HOUSTON — U.S. border authorities say they’ve started to increase the biometric data they take from children 13 years old and younger, including fingerprints, despite privacy concerns and government policy intended to restrict what can be collected from migrant youths.

A Border Patrol official said this week that the agency had begun a pilot program to collect the biometrics of children with the permission of the adults accompanying them, though he did not specify where along the border it has been implemented.

The Border Patrol also has a “rapid DNA pilot program” in the works, said Anthony Porvaznik, the chief patrol agent in Yuma, Arizona, in a video interview published by the Epoch Times newspaper.

 

9 cases dropped
after officer charged

DALLAS — Prosecutors have dismissed at least nine cases that were investigated by the former white Dallas police officer charged with murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in his own apartment, according to court records.

A grand jury indicted Amber Guyger on a murder charge in November, nearly three months after she fatally shot Botham Jean, 26, on Sept. 6.

Records indicate one county prosecutor asked that their case be dismissed because Guyger had been accused of “murdering an innocent man in his own home,” The Dallas Morning News reported.

Four of the dismissed cases pertained to Guyger and another officer apprehending two men during a January 2018 traffic stop. Most of the dismissed cases involved drug charges.

 

Trucker arrested in
pileup that killed 4

LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Four people died after a semi-truck hauling lumber lost control and plowed into vehicles on a crowded section of Interstate 70 near Denver, triggering explosions and a fire so intense that it melted the roadway and metal off of cars, authorities said Friday.

“It was crash, crash, crash and explosion, explosion, explosion,” said John Romero, a spokesman for the Lakewood, Colorado, police department, describing the 28-vehicle chain reaction of blasts from ruptured gas tanks.

The truck driver, Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, 23, of Houston, was arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide as police continue to investigate what happened.

Six people were taken to hospitals with injuries but their conditions were unclear Friday.

 

Police investigating if
fight caused student’s death

HOUSTON — Houston police are investigating whether a 13-year-old girl died because of injuries from a fight while walking home from school or a brain tumor that wasn’t found until she was hospitalized days later.

Kashala Francis’ mother told KTRK-TV her daughter was punched and kicked in the head during the fight April 18.

She was hospitalized three days later after falling unconscious. Kashala’s mother, Mamie Jackson, says that’s when doctors discovered the tumor.

Kashala died Wednesday.

Jackson believes the fight contributed to her daughter’s death.

Police spokesman Victor Senties says his agency is investigating Kashala’s death but that it’s likely her pre-existing medical condition is the reason she ended up in the hospital.