[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Given that this involves people traveling across not just state lines, but national borders (the shooters came up from Mexico, IIRC),

Well, the shooters that law enforcement knows about so far have not been anywhere closer to Mexico than Dallas or San Antonio.

Most of them arrived on domestic flights from California, several were residents of Texas (three of them citizens), with another three flying in from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

The only villains in the campaign so far who have come through Mexico are villains that the PCs have not yet met.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

as well as out into international waters to commit crimes,

The Aqueronte was in US waters when crimes were committed aboard it. It is, of course, almost certain that investigation will determine that the women were loaded aboard in another country, so the human trafficking charges will likely involve crossing international waters, but as far as I can determine, human trafficking is ICE jurisdiction rather than FBI.

And unless 'The Wire' lied to me, the death of a human trafficking victim inside US borders is murder falling under the jurisdiction of the law enforcement agency responsible for the geographic area where the death occurred.

There is likely to be considerable pressure from the FBI to call this terrorism, somehow, if only to justify their primacy, but there simply isn't any evidence that there is any element of political terrorism. So far, this could be simply a human trafficking operation that reacted to police attention by attacking cops and while that is scary and leads to extreme law enforcement reactions, is it legally terrorism?

My precedent for the prior shooting of police officers not being labelled terrorism in Texas is the 2016 Dallas shooting. Happened in Texas, premeditated and lethal attack on multiple police officers, resulted in massive law enforcement response, but the lead agency remained the Dallas PD, because those were legally murders in Dallas.

The incident aboard the Aqueronte might alter things in the sense that it supports an organized crime angle and introduces a human trafficking element, but it doesn't really add anything to an argument about terrorism. Not a single one of the crewmen or the other people aboard have any connection to a terrorist organization and there is no evident political motive.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

the lead agency will be the FBI. Quite likely, they'll send a special agent from Washington, D.C., to lead the task force, just so the local agents can focus on the investigation and not have to worry about administrative mickeymouse.

The FBI have resources, expertise and reputation. ICE has the advantage of actually being specialized in the crime that appears central to the second incident.

The Galveston County Sheriff's Office are technically the first agency on scene and made the arrests of everyone aboard Aqueronte, with assistance from a Deputy US Marshal and the US Coast Guard. And the people who died aboard Aqueronte were, at the time, within Galveston County. Sheriff Henry Trochesset is going to be pretty insistent that he'll welcome any and all federal and state help, but this is his case.

Practically, of course, GCSO doesn't have the resources to carry out an investigation of this size, especially as it stretches to Houston, Dallas and possibly further, but given the political struggle between the Texas Department of Public Safety and various federal agencies, the compromise position after the first shooting was to have Galveston PD be the lead agency (because Sgt. Buddy Duke of the GPD was the senior officer among those first on the scene) and have all the other agencies, federal and state, provide support.

Obviously, that face-saving compromise doesn't work any more, because GPD doesn't have jurisdiction in Galveston Bay, although GSCO does. If and when it is determined that these two incidents are related enough to require a united investigation, some new structure is required, probably complete with a dedicated task force for that investigation.

I can make QCs of Administration and/or Politics for the various factions demanding primacy, but I'd like to know which of them should have an advantage.

Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Houston office, Edward Michel has already been trying to throw his weight around based on the FBI being the biggest agency, but after this new incident, maybe he'll be superseded by a more senior FBI agent from DC.

If ICE wants to stake a strong claim, they should probably send a senior agent to take command of a hypothetical task force. The same applies to TxDPS.

The decision on any potential federal jurisdiction belongs to US Attorney Ryan Patrick, who is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's son. I assume that if Texas state agencies feel very strongly about claiming jurisdiction, US Attorney Patrick would back his father's administration.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Because it does involve shipping in U.S. territorial waters, the U.S. Coast Guard will have a liaison on the task force, as will the U.S. Marshalls (manhunts across state lines). The Texas Dept. of Public Safety will send someone to make sure the Rangers coordinate the investigation that extends across jurisdictions, in Texas (and to keep the Rangers in the loop).

I get that the USCG won't want lead status, because they don't have those kind of investigative resources. The US Marshals actually have some claim, as one of theirs was present among the first law officers on the scene and there are now multiple warrants for potentially armed and dangerous fugitives in play.

What I'm not entirely sure about is how strong the position of TxDPS might be. Can they make a plausible claim to being the lead agency? So far, there is no evidence of a crime outside Texas, only theories leading to California and whereever the human trafficking victims come from. Some financial ties to South American countries and, of course, the origins of the shooters, but I think murder is still a local jurisdictional issue even if the suspect is a tourist. And the TxDPS usually provides crime scene support for the GSCO for murders within Galveston County.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The police and the sheriff will both work on the task force, but jurisdictional squabbles won't come from them. Galveston is not that big a place, they're in over their heads, and they know it.

Chief Vernon Hale of the GPD is absolutely not going to make a fuss. Sheriff Henry Trochesset, however, feels strongly that his office should be in charge. This might not be entirely unrelated to the fact that he has known J.R. Kessler since since he was a teenager and Chief Hale considers his colleague far too submissive to local interests. Sheriff Trochesset has been privately informed that this is one case where outsiders will not know how to handle things and he knows that this means weird stuff.

Also, the PCs are technically his men, as Reserve Deputies, and depending on who is interpreting their actions, can come out of this as heroes smelling of roses or as cowboy cops sliding into outright criminality. So Sheriff Trochesset is going to take a stand on what legal authority he can muster until he has ensured that 'his' men get out of his okay. After all, while Sheriff Trochesset doesn't really understand all this spooky stuff, he knows that Kessler and his people are on the side of the angels, even if the official version of events won't always be the whole story.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The governor will send a liaison and the congresscritters will want to remain fully apprised of everything that happens, but a liaison appointed by the FBI to assist the special agent with such matters would be enough, as long as said liaison remained both forthcoming and reachable.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas will probably send at least a couple of experienced lawyers. The U.S. Attorney will act as the lead prosecutor for most of these cases and, given the high profile, he won't tolerate any procedural f***-ups that might cost him convictions.

Yes, it has been established already that US Attorney Ryan Patrick is very invested in these events. And as he's the son of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, I think he's more likely to back the state authorities than the federal authorities in a potential urinating match, if it comes to that.