett used the alias Joshua Jones. Hamlett also was wanted in Alabama on a parole violation.
As Blaze News reported earlier this month, a Montana father was so brutally mangled to death while camping that his friends thought he was mauled in a bear attack. However, detectives said the "loving" dad was not killed by a bear – but rather he was the victim of a grisly homicide.
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‘Still No FEMA’ As Blank Page Harris Plays Politics With Hurricane Relief
Sources on the ground in hurricane-ravaged Tennessee and North Carolina tell The Federalist FEMA continues to fail many of the victims.Comparing Helene To Katrina Suggests Americans Are Left To Die Because Democrats Run The White House
As a veteran of military logistics, I can tell you exactly why the Democrat administration's response to Helene has been abysmal.Hunting for hope: Hound hunters step up as FEMA falls short in Appalachia
A community of hound hunters across America banded together this week to donate thousands of dollars' worth of supplies to their fellow countrymen devastated by Hurricane Helene, and their efforts were so successful that a local Tennessee post office reportedly couldn't manage all the deliveries.
Last Friday, Hurricane Helene sent such torrential rainfall to parts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee that within hours, residents were forced to flee to their rooftops in hopes of rescue.
T.L. Jones, the pastor of Appalachian Baptist Church in Greeneville, Tennessee, explained to Blaze News just how serious the situation quickly became.
"People [were] kicking out the top windows to get rescued by boats and lifted out by air in different places," he said. "And there's no way for the people in this area to have any concept of what was coming. ... And then once it happened, it just swept people away."
A friend, Boone McCrary, stopped by Pastor Jones' home shortly before venturing out in his boat to rescue someone trapped by the flooding. McCrary never returned.
"He capsized and drowned. They found him yesterday. They found his body," Jones said.
The pastor also shared harrowing stories of helicopters saving patients off the rooftop of a hospital, of a husband who drowned while attempting to escape the area with his wife after their home was ripped from its foundation, and a dam barely holding firm as millions of gallons of water cascade over its top.
'Where is the federal government? Where are they? We haven't waited on them, but we sure expected them to show up.'
Amid these dangerous conditions came a ray of hope: a group of people from all over America united in their love of hound hunting and their fellow man. Through the coordinated efforts of Pastor Jones and Chris Powell, the host of the "Houndsman XP" podcast, this group managed to send supplies en masse to Greeneville.
With the help of his daughter — "It needed a woman's touch on it," he joked — Powell developed an Amazon gift registry and then shared it on social media.
The response has been nothing short of amazing. As of Thursday afternoon, people had sent more than $8,000 worth of supplies to the ravaged area.
"There's everything on that site, from pre-made baby bottles to water to feminine hygiene products to cleaning supplies. canned food, snack food," Powell told Blaze News.
Powell and his fellow hound hunters were, in fact, so generous that the local Greeneville post office needed help delivering all the items donated off the Amazon registry, Pastor Jones said.
"It comes to a post office, and then we send vehicles to the post office and pick it up because they can't handle the number of stuff that's coming in," he explained to Blaze News.
Blaze News reached out to the U.S. Postal Service to confirm Jones' version of events but did not receive a response.
Powell also contacted Elite Nutrition, one of his show's sponsors, and the folks there donated two tons of pet food, he claimed.
Jones said that he also raised a total of $10,000 from the collection plate at his church as well as from another local church. He then started walking door-to-door, handing out $250 to residents. "Just so they could get some cash in their pockets," he said.
A network of churches and other organizations have reached out to Pastor Jones to send resources to the area as well. On the outside of one box of donated supplies was a particularly touching note: "To our fellow Tenneseans from the men of Uncle John's Handguns."
Though need in the area remains great, Powell, Jones, and others will soon divert the donations, which continue to arrive, to parts of North Carolina because the good people of Greeneville want to help take care of others.
Powell then shared a heartwarming story that aptly conveys the generous character, or what he described as the "fighting spirit," of the Appalachian people.
"One of the guys ... was literally delivering supplies and insulin and medicine up into the mountains with his horse and a pack mule. And he was talking to an older lady, an elderly lady there, that she couldn't even get out on a road. She didn't have electricity, and she didn't have water, but she had a spring," Powell said.
"And he rode up in there and he says, 'Can I leave you some food?' She says, 'I'm good. But I've got supper cooking. If you want to stay and eat with me, you're more than welcome to.'"
Powell, a retired conservation officer in Indiana who helped in the relief efforts following several natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005, told Blaze News that he knew the hound-hunting community would open their hearts and their wallets to those who are suffering.
"They're the people that serve on your power crew. They're the people that will build your house, and when they're in times of need, they will step up to the plate," he said with pride.
"[They're] just good, red-blooded, freedom-loving Americans that know the value of stepping up and helping their fellow man."
Meanwhile, FEMA, a federal agency with an annual budget of nearly $30 billion, has offered just $750 to taxpaying citizens who in some cases lost almost all of their possessions.
"Where is the federal government? Where are they? We haven't waited on them, but we sure expected them to show up, and we just want to know: Where are they? Where is FEMA?" Jones asked.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted the federal agencies under his purview, including FEMA, are doing the best they can.
"We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds," Mayorkas said Wednesday.
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Group of migrants busted for looting Tennessee homes devastated by hurricane: Sheriff
Tennessee authorities recently arrested eight migrant workers after they were allegedly caught looting homes in Washington County that were devastated by Hurricane Helene.
According to the Washington County Sheriff's Office, five of the men — Albin Nahun Vega-Rapalo, 24; David Bairon Rapalo-Rapalo, 37; Kevin Noe Martinez-Lopez, 25; Marvin Hernandez-Martinez, 43; and Dayln Gabriel Guillen Guillen, 37 — were charged with aggravated burglary for allegedly breaking into occupied structures.
'We have been through way too much for this kind of behavior.'
Three of the men — Jesus Leodan Garcia-Peneda, 51, Josue Berardo Ortis-Valdez, 30, and Ersy Leonel Ortis-Valdez, 33 — were slapped with burglary charges, the sheriff's office reported.
Sheriff Keith Sexton stated that the men were arrested on Saturday and remain at the Washington County Detention Center on $20,000 bonds. They were slated to make their first court appearance on Monday.
"Washington County Sheriff's Deputies continue to patrol our region during the catastrophic flooding, especially along the flood zone," the department said in a post on Facebook.
A spokesperson for the sheriff's office told Fox News Digital that the men are migrant workers who are legally in the United States on work visas.
However, the spokesperson told the news outlet, "That will change as a result of the charges."
"We have been through way too much for this kind of behavior," the spokesperson added.
The sheriff's office told Fox News Digital that the three men charged with burglary were caught looting unoccupied homes and structures "that were barely still standing."
Anything else?
The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition stated, "TIRRC staff members who deployed to the area witnessed community members struggling to access interpretation services from local and state government agencies, as well as requests by agencies for identification and documentation from immigrant community families that hindered their ability to identify missing loved ones."
According to recent reports, Hurricane Helene's devastation has resulted in the death of more than 160 people in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee — making it the second deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. in the last 55 years. Hundreds of individuals are still missing, and the storm's death toll is expected to increase as first responders continue to search the debris. More than a million individuals remain without power.
Over 100 people needed to be rescued in the northeastern part of Tennessee. While others remain missing, nine individuals have been confirmed dead in the state.
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Cops ruled woman's death a suicide until her mother's persistence triggered murder confession: 'I knew it was foul play'
A heartbroken mother refused to accept the initial ruling that her daughter's death was a suicide because she believed it was something far more sinister.
April Holt — a 29-year-old mother of two — was found by police almost lifeless at her apartment in Antioch, Tennessee, on July 31, 2023. Officers with the Metro Nashville Police Department said they found Holt in the bathroom with a plastic bag duct-taped tightly around her neck.
'And I'm curled up in a ball on a bench next to him, just hysterically crying and just calling out to God to save my child. Even though I knew in my gut that she was gone.'
Holt left behind a 12-year-old daughter, an 8-year-old son, and her husband – 33-year-old Donovan Holt.
The case was later closed after an autopsy officially ruled Holt’s death a suicide.
However, Holt's mother believed her daughter's death was not by her own doing.
Jamie Dickerson, Holt's mother, said April embodied positivity, and it was apparent in her TikTok with 200,000 followers. April previously had taught middle schoolers at Believers Faith Fellowship and recently had opened her own lash studio in Nashville.
Dickerson recalled how she invited her daughter to the movies just before her death.
“We were going to go see the Barbie movie,” Dickerson told WSMV-TV. “She said, ‘Donovan has to work, I can’t go to the movie, but I’ll meet you at church at the Blast classroom tomorrow.’”
Dickerson never got a chance to respond to her daughter.
The next day, she received the call that would wreck her world.
“The phone rang, and it was Donovan, and he was upset — kind of like a panic upset,” Dickerson explained. “He was like, ‘We found April. She wasn’t breathing, and she’s in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.’”
Dickerson told Fox News, "So I jumped in my car, but even right when I got the first phone call, I was like, 'Something's not right. April's in perfectly good health.' An hour and a half ago or so, she texted me perfectly fine. So something's not right. Like I thought maybe she had passed out. Maybe she hit her head because she passed out. I didn't know. I mean, like, why would she just not be breathing? I didn't know anything about it."
"From that second on, when I got into the room at the hospital, he was just like rocking, like pacing," Dickerson continued. "And I'm curled up in a ball on a bench next to him, just hysterically crying and just calling out to God to save my child. Even though I knew in my gut that she was gone."
April Holt died at the Southern Hills Hospital that same day.
Once authorities ruled Holt's death a suicide, Dickerson launched her own investigation.
“They closed April’s case. DA and everyone agreed to close it," Dickerson said. "I got up, marched out of that room and said, ‘I’m not done, I’m going to keep investigating.’”
Dickerson would spend hours each day trying to determine who killed her daughter, but she had one suspect in mind.
Dickerson recalled that April said two weeks before her death, "I'm getting a divorce."
The mother said of her son-in-law, "He had an obsession with April. So the weird part is, is like you see these movies, and they love somebody so much that they're willing to do literally anything. I think that was him because she'd left him before, and he would sleep outside of her apartment. He would sleep in her car if it was unlocked."
"And it's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking. And so I'm just, I'm not shocked," she said. "I think that when she said that this time she was very serious."
A few weeks after her daughter's death, Dickerson's grandson told her he witnessed a fight between his parents on the same day April died, according to the Independent.
The outlet also reported that Donovan pawned his wedding ring the week prior to his wife's death.
Dickerson told WZTV, "She had bruises on her wrists, her neck, her ankles, her thighs, and none of it was taken as evidence."
The mother filed complaints and eventually convinced the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department to investigate their own investigation. In the 47-page report, detectives said there were “two hits” of Donovan Holt’s fingerprints on the duct tape roll.
Despite the new evidence, Dickerson claimed police told her, "They said they still didn't have enough evidence to convict him."
Dickerson said when she saw that key piece of evidence, she confronted Donovan Holt.
“I told him he had a choice,” she said. “He could tell me what happened, or I was going to go to the cold case department.”
Dickerson said Donovan admitted that he strangled April, dragged her into the shower, and taped a bag over her face to make it appear that she had committed suicide.
Dickerson reportedly recorded the conversation — and then she notified police.
Last month, Donovan was arrested in San Antonio, Texas.
Nashville Police said in a news release that Donovan confessed to detectives with the MNPD's Cold Case Unit in July that he had strangled his wife.
On Sept. 19, a grand jury indicted Donovan Holt for reckless homicide, evidence tampering, and false reporting.
Holt was extradited back to Nashville where he is being held on $75,000 bond in Davidson County Jail awaiting his Oct. 23 arraignment.
"The person you were supposed to love, you killed, and then you put a trash bag over her head and ate lunch? Like she wasn't in the other room dead? And then you sent your son in there to be traumatized for the rest of his life. It's just bizarre," Dickerson said.
Despite her daughter's murder, Dickerson is praying that Donovon Holt's "heart gets right."
"As a Christian woman, I pray that his heart gets right. That's what I would want for him. I know it's what April would want. And even after killing my daughter, that is what I'd want for him," Dickerson said. "And I would want anybody to be able to have everlasting life."
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