Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

Both Galveston PD and Galveston County Sheriff's Office (GCSO) seem to have patrol divisions of 50-75 officers on four staggered twelve hour shifts. How many on watch around midnight, then? And what rank is the shift commander, Lieutenant or Sergeant?

There is still someone working the case, yes. Two detectives of Galveston PD Major Crimes, Joe Cartwright (no relation) and Frank Kelly (actually some sort of cousin to Traci Cartwright), turned up at the Penemue hoping to be able to speak with 'Gwen Delvano' and likely there is someone trying to finish the paperwork for a court order on some financial information related to her, after everything they tried this afternoon yielded nada, other than the card she paid with, which is only six months old.

Hopefully for the PCs and law enforcement in Galveston, at least someone has the presence of mind to sit still and coordinate from a desk, with computer, phones and comm gear easier to use than radios in cars while speeding. It will occur faster to someone not trying to put on a vest and drive at the same time to contact Houston PD for air support and it's easier to dispatch a helicopter immediately to the right spot when the request is clear, concise and complete, rather than fragmentary and confused.

About vests, do local departments have access to rifle vests, i.e. NIJ Level III or above, for peace officers other than SWAT?

While I agree that the Highway Patrol ought to be able to respond with one or more patroling vehicles fairly quickly, the DPS building on 6812 Broadway Street in Galveston is a DMW office that closes at 17:00.

Are Texas DPS Highway Patrol patrolmen always two to a car or do they patrol alone?

Yes, the two stations are next to each other and either a GCSO car was involved in the shooting or one of the first vehicles on the scene will be that GCSO car, depending on what the PCs say and do for the first few minutes of next session.

Thanks, that's great. If two cars arrive roughly simultaneously at the scene, one unmarked with two senior detectives from Galveston PD, and the other a patrol car with the most senior patrol officer on the Galveston PD aside from the shift commander, does the patrol officer become Incident Commander regardless of the rank of the detectives?

Also, if a Sergeant in the GCSO would arrive at the same time, how is the IC determined?

Yes, but I think it's unlikely that Raul will be able to make such decisions under the circumstances. After all, a running firefight with rammed cars and confusion will mean that who lives and dies is beyond anyone's control.

If the ambush succeeds perfectly, with the ambulance and escorting patrol car(s) stopping at the stop sign on the corner of Broadway Street and 71st Street without noticing the OpFor ambush, Igor will be able to disable the engine of the ambulance while it is stationary and then switch to targeting potentially armed officers only about 2-3 seconds after the first shot. Igor will be firing at 30-40 yards, depending on the exact spot the ambush is sprung (33 yards if it's perfect), and under GURPS rules, won't have much difficulty hitting anyone sitting in vehicles that don't start accelerating until the next second.

Meanwhile, Diego with skill 12 and the LWRCI R.E.P.R. Mk.II .308 rifle and thermal scope, will be around 30 yards away from the patrol vehicle behind the ambulance, shooting from the side. Next to him, at the same distance, Morena, with skill 13 and the LWRCI IC-SPR 5.56x45mm rifle and NV scope. Neither has Pacifism (Reluctant Killer) and both have killed men before (Morena allegedly dozens), both will engage any visible officers with disciplined aimed semi-automatic fire. The windows might deflect a bullet or two, but the unless the driver of the patrol vehicle sees the ambush coming, he still probably dies before he reacts in any way.

Now, much depends on whether there are two escorting police vehicles, which could be the case if GCSO and Galveston PD both want to escort this important witness/suspect (because the PD considers no doubt that they are lead on the case, but the GCSO will want to remain involved due to the Kessler connection). If there are, they aren't there for security, they are just staking a claim.

The Galveston PD is likely to win any jurisdictional tussle and have an officer in the back of the ambulance, which means the officer driving is probably alone in the PD patrol car. The GCSO patrol car that might be along, however, will probably have two deputies in it, Deputy Ana Esperza De La Cruz, a new deputy commissioned in May 2018 and Sergeant Bob Higgins, a twenty year veteran of the GCSO who is also a MSG of the Texas Army National Guard, with two Iraq deployments and one to Afghanistan.

If so, deputies De La Cruz and Higgins would probably take fire from four sicarios with AR-15 type rifles concealed in the trees and shrubbery on the other side of Broadway Street from the sharpshooters, only 5-15 yards away from where their vehicle probably stops. This would be fire at the vehicle, because these sicarios do not have night vision, but still, just the first seconds are murderous. Also, at some point about three to five seconds after the first shot, Igor, Diego and Morena will have successfully engaged their first targets and can direct aimed fire at deputies De La Cruz and Higgins.

All in all, it's entirely possible that everyone outside the ambulance would be dead in five seconds. And the officer inside the ambulance will have drawn a weapon and Raul needs him taken out as soon as possible, without risking 'Gwen Delvano', which probably means a head shot by someone competent with night vision, after the sicarios get the door open. I suppose it's possible that the ambulance driver or EMT(s) in the back of the ambulance could be left alive, if they are unarmed

It is primarily those people whom Raul might make a conscious decision to wound, but not kill. Still, that pretty much requires his ambush succeeds perfectly, without anh complications, and Raul retains enough presence of mind after witnessing a firefight to make an inspired deduction and give a cold-blooded order.

Ugh, that would be one gutsy reporter!

Igor is going to kill every apparently pursuing vehicle for the initial three minute drive until the OpFor is across the causeway, just because the OpFor don't want eyes on them when they turn off the I-45 and head toward the extraction point.

Probable First Responders to the Ambush
 

I mean to address tshiggins' excellent timeline better later, but before I do, I thought I'd share a detail that might affect that timeline somewhat. That is, because of what has happened in play, I already know where several police patrol vehicles are.

In addition to the Galveston PD patrol car that will probably escort the ambulance and the GCSO patrol vehicle that might follow, there are two other police vehicles located very near the ambush point.

That is, the unmarked vehicle assigned to Galveston PD detectives Joe Cartwright and Frank Kelly, as well as at least one other vehicle of Galveston PD patrol, remain at the private pier adjacent to the Pelican Rest Marina, where the yacht Penemue is moored. From where the cars are parked to the scene of the ambush, there are about 400 yards, a short distance of it on a parking lot, but about 330 yards directly ahead on Broadway Street.

Granted, when the officers hear the shots and then possibly something on the radio (possibly not), they'll need a few seconds to react, realize and start acting. They'll also need to get from below decks on the Penemue on to the pier and then from the pier to their cars, a total distance of some hundred yards.

All of which could take from thirty seconds (instant reaction, instant analysis of situation, no doubt or hesitation, Olympic athlete level running, vaulting stairs, T.J. Hooker jump into vehicle with car keys Ready) to 2-3 minutes, for more human cops, who take a few seconds to understand, first try to reach the escort on the radios, are less athletic in leaping stairs and gangways and pause to arm themselves from the vehicle trunk.

But after that, it will take less than a minute to drive the distance to the scene. Which means that the the first responders will be either the two detectives or the two patrol officers aboard Penemue, who will be talking to different PCs at the moment the shots ring out 350 yards away.

And that the car which makes it there faster can be there anywhere from 60 to 240 seconds, depending on the reaction speed, athleticism and driving of the officers.

Detectives Joe Cartwright (45) and Frank Kelly (41) are both in their forties and neither is a recreational athlete, but both of them are veteran peace officers and will probably figure out what is happening fairly fast. Cartwright's service weapon is a Colt M1991A1 .45 ACP pistol customized by Wilson Combat and Detective Kelly carries a Glock 19 Gen 3 9x19mm. Detective Cartwright stores a customized Mossberg 590A1 Class III 12G shotgun in the car, mounting a SureFire 623LMG Ultra-High-Output Forend WeaponLight for Mossberg 500/590 and Aimpoint PRO sights, and Detective Kelly keeps a privately acquired patrol rifle in the trunk of their vehicle, a KAC SR-15 E3 CQB MOD 2 M-LOK 5.56x45mm carbine (11.5" bbl AR-15 carbine) with Trijicon RX01NSN reflex sight and SureFire M600 Ultra Scout Light, despite that model no longer being on the approved list after Chief Hale altered the departmental guidelines on privately acquired weapons.

The patrol officers are both in their twenties, with Officer Sam H. Talley (26) being a three-star recruit as a defensive back at the University of Houston in 2011 and Officer Midge Dugger (23) having played power forward for the Ball Tornados basketball team in high school. Talley is growing into his role as a police officer, but Dugger is very inexperienced.

In addition to his Glock 19 Gen 4 9x19mm service weapon, Talley keeps a privately acquired patrol rifle in the trunk of his patrol vehicle, one authorized by regulation, a Rock River Arms LAR-15 Entry Tactical 5.56x45mm with Aimpoint PRO sight . Dugger carries only her Glock 19 Gen 5 9x19mm.

The OpFor is aware of these vehicles and Raul and Tomás are surveilling them along with the ambulance, checking who follows and who remains behind, before Raul means to drive after the official cars along Broadway Street, to where the ambush awaits. He's even leaving an ATN X-Spotter HD 20-80X spotter scope pointing at where these cars will enter Broadway Street, with a video feed to his tablet, so he will not miss it when they start toward the scene.

Edit: It remains to be seen what patrol car(s) escort the ambulance with 'Gwen Delvano' to the UTMB TDCJ Hospital. As noted earlier, there are also two other vehicles parked at the Penemue as the law enforcement officers prepare to transport the suspect.

One vehicle is from the GCSO, driven there by Sergeant Bob Higgins (52) and the rookie patrol officer he is training, Deputy Ana Esperza De La Cruz (22). His service weapon is a weathered Colt 1911A1 .45 ACP and her is a brand new Glock 22 Gen 4 .40 S&W. They have GCSO approved patrol rifles, acquired at massive discounts thanks to influence from Kessler, KAC SR-15 E3 Carbine MOD 2 M-LOK 5.56x45mm carbines (14.5" bbl AR-15 carbines) mounting Aimpoint CompM4S sights.

Sergeant Higgins of the GCSO is also a MSG in the Texas Army National Guard, with two deployments to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. He is universally respected by Texas peace officers, as a thoroughly professional first responder and patrol officer who never wastes words and never needs to raise his voice. When his old partner retired, the bubbly and irrepressable Deputy De La Cruz was an odd choice to replace him, but in the eight months they've spent together, De La Cruz has won over her grizzled mentor with her cheerful devotion to learning how to be a good peace officer.

The other vehicle is another Galveston PD cruiser, the vehicle of Officer Keontay Washington (30) and Sergeant Wendell 'Buddy' Duke (63). Officer Washington is armed with a Glock 19 Gen 4 9x19mm pistol, while Sergeant Duke carries a 1929 vintage revolver, the S&W Registered Magnum in .357 Magnum (5.5" bbl), which fit the requirements for service weapons when he started and which he has managed to retain as an authorized alternate carry weapon. They both have shotguns in the car, Officer Washington has a shiny new Mossberg 590M Mag-Fed with a 14" bbl, SureFire 623LMG Ultra-High-Output Forend WeaponLight for Mossberg 500/590 and Trijicon RX01NSN reflex sight, and Sergeant Duke has a beat-up old Remington 870 Magnum (20" bbl, blued, rifle sights, walnut stock, no checkering) made in 1975.

Buddy Duke is the oldest active officer in the Galveston PD, rotund, garrulous, folksy and something of an unofficial spokesman for the faction inside the department hesitant about accepting an 'IBC' outsider as Chief of Police. He's also probably Kessler's most fervent supporter in the Galveston PD and strongly opposes Chief Hale's attempts to restrict the charitable programs officers are allowed to take advantage of from private corporations or organizations perceived as linked to Kessler. Many wonder why he hasn't done what almost a third of the Galveston PD have done in the last four years and quit the force in favor of another nearby department (due to a labor dispute over pensions and retirement rules), in Duke's case probably the GCSO, but figure he must be too stubborn to leave before he retires.

Keontay Washington struggles with his weight, but is a good, solid, dependable officer, who is being considered for a detective position. While Washington will not push himself forward, he is very interested in getting a chance to speak with 'Gwen Delvano' and see if he can learn anything that advances the investigation.

At the very least one Galveston PD vehicle will follow the ambulance, with an officer on board responsible for the suspect, who'll be cuffed even in the ambulance. Whether or not the GCSO vehicle also goes with the ambulance depends somewhat on what the PCs do or say.

I'm not sure which Galveston PD vehicle should go with the ambulance and who should stay to speak with the PCs and Kessler's people. The two young officers, one of them barely more than a rookie, or the very long-service Sergeant and a decent steady young officer?

Does anyone have thoughts?

Who Takes 'Gwen Delvano' Away From the Yacht Penemue?
 

In the post above, I mention the Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs), six Galveston PD cops and the two GCSO deputies, that are present on the yacht Penemue.

The first officers to arrive on site, Galveston PD Officers Talley and Dugger, are there because they are responding to the anonymous tip that 'Gwen Delvano' had been kidnapped by the PCs and was being held aboard the yacht.

The two Galveston PD detectives, Cartwright and Kelly, are there because they heard dispatch talking about that anonymous phone call, immediately registered the name of the person they most want to talk to and know that this name is far from common knowledge. Detectives Cartwright and Kelly weren't sure what they'd find on the Penemue, but were curious enough to roll over there before going home for the night, hoping to get to speak with Ms. Delvano, if, indeed, she was there.

The other two vehicles are harder to explain. Granted, Jean-Michel Alexandre, Kessler's valet, steward and right-hand man, promised the PCs that he'd delay the police as long as he could without ever actually lying to them (about anything they could prove was a lie) or refusing to cooperate. So it's possible that Buddy Duke, the Galveston PD Sergeant, came down there to make any decisions that risked offending a pillar of the community, because that sort of thing is a bit heavy to put on two young officers. Still doesn't explain what Sergeant Higgins of the GCSO is doing there.

One explanation that might explain them is that Mr. Alexandre, seeking to delay having to produce the unnamed woman aboard, called the most senior law enforcement officer on duty on the GPD night shift who was loyal to Kessler and also called the Sheriff's Office (if not the Sheriff himself) to further complicate things.

Whoever is in charge at the GCSO on the night shift might then have asked Sergeant Higgins to ride down there and see that the idiots at Galveston PD didn't offend or mistreat Mr. Kessler, who was obviously completely willing to assist the police in this matter, but simply had very particular ideas about honour, courtesy and the consideration due to guests, so it wouldn't do to just demand that he hand over someone on his yacht.

In any case, after what seems like endless anxious hours of twiddling their thumbs, the LEOs receive confirmation that there is an unconscious woman aboard, that she may or may not be 'Gwen Delvano', but was at any rate carrying a purse contained some papers with that name, and that Mr. Kessler would consider it a favour if the officers would please see to it that the poor girl is transported to a hospital where she might be examined for any head injuries or a concussion.

Now, I figure that Detectives Cartwright and Kelly, while eager to speak with 'Ms. Delvano', would be aware that they were unlikely to be able to use a single thing she might say unless they waited to interview her until after a doctor has proclaimed her at least moderately responsive and aware of her surroundings, which seems like a prerequisite for understanding her rights.

So, probably the best use of their time right now would be to ask some more questions of the previous day's kidnapping victim, Alice Talbot, see if Alice recognized the alleged 'Gwen Delvano' or had any reason to believe this woman was involved in her kidnapping. The detectives could then drive up to the UTMB TDCJ Hospital after getting another statement and maybe talking a bit with the other PCs.

As it is unclear what the GCSO deputies are doing there, it is also unclear if Sergeant Higgins and his partner will join the escort to the hospital or not, but that's something that will become clear in play, as two PCs know both deputies and will speak with them, possibly asking them to do something, either not letting the suspect out of their sights, or, alternatively, perhaps to stay behind to help them deal with the Galveston PD detectives.

Galveston PD is claiming jurisdiction, so while 'Gwen Delvano' will be transported in an ambulance, she will do so escorted by officers from that department. Two patrol officers in one vehicle are perceived as enough, at least from a tactical law enforcement point of view, but which of the two Galveston PD vehicles will be the one that is assigned to escort the ambulance?

Will it be the vehicle driven by Officers Talley and Duggan, for the simple reason that having one person stay with a cuffed girl in the back of an ambulance while the other drives a vehicle behind it is just the sort of necessary, but simple and all-but foolproof, task young officers should handle, in order for their elders and betters to have time to deal with policing matters that actually require skill?

If so, it would leave Sergeant Buddy free to stay a bit longer aboard the Penemue, maybe take the statements of the other PCs, ensure that in their tired and emotional state, they have a friendly officer taking down their story, not trying to trip them up. After all, they were technically accused of kidnapping Ms. Delvano, even if the phone call was likely from some criminal associate, and given the confused state of the PCs, they look likely to say something that might get them (and by extension, Kessler) in trouble, if not suitably guided through the interview.

Or should it be Sergeant Buddy Duke's vehicle that escorts the ambulance, perhaps because Ms. Delvano is important enough as at least a material witness to make it prestigious to be the arresting officer of record? Or, maybe, because Sergeant Duke feels it would be what Kessler would want?

What do the denizens think?

Ambulance
 

Can any eagle-eyed forumite, who knows more about cars than I (so, anyone), tell me what kind of car this Galveston ambulance is?

Seen here from the front and here in motion.

The symbol in front looks, to this complete ignoramus when it comes to cars, like a Chevrolet logo. Googling reveals that Chevrolet G4500 Cutaway chassis look similar to this, at least to my untrained eye, and that many firms offer Type III ambulances on that cab and chassis, though I can't confirm what Type of ambulance this is. A small one, it looks like, less than 15', at least. Is it a 12'?

Does any denizen of the forums have a better answer for me, so I can estimate the difficulty of stopping the vehicle with 2-4 .50 BMG rounds into the engine and/or blocking it off with a Ford F-450 truck with a 16' enclosed box?

Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

Looks like you're correct about it being a Chevrolet G4500 Cutaway. About the only thing I can add is that it seems like it isn't a 2019 or 2012 model. Other than that I've got nothing.

Ambulance and EMTs
 

Well, I can confirm that the Chevy G4500 ambulances were operated in Galveston at least from 2014-2018 (because I have pictures and also, one overturned) and that it looks like they are older than the Ford Transits and F-450s they got in 2016-2018.

It seems fairly plausible that they were acquired around 2013-2014, judging by the fact that a neighbouring ambulance service got rid of a 2012 model of what seems to be the same vehicle last year, as too worn for reliable service.

Do you happen to know anything about how robust the Chevy G4500 engine is? Or, for that matter, what kind of engine does it have? Diesel or gasoline?

Edit: Every Chevy G4500 Cutaway ambulance of similar configuration and age I can find uses a 6.0L V8 gasoline engine. That means that Igor's 2017 Ford F-450 box truck, while similar in weight, has about 125% the horsepower and 250% the torque of the ambulance.

Of course, Raul and his OpFor are hoping that four 750 grain A-MAX .50 BMG bullets damage something critical enough inside the ambulance engine for it to cut out instantly. That way, the OpFor truck will hardly even be smudged, let alone damaged, as if the ambulance engine cuts out while it is doing 10 mph at a stop sign, Alberto can just block it gently to stop it at the intersection.

From watching Youtube videos of Internet enthusiasts shooting engine blocks and, for the more dedicated, running trucks, it seems that this is possible, but not assured. From what I can tell, one perfectly placed .50 BMG round will cut out a truck engine in 1-2 seconds, but it is often possible to turn the engine on again and have it 'live' in some sort of damaged state for minutes while smoking and leaking fluids, until it is irreversibly dead. Which is why Igor will start the ambush by putting four 750 grain rounds from 35-40 yards right where he believes will most likely destroy the engine

Game terms, Aim + ROF 3 AoA + Follow-Up Shot AoA. Range penalty -8, Assume that the ambulance driver is not going to actually stop at the stop sign, but is at least minimally prudent and slows down to 10 mph, which gives -2 for Speed. SM +3 ambulance, aiming for Vitals (-3). Igor has skill 17 + Acc 7+1 + 1 Braced + 2 for AoA* = Effective skill 18. Puts all three right where he wants them on 14-.** Follow-up shot will hit on 16-.

Of course, what would really ruin the chances of the OpFor is if the EMT driving the ambulance notices Alberto stopped at an odd spot in his box truck or something else, like the two SUVs concealed under the overpass or the four guys camouflaged in the trees, shrubs and greenery next to the road. That might make a truly paranoid driver do something unpredictable, starting with rapid acceleration and illegal running of a stop sign. Which, I suppose, is a valid reaction to camouflaged guys with rifles, but something of an overreaction to seeing a box truck apparently broken down in a private driveway.

The driver of the ambulance is Anne Marie Roth (28), who has been working herself through nursing school for a decade now. She's got a sarcastic wit and wry sense of humour, which stands her in good stead during the 24-hour shifts she often stands, not to mention her recent acerbic breakup. Roth is certified EMT-Advanced, has ST 9; DX 10; IQ 11; HT 10; Per 10; Will 11; Charisma 1; Fat; Pacifism (Reluctant Killer) and Sense of Duty (Patients). She also has Diagnosis-10; Diplomacy-12; Driving (Automobile)-12; First-Aid-13; Physician-10; Lifting-11. No combat skills, no military experience, no law enforcement skills.

The other EMT in the ambulance is Henry 'Hank' Arnold (59), who will be in the back with the officer and 'Gwen Delvano'. Arnold has been in the Galveston County EMS for thirty years and is certified EMT-Paramedic, with every specialized skill set and advanced seminar conceivable. ST 11; DX 10; IQ 12; HT 10; Per 11; Will 12. Code of Honor (Professional); Overweight; Sense of Duty (Friends). His professional skills range from 13 in Driving (Automobile) to 16 in First-Aid.

Like Roth, Arnold has no military experience and no law enforcement background, but from working as a roughneck on oil rigs in his twenties, he has Brawling at 12 and Intimidation-12, from a stint as a firefighter, he has Two-Handed Axe/Mace at 9, from being a Texan man of a certain generation he has the Perk License (CHL), Guns (Longarm) at 11, Guns (Pistol) at 10 and Holdout-11, and from birth, he has no Pacifism. Arnold carries a Colt Combat Commander .45 ACP pistol in a Wright Leather Works Regulator Cross Draw Holster.

*Houserule distinguishing between AoA (Determined) for +1, which allows up to half Move and can be used with any ranged weapon and AoA (Sighted) for +2, which allows no movement, not even a Step, and requires a weapon with sights.
**Another houserule has the Rcl reduced by one step down to 2, for having Trained ST of x2 MinST, when Igor uses the bipod and his Trained ST 25.

Caltrops
 

Caltrops made from large nails are very effective when used by cartels, but undortunately for Raul and his OpFor, they only hve time to grab something from Walmart, they don't really have time to construct anything from what they buy.

So, would just throwing out unmodified nails do anything?

How many nails (more relevantly, how much weight) would be needed to cover a lane of traffic on a freeway?

Or is there something else you can buy at Walmart that would make better improvised caltrops than nails, if you hve no time to weld them together or bend them into shapes?

Re: Caltrops
 

Ditch the caltrop idea. You're not going to find ready made caltrops at wal-mart, and throwing loose nails or screws down isn't going to do much.

Re: Caltrops and Other Walmart Stuff
 

Fair enough.

Is there anything that the OpFor want from Walmart, then?

While Igor and his four helpers ready the box truck for action, two sicarios, Manuel and José Vato, can take one of the SUVs and make a Walmart run. They would have about ten minutes to find stuff and pay, but I don't expect much of a line this late at night, an hour before closing or so.

They have some empty metal-lined coffins and twelve 50-lb sand bags, to make cover in the back of the truck. They also have straps and bolts.

The plan assumes that Igor will use the enclosed box as a firing platform and no one else needs to be in there, but if 'Gwen Delvano' should be injured enough to require stretchers, they would put here in there as well, further front in the box than Igor. Also, depending on the situation at the ambush scene, a sicario or two might jump into the gox truck. Maybe something to improvise places for them to sit?

Given that some sicarios will be put in the back of a U-Haul truck at the extraction point, a few cushions for them aren't a bad idea. Also, some way for them to hold on back there.

What about really bright lights that are easily portable?

The ambush might feature a floodlight or two suddenly blinding the EMTs and cops right after the first shots, from casters 10-15 yards away. As most of the sicarios don't have NVDs, that would be a net benefit for them, especially as they'd still be in shadow.

Is there anything in Walmart you can pick up in ten minutes that would make that worth doing? It would need to be battery powered.

Anything else posters can think of that the OpFor might want from Walmart right before they assume ambush positions?

Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

A while ago, half a dozen trucks got punctured tires from a single bolt in a metal plate in a work area. So, it can work - if something keep the spike up, like caltrops do.

Loose nails won't do much unless you get incredibly lucky. I doubt a spool of barbed wire would fare any better.

If you really want to drop obstacles, I would drive by the gardening section and pick a couple spiked harrow (or chain-spike harrow). Push them upside down on the road, and nobody will be happy.

Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

Uh... if, in the course of defending himself and others, a Reserve Deputy of the Galveston County Sheriff's Office should have... decapitated two people, a bit, with his heirloom shortsword-sized Bowie knife, how are the responding officers going to deal with that?

Asking for a friend.

The scene has two dead officers of the Galveston PD, one dead Sergeant Deputy of the GCSO, one dead EMT, one EMT-Paramedic in critical condition, one Galveston PD officer conscious, in a bit of a shock, bleeding from her face and covered in glass fragments, and one GSCO deputy unconscious with multiple gunshot wounds. There are several dead suspects, two or three wounded ones under arrest.

And there is a Sergeant of the Galveston PD there arresting surviving sicarios and attesting that these Reserve Deputies saved his life and that of these wounded.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

As long as there is one real cop to vouch for it they aren't going to do anything but warn the upper echeclons that the press on this incident is going to be a little tricky to manage.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

The press might find the knife aspect interesting, but legally speaking it's not particularly different from pulling out a gun and shooting them. Which, under the described conditions, is legal. Now, there may be authorities and/or media wondering what's up with these 'reserve deputies' and investigating, but that's mostly a problem if the PCs have been engaging in illegal behavior (or otherwise in need of concealment) that no-one was previously noticing, it doesn't directly affect this situation.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

The first decapitation was totally legitimate. If there was a shooting board for Bowie knife decapitations, he'd pass with flying colours. In the same second, one PC gutshot the one they call Igor with a 255 grain .45 LC round from a Colt SAA revolver, one PC shot him in the side of the head with a 62 grain 5.56x45mm Mk318 SOST round and the PC with a LeMat revolver in one hand and a Bowie knife in the other gave Igor a face full of nine grapeshot at five feet. The second after, as Igor staggered and dropped his M82A1 CQ .50 BMG rifle, the enthusiastic PC made an All-out Attack (Strong) for a perfect decapitation.

At most, they could maybe quibble with the salt and holy water sprinkled over the body.

No, the second decapitation was far more problematic. That was a guy with shotgun pellets in both arms and the chest, as well as a .460 S&W round in the chest. Finally, a .42 ball from a LeMat in his skull. All weapons carried by Reserve Deputy Lucien Lacoste. And the suspect was decapitated post mortem, with two powerful blows after positioning the body right, about twenty seconds after the first shots hit him, and a few seconds after he was instantly killed with the archaic revolver ball from a distance of ten feet, while lying on his back.

You see, Lacoste was worried his soul was suffering and wanted to see if cutting off the head might release it.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

Lacoste is going to be sent to Therapy, at the least, I would think.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

Well, Lucien Lacoste is a respected cop from Louisiana, a former Detective Sergeant from the Homicide Section / CID of New Orleans PD. After being seriously wounded on duty two years before, Lacoste retired. Actually, no one expected him to survive. When he recovered faster and more completely than anyone expected, Lacoste took a security consultant job with Sentinel Risk Managment Inc. in Galveston, but also got certified as Texas peace officer by TCOLE and is voluteering a few days a month for local law enforcement, including teaching interview techniques and working a few cold cases for the Galveston County Sheriff's Office.

Lacoste is very much a 'real cop' from the perspective of the local deputies, even if he's not working full-time with them. Four levels of 'Natural Copper' Talent, two levels of 'Tough Guy' Talent, Reputation +2 as a highly decorated officer and brilliant detective from NOPD and Savoir-Faire (Police) at 20+ means that Lacoste almost always meets with professional courtesy, even admiration (which can sometimes reach adulation) from working cops.

On the other hand, Impulsive, Overconfidence and On the Edge are the sort of Disadvantages that make bosses regret allowing even the most brilliant detective they can imagine to carry their badge.

Which he very much needs. The deadly coctail of Disadvantages he has are pretty classic signs of survivor's guilt (his partner died in the shooting Lacoste survived) and Lacoste also might be suffering from PTSD. The fact that he actually does see spirits doesn't help.

Of course, Sergeant Wendell 'Buddy' Duke of the Galveston PD, who saw everything, is going to back Lacoste to the hilt. Sergeant Duke realizes that the mundane authorities don't know about or understand the threats that are out there and that local billionaire J.R. Kessler employs experts to defend Texas (America too, he guesses) from the unfathomable. Duke isn't sure exactly what the rules are, but he's definitely on the side of humanity and strongly opposes witches, vampires, werewolves and any and all such creepy critters.

So, if Lucien Lacoste, in the course of his secret duties as defender of Texas (the US and the World) felt he had to cut off the heads of some monsters that looked like human beings, Sergeant Duke is pretty sure it was in everyone's interest that these heads were removed. After all, if Mr. Kessler wants something done, it's for a damn good reason.

Sergeant Duke is therefore working off the theory that the two suspects decapitated by Reserve Deputy Lacoste were vampires. Maybe zombies, if there is such a thing as zombies. Evil Dead, of some kind, at least. So he'll swear until he's blue in the face that Lacoste shot at them while they came for him, armed and angry, and only during a close quarter confrontation did the suspects suffer knife wounds that resulted in the massive neck trauma seen. Yessir, both suspects posed a clear danger to Reserve Deputy Lacoste and others when he used the knife, his other weapon being grappled.

The fact that the one Lacoste deliberately decapitated after he shot him multiple times was a perfectly ordinary (if unpleasant) man is not, perhaps, something that Sergeant Duke needs to know. And the official report will be full of phrases like 'In fear of my life' and if possible entirely devoid of any references to souls, spiritual barbed wire, ghost warnings and magic mushrooms. Lacoste is going to play it cool and try to pretend he's not having a really bad trip.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

This pretty much covers everything. That's if the Feds don't "national security" everything. Neither the locals nor the Feds are going to be able to distinguish your sicarios from "real" terrorists if they were even interested in trying.

Mr Bowie Knife might even get a medal for "intense hand-to-hand combat with heavily armed terrorists.".

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

There is that, yes. It's going to help Lacoste quite a bit that the two suspects he shot and then decapitated can both be tied to pretty serious crimes and had, in fact, both killed cops moments before Lacoste shot them.

'Igor' is a suspect in six murders and a kidnapping. Before Lacoste engaged him, 'Igor' had fatally shot EMT Anne Marie Roth and Officer Keontay Washington of the Galveston PD, both with an M82A1 CQ .50 BMG rifle.

The other man was carrying a LWRCI IC-SPR 5.56x45mm rifle with a digital NV scope. Before being engaged, the suspect had just killed Sergeant Deputy Bob Higgins of the Galveston County Sheriff's Office and was currently firing at Reserve Deputy Lacoste. The sicario fell down upon taking hits from Lacoste, who then focused on 'Igor', at that moment bringing to bear his anti-materiel rifle.

After Lacoste had killed 'Igor' (with assistance from the other PCs) and liberated his soul from torment, however, he realized that the sicario he wounded earlier was still conscious and while lying on his back had drawn a SIG P320 Carry 9x19mm pistol, with which he was taking aim at a civilian present at the scene. So Lacoste shot the sicario again, this time through the cerebellum, using his antigue LeMat revolver at ten feet.

It was after that, however, that Lacoste went a bit funny and cut off the head of the clearly dead sicario. While chanting in Latin.

However, depending on whether any of the surviving sicarios talk, it might be revealed that the one Lacoste decapitated is known as 'Morena' and is a famous contract killer said to have committed more than sixty murders. While that might be mere underworld legend, the fact is that 'Morena' is wanted for questioning in Bolivia for six murders and in Brazil for a triple homicide.

In terms of a shooting review, Reserve Deputy Teddy Smith might actually deserve more censure. His shooting of a sicario armed with a LWRCI R.E.P.R. MkII .308 Win rifle moments after that suspect had killed officer Sam. H. Talley of the Galveston PD and while the suspect was firing at the vehicle Reserve Deputy Smith was leaning out of, was unquestionably legit. However, the second man Smith shot was Tomás Alvarez of Dallas, licensed PI and security consultant for Katari Security Inc.

Mr. Alvarez was armed with a crowbar previously, which he had thrown away by the time Smith shot him, and no visible weapon was in Mr. Alvarez's hands or within easy reach. What Mr. Alvarez was doing at the time he was shot was backing his vehicle away from the scene, which an attorney will argue is a pretty normal response by an ordinary person to coming upon a firefight in process right in front of them.

However, closer investigation will probably implicate Mr. Alvarez pretty heavily, as not only did he have a passenger in his vehicle armed with a LWRCI IC-SPR 5.56x45mm rifle (while unfired, bought at the same store by the same straw purchaser as the identical rifle used to murder Sergeant Deputy Higgins), but he himself was also carrying a concealed S&W M&P9c M2.0 9x19mm pistol bought by that same straw purchaser. Mr. Alvarez had a CHL and could have bought any number of firearms legally, but the straw purchase is in itself still a crime.

So, Mr. Tomás Alvarez was clearly guilty of all sorts of aiding and abetting, as well as acting as a driver in the ambush. The fact remains, however, that at no point did he draw a weapon, threaten anyone or seem likely to pose a danger to anyone. He was shot in the head with a .577 Tyrannosaur round to stop the vehicle he was driving and thus prevent his passenger from escaping.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

What were the other PCs up to, and is Galveston Island sinking?

What Did the PCs Do?
 

Well, 'Nonc' Morel (PC) was unable to convince Sergeant Duke to allow him to ride with the officers in a Galveston PD vehicle to follow the convoy. Reserve Deputy Lucien Lacoste (PC), however, who'd talked Sergeant Duke* into the idea that this 'Gwen Delvano' was a dangerous witch and might summon demons or something equally undesirable, was allowed to ride along with Duke and his partner, Officer Keontay Washington.

Before Lacoste left, he managed to convey in subtle Gestures that Reserve Deputy Teddy Smith (PC) should follow them and that 'Nonc' Morel should get in the car with Teddy. Actually, the Gestures Lacoste made toward Morel consisted mostly of grotesque faces (rolled 16), but it was the intent that counted and, in any case, Morel could read the situation.

Teddy Smith declined to attempt Driving while high on hallucinogenic mushrooms and having been subjectively awake for a week or so.** Fortunately, Bo Johnson, their fellow Monster Hunter and also a Reserve Deputy in the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, was available to drive. So the three Monster Hunters followed the Galveston PD cruiser with Sergeant Duke, Officer Washington and Reserve Deputy Lacoste.

The ambulance, which left before them, was escorted by two vehicles, one from each department. Officer Midge Dugger of the Galveston PD was in the back of the ambulance with the suspect while Officer Sam H. Talley drove their cruiser behind the ambo. Following along were Sergeant Deputy Bob Higgins and Deputy Ana Esperza De La Cruz of the GCSO, not so much as added security as they were there to maintain GCSO's equal claim to the suspect, if and when she could give statements on record.

Alice Talbot (PC) remained behind aboard Penemue, clad in pajamas, eating ice cream and talking to Detectives Cartwright and Kelly. When the shots rang out and the detectives run out cursing, Alice must have stayed where she was. As it happened, Alice's player was playing something that participated in the incident, as six sicarios were killed or critically wounded in gruesome, but stealthy ways, with no other PC catching even a glimpse of whatever killed them.

It's interesting that you should ask about the state of Galveston Island, however, as (possibly related to whatever killed six armed men without anyone seeing it), Alice's player starts next session with a Very Important Dice Roll, one that might determine whether Galveston joins Innsmouth, Commoriom, Sarnath, Simorgya, Atlantis or R'yleh in the pantheon of places spoken of only in hushed whisphers.

*Sergeant Duke is one of Kessler's strongest supporters within the Galveston PD and crucially, understands that mundane crime is not the only threat to citizens. So a brief private chat convinced Duke that the officers taking the suspect to hospital might be in danger and that Lacoste had gifts that might protect them.
**PCs... they'll cheerfully assume risks that no sane person would, but occasionally, when the players recognise something as a bad idea in real world terms, inject a strange note of caution. For example, driving while impaired, obviously Not On. Hanging out a window in a swerving car, holding on with the legs, while shooting at muzzle flashes over the roof, every bit as impaired... seems fine.

Re: What Did the PCs Do?
 

It's an island made of sand. Intuition tells me that the kind of magic and violence your players throw around is a threat to its stability. Doesn't everyone look up the geology of places where adventures are set?

Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

Oh man, I hope Galveston sinks. C'mon alice, flubb the roll!

Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

Well, for long lasting sandbars there's usually a reason they haven't already collapsed, most likely there not being much they can collapse into.

If you want something that can be mistaken for an ordinary natural disaster, no-one would be really shocked if a major hurricane hit; after all, it wouldn't be the first time. Modern Galveston is likely a bit more durable, but based on Harvey, well, plenty of coastal areas in Texas aren't really built for hurricanes.

Alice? Who the ---- is Alice?
 

The roll really isn't the kind that you want to fail. Alice's player was aware when certain decisions were made that there was an outside chance of catastrophic results. And not anything that could be mistaken for a natural disaster. Oh, no. The kind they make big-budget horror movies about, be it the Alien franchise, Hellraiser, Cloverfield, Signs, Event Horizon or End of Days.

The sandbar is probably going to be fine. It's the people on it that have a small, but non-zero, chance of being gleefully slaughtered in a blood-soaked orgy of destruction that may or may not portend the literal end of human civilization.

The other PCs were extremely reserved in their actions, aside from the unfortunate decapitation incident. Of course, as they are now in the real world, not the Dreamlands of Gwen Delvano's imagination, they are probably more or less incapable of tactical scale ritual magic, anyway. 'Nonc' Morel used two charms, slung walnuts that can cause stunning, and both Lucien Lacoste and Teddy Smith fired some charmed bullets, but nothing that really had any effects beyond being a piece of metal at high velocity.*

*Lacoste's bullets were charmed against spirits and Smith had a charm that causes Hemophilia and an extra 3d pi++ Damage in living targets, but the engine block of a Ford Focus isn't living and neither was Tomás Alvarez after taking a 750 grain copper-zinc Monolithic Solid Projectile between the eyes at something around 2,400 fps.

Re: Alice? Who the ---- is Alice?
 

Even better, it tends to be the people of Galveston that I'm not too fond of.

Galveston and the People Who Live There
 

You would have to truly hate the people of Galveston with the fury of a thousand suns to want them at the mercy of what might be unleashed by the forces Alice was playing around with.

Sergeant Buddy Duke, a veteran police officer of more than four decades, witnessed something slip into the suspects' truck and over the next five seconds, heard raw, agonized screaming from the cab competing with the noise of the car horn. When Buddy got to the ajar truck doors, there was no one there but the driver, screaming from a ruined throat spraying blood, with both hands nailed to the steering wheel by a long knife in an obscene parody of stigmata. Several screwdrivers were stuck in the driver's abdomen and legs, one of them jammed through the knee, and the face had been slashed and disfigured, removing both eyes, ears and lips. Blood was spraying from arteries in both thighs and both arms.

The sight caused Buddy's gorge to rise even though he would have executed every one of these cop-killing illegitimates himself if he could. What's really going to bother him later is that whatever did this somehow accomplished what looked like hours of gruesome mutilation and torture in five seconds, less however long took it to disappear before Buddy caught a good look.

---

If you have personal experience with people from Galveston, by all means drop into the Caribbean by Night thread and share impressions, anecdotes and useful local colour. In the event that there are still PCs and still a Galveston after next session, no doubt the yacht Penemue and the PCs shall moor there again. I can use NPCs based on real people (or actual fictionalized people), descriptions of real places, anecdotes of what makes people from Galveston annoying, etc.

The current thread would be an appropriate place for noting how local law enforcement might make lives difficult for PC Reserve Deputies who are merely IBC ('Islanders By Choice') and not BOI ('Born On the Island').

Granted, Sergeant Buddy Duke will loudly extoll the PCs as heroes and the fact that the dead suspects have killed three Galveston cops and wounded two more (not to mention the two Galveston EMTs who are dead or in critical condition) means that any arriving peace officers will be inclined to overlook any possible irregularities in stopping them from killing more. But still, this is a disaster and while at least three suspects were arrested alive, there will be senior Galveston law enforcement figures looking for someone else to shoulder some of the blame and dead officers are not the best scapegoats. So, the PCs should be in for a ticklish investigation.

Any hints on how to portray Galveston natives, aside from the ones the PCs have already met?

Incident Scene in the Minutes After
 

As it happened, none of the officers or EMTs directly escorting 'Gwen Delvano' to hospital had time to say much of anything over the radio. In four seconds, the drivers of all three vehicles were dead and the LEO sitting in the passenger seat of the Galveston County Sheriff's Office patrol vehicle had sustained several gunshot wounds.

The EMT and LEO in the back of the ambulance were not injured in the initial fire, but only had a handheld radio (Motorola APX 4000, according to the receipt I found in city council minutes). Officer Dugger immediately called for help on that, but given her position, she had no idea what had happened other than multiple shots ringing out, the ambulance being stopped and none of her fellow officers responding.

Sergeant Wendell 'Buddy' Duke and Officer Keontay Washington of the Galveston PD, accompanied by Reserve Deputy Lucien Lacoste (PC) of the Galveston County Sheriff's Office, were only a short distance away from the intersection where the incident occurred when the shots were fired. In fact, their vehicle was already slowing behind the GCSO vehicle at the rear of the impromptu convoy, which was stopped at the intersection when the firing started.

Officer Washington heroically swerved the vehicle to the left to avoid the box truck that was cutting off both lanes of traffic on Broadway Street. The Galveston PD vehicle hit two traffic signs, but managed to get past the box truck. Unfortunately, before Officer Washington had managed to get his vehicle under control again, he was hit twice with .50 BMG rounds in the neck and head area. Officer Washington's quick thinking and courageous efforts had sufficed to get his patrol vehicle out of the line of fire, however, and it slid to a stop beyond the intersection.

From the passenger seat, Sergeant Buddy Duke drew his service weapon and exited the vehicle to shelter as best he could behind the engine block of the cruiser. Sergeant Duke also used the car radio to request assistance, relaying the information he had, i.e. that the police vehicles on the corner of Broadway Street and 71st Street were taking sniper and small arms fire, that numerous officers were down and that the suspects appeared to be armed with military weapons.

Reserve Deputy Lacoste, meanwhile, had exited the patrol vehicle before it came to a stop beyond the intersection, rolling to a stop on some grass. He exchanged fire with the snipers under the freeway overpass while advancing rapidly on their position, distracting them from engaging the surviving officers.

A civilian vehicle arriving along Broadway Street, driven by Reserve Deputy Beauregard 'Bo' Johnson, accompanied by Reserve Deputy Teddy Smith (PC), maneuvered through the intersection, under fire, and came to a stop under the overpass. Reserve Deputies Johnson and Smith engaged the suspects with effective fire, neutralizing several threats and causing two suspects to flee the scene in a Ford Focus vehicle backing against traffic on Broadway Street.

Using high-powered rifles left by suspects engaged by the officers, Reserve Deputies Lacoste and Smith stopped the progress of the escape vehicle. At that point, Reserve Deputy Smith was able to call dispatch on his cellular phone and report his position. Time elapsed since the first shot was about sixty seconds and the first responders, Detectives Joe Cartwright and Frank Kelly, were just turning onto Broadway Street from the parking lot at the piers where the yacht Penemue was moored.

I'm assuming that Sergeant Buddy Duke of the Galveston PD will be acting as Incident Commander, as he is already on the scene and was the initial report on the radio. Deputy De La Cruz is unconscious and while Officer Midge Dugger of the Galveston PD does not seem to have suffered major injuries (she has cuts from broken glass and her vest stopped a 5.56x45mm fragment after penetrating the ambulance body), she is both junior to Sergeant Duke and still inside the ambulance.

Sergeant Duke and the three Reserve Deputies present at the scene will handcuff any surviving suspects to secure the scene and provide first aid to Deputy De La Cruz, EMT-Paramedic Hank Arnold and suspect 'Gwen Delvano', who seems to have stopped a bullet in all the confusion. Detectives Cartwright and Kelly will arrest the passenger in the disabled Ford Focus, identified by Reserve Deputy Smith as 'one Raul, no last name known'.

After this, what happens?

More LEOs will arrive, at first racing in to help, but then later, to better secure the scene and start the investigation. Another ambulance will also arrive, probably more than one, but most likely not until several police cars are already on the scene.

As tshiggins correctly noted, the media often monitors police scanners and the offices of the Galveston County Daily News are just over a mile away from the scene. It's therefore very probable that reporters from that paper will be the first representatives of the media on the scene, maybe only moments behind Detectives Cartwright and Kelly, if the first reporter to hear of the incident is very courageous.

I expect that television cameras will follow, but don't know where the nearest camera crew would come from. Maybe just from Houston, maybe someone lives in Galveston, however. If anyone knows more about the media and where they might be coming from, by all means comment.

Police Chief Vernon Hale and Sheriff Henry Trochesset will both be woken as soon as possible, it being slightly over midnight. Sheriff Trochesset actually lives in Santa Fe, TX, which is in Galveston County, but on the mainland. Interestingly, there is about a 50% chance that his route into work will take him past the extraction point where the OpFor was going to change automobiles for their escape (and three suspects are still waiting for their fellow sicarios). It will be interesting if he notices something off about loitering cars in a parking lot or if they see his vehicle and panic.

Chief Hale lives in the East End Historical District of Galveston itself, which is about ten minutes away from the scene under normal circumstances. Chief Hale won't be driving at normal speeds after getting the call, but, on the other hand, he'll require some moments to wake up, answer the phone, listen to the situation and digest what he hears.

Who else will turn up at the scene and who will the PCs spend their time talking to, after someone more senior than Sergeant Buddy Duke turns up?

Federal Response
 

As noted earlier, the US Marshals work with the Galveston PD and Galveston County Sheriff's Office in the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force. The US Marshals have an office in the federal courthouse in Galveston.

There is an ATF field office in Houston and the numerous weapons involved in the incident might suggest that assistance from that agency was useful. Similarly, the DHS ICE has offices in Houston and there are several suspects in the shooting who are either immigrants or visitors, with Bolivian, Ecuadoran or Peruvian citizenship.

The FBI has a Houston office and a resident agency in Texas City, not far from Galveston. And if the attack is determined to be a terrorist, the FBI becomes the lead agency.

If the attack is not designated an act of terrorism, Galveston PD probably remains the lead agency, supported by GCSO and the resources of the Texas DPS, forensics labs, technicians and sworn LEOs, including Texas Rangers.

Am I forgetting any law enforcement agency that will get involved?

And how much of the response will be on the scene shortly after the attack, i.e, after midnight on Saturday the 29th of December, 2018, and how much will only arrive after dawn the morning of the Saturday?

Re: Federal Response
 

Pretty sure they'd get lead based on the international origins of a lot of the involved parties (ICE
Secret service maybe.

Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

Given the kind of criminal history of some the DEA might argue for jurisdiction.

Re: Federal Response
 

The FBI will always provide support, as is available in all mass shooting incidents. However, they can only become the lead agency if the homicides of Sergeant Deputy Higgins, EMT Anne Marie Roth and Officers Talley and Washington are determined to be federal crimes.The aggravated assault on the surviving officers and paramedic, as well as weapon charges and any incidental charges, would always be secondary to the homicides.

From what I can tell, the homicides could legitimately become federal crimes in several ways. First and most important, if the attack were to be determined to be an act of terror. Second, if the homicides were found to be drug related. Third, if the homicides are deemed to fall under the 'murder for hire' statue (18 U.S.C. Section 1958).

Other arguments that could be advanced are that the suspects travelled across state lines with clear intent to commit felonies and/or that the homicides were committed in the course of another felony, in itself a federal crime. The crossing of state lines is a relatively weak argument unless the attack on the ambulance and escort were found to be murder for hire.* Note that most murders committed by immigrants, legal and illegal, in Texas counties that border Mexico, are still under local or state jurisdiction, unless they are definitely determined to be related to drug trafficking (not just generally assumed to be).

On the other hand, a case could be made that the attack on the ambulance was 'attempted kidnapping' of the suspect known as 'Gwen Delvano', if the FBI are absolutely determined to secure status as the lead agency, as opposed to providing support to an inter-agency investigation led by local police with jurisdiction over 'ordinary' felonies, homicides and mass shootings.

Note that the Galveston County Sheriff's Office had jurisdiction over the Santa Fe mass shooting earlier in 2018, in real life, and the 2016 Dallas shooting of police fell under Dallas PD jurisdiction, with federal agencjes confined to providing support. I assume that it might anger local law enforcement to be sidelined and judging from the response to Texas mass shootings between 2015-2018, Governor Abbot and the leadership of the Texas DPS would be firmly opposed to having jurisdiction over the homicides become federal.

Formally and legally, the determination of federal jurisdiction is in the hands of US Attorney Ryan Patrick, son of (Texas) Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. I'm aware that Dan Patrick and Greg Abbot are by no means always in perfect amity, but still, I would find it surprising if US Attorney Ryan Patrick delivered such a public slap to the prestige and autonomy of the Texas state government while his father is Lieutenant Governor and he himself is part of the Republican political machine in Texas.

The politically safe way to handle jurisdiction is for Galveston PD to retain the status of lead agency in formal terms, but for state and federal investigative resources that dwarf theirs to be made available through an inter-agency task force. Given the existence of the Gulf Coast Violent Offender and Fugitive Task Force, in this area staffed by Galveston PD and GCSO, but coordinated and led by the US Marshals, it might make sense to attach any FBI response to that task force and have it take the lead in the hunt for any suspected perpetrators still at large. That's a face-saving maneuver that Chief Vernon Hale and Sheriff Henry Trochesset could accept, while still allowing federal and state level agencies to contribute their full resources.

*In itself debatable, speaking as the omniscient narrator. Raul and the OpFor were hired specifically to rescue the one known as 'Gwen Delvano' from (illegal) confinement by the PCs. The party hiring them was indifferent as to methods and certainly didn't care about casualties that might result, but there was no payment or other consideration delivered or promised for any of the homicides that took place.

What about the case would lead to the Secret Service becoming involved?

Do you mean once the link to precious metals and commodities trading is established and/or if the authorities discover 125 kg of gold in the Nissan Altima (which might not be discovered, if the extraction team of the OpFor have the sense to bail)?

While several of the suspects have links to DTOs in South America, note that this doesn't allow the DEA more than supporting status. If the murders were determined to be drug related, that would mean the FBI became the lead agency, not the DEA.

Re: Federal Response
 

The odds of financial crimes being involved somehow is high, though I would certainly not expect them to be the primary investigators.

Re: Federal Response
 

Yes, it is a good thought. One of the first names to be linked to the investigation will be that of Leonard M. Carillo of Dallas, Texas, a commodities trader with his own consulting firm, Lone Wolf Wealth Managment Inc. Mr. Carillo appears to have acted as the straw purchaser of all firearms used in the attack, purchased on the 28th of December in two gun stores in the Dallas metropolitan area, Advantage Firearms and Dallas Gun Source.

In a frankly unbelievable twist of fate, Mr. Carillo seems to have committed suicide by gunshot wound a few minutes before the attack was made, at his home in Dallas. Considerable investigative resources will no doubt be devoted to proving the 'suicide' a homicide, but no amount of forensics can demonstrate anything other than the facts, Carillo was alone when he died and his hand pulled the trigger.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

That's going to raise some eyebrows. Not so much the water (which may be indistinguishable from sweat) as the salt. The PC's might want to surreptitiously sprinkle some salt in his sniper's nest so it looks like the salt was already there, making it more "why did this guy sprinkle himself with salt before the shootout?" They may be inclined to do so anyway, what with all the mystery coffins. I'm kind of curious if Igor's status as a semi-undead... thing will result in any surprises at the autopsy (such as decayed/degraded internal organs, or lack of rigor mortis) or with the CSI's that document and cart away the body (such as an abnormally low body temperature, inconsistent with the freshness of the corpse).

Lacoste may be able to claim he thought the man was still moving and reaching for a weapon, provided there isn't any evidence (such as witness testimony) that it occurred after the fight was over (in the chaos of battle and with moving shadows from the flashing police lights, thinking a corpse was moving isn't unbelievable, particularly given Igor's apparent resilience). If the body was obviously repositioned for the decapitating strike, however, that's going to be difficult to explain away.

I would assume the authorities are going to be rather puzzled by this, but will ultimately come to the decision (particularly thanks to the Facade) that the driver was tortured and killed by the other "terrorists" prior to the ambush, possibly for attempting to bail on them or similarly betray them. If there's blood left in the van from the attack by not-Alice* on the other sicarios unfortunate enough to be present, they may assume the van was used for some sort of bizarre executions prior to the ambush. The freshness of the blood is going to be problematic, of course. As for Buddy's statements on what he saw (unless he censors himself to avoid looking crazy - he appears to be aware of there being things that go bump in the night, and that most are unaware), that might be rationalized away as someone sneaking in the van to finish the work of killing the driver, and somehow sneaking out without Buddy noticing, potentially resulting in a manhunt for the mysterious torture-ninja.

I'd imagine the way this will go will depend heavily on how reliably they can determine the time of death. Unless there was an immediate call to 911 by someone who heard the gunshot (giving a timestamp), they'll be more inclined to assume he died after the ambush failed. At that point, they'll be trying to figure out how he learned of the failure, possibly working under the assumption he killed himself to avoid prosecution for his part in it. With no known method for him to have done so (no phone records of calls/texts around that time, no hidden phone on his person - or destroyed phone in his house, etc), it will be a mystery, and they'll likely assume someone else was there (or entered the house shortly thereafter) and either delivered the news (and possibly ordered the suicide) or killed him in a manner that looked like a suicide. So now we've got two ninja-related crimes associated with this case. Clearly, they need some bad enough dudes to help.

*I'm kind of imagining the attacking creature being roughly akin to Night from the Worm web serial, although she didn't need knives and screwdrivers when in her (never-seen, as she can't transform or stay transformed if anyone can see her) monstrous form. A creature of indescribable anatomy with an overabundance of clawed limbs and sharp teeth.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

Yeah, Igor's going to puzzle some medical examiner, all right. Happily, most people are going to attribute anomalies to sample contamination, instrument failure, obvious mistake, etc. And there will be at least one expert from UTMB who is fully aware that the instruments are working perfectly well and who will both ensure that Mr. Kessler's people get the unedited autopsy data and that the forensic scientists who are unable to penetrate the Facade are guided to conclusions that their minds can accomodate. Such conclusions will also be crafted to avoid any evidence that could prove problematic to Mr. Kessler's people.

J.R. Kessler's yearly donations to UTMB average some $5 million and he unofficially pays about the same in hidden considerations through a variety of complex accounting tricks, shell corporations, offshore accounts and the occasional good-old-fashioned envelope of cash to ensure that various key medical professionals at UTMB are loyal to hm and his people (or loyal to their secret paymasters, for unscrupulpus types kept in the dark about the source of the money).

Kessler's most important agents at UTMB are not even doing it for the money (though even the most pure of heart rarely refuse research funding or contributions to their departments), but rather because they've seen past the Facade and realize that the official authorities have no answers. Rather than have a promising young ME turn in a report that is going to get him marginalized and possibly fired by adminisfrators who will never accept a supernatural explanation, those who have been in his position teach him how to turn in a report that will be accepted, while the true autopsy report goes to 'those who will believe and see that justice is done, if it can be'.

Ironically, the players don't know about Igor's exceptional vitality and resiliance. In one second, Igor took a .45 LC to the abdomen, 5.56x45mm round to the brain and 9 pellets of 0 buckshot to the face. Before he had fallen to the ground or the PCs had time to make any Per-based Diagnosis checks, this was followed up by an All-out Attack (Strong) swing with an enchanted heirloom Bowie knife, Very Fine and improved damage, swung by ST 20 Lacoste. In other words, it didn't matter how resilient Igor was, he was at -HPx10 after suffering more than 250 HP of injury in just over a second.

And the PCs have no way of knowing that Igor could actually survive some of these attacks individually, they just think they killed him four times over, because everyone attacked him at once. Enforcing Situational Awareness meant that the PCs independently decided to engage the greatest threat, i.e. the guy bringing to bear a .50 BMG rifle, and while they succeded at Per checks well enough to avoid blue-on-blue incidents, none of them could predict that the other PCs shot the same guy in the same second.

Well, what really happened is that Lacoste really thought his first hits killed the sicario, when he first failed a Knockdown roll and fell over upon taking hits from both sawed-off 10G and .460 S&W revolver.

Later, Lacoste realized that the man really was still moving and had drawn a weapon, which he was aiming at 'Nonc' Morel (PC)*. At that moment, Lacoste quite correctly shot him in the cerebellum at ten feet.

The problem is that Lacoste believes he saw Igor's soul leave his body when he was decapitated and that the soul was wrapped in the spiritual equivalent of barbed wire and chains. Using Exorcism, holy water and salt, Lacoste freed the soul from bondage and sent it on its way.

So, naturally, Lacoste's player concluded that the rest of the opponents were probably also afflicted with these terrible soulchains and asked if he could see the soul of the man he shot, clearly fatally, leave his body. When I replied that he couldn't, Lacoste's player decided that this meant that the soul was still trapped in there and he needed to free it by cutting of the head. Reasonable and logical, of course. So, Lacoste positioned the man he had shot for a good beheading strike and in only two powerful blows, he got the head free of the neck.

If the exact truth came out, not many explanations would suffice. However, as mentioned before, at least someone working on the medical forensic evidence will belong to Kessler and Sergeant Buddy Duke will flat-out lie on behalf of Lacoste, saying that the beheading happened immediately after the shot and that the suspect still had a gun in his hand, posed a risk to Lacoste and others, and must have been decapitated while struggling with Lacoste on the ground.

*Who is not good at talking to the authorities without seeming like a crazy Cajun hermit who grows substances that the government disapproves of. As 'Nonc' Morel has a charm he can activate to make himself inconspicious, he might try to disappear from the scene before Detectives Cartwright and Kelly get close enough to see him.

The fact that the truck moved during the ambush, both in a forward direction, and backwards, makes this a somewhat hard sell. Not to mention that the way that the driver has his hands attached to the steering wheel with the knife and one of his feet nailed through to the gas pedal. It's clearly impossible that anyone else could have been driving.

On the subject of blood spatter, a very inspired analyst might notice that infinite care appears to have been taken to ensure that the blood sprayed everywhere other than where the killer must have been in the cab. In fact, it almost seems lime the killer contorted himself into various uncomfortable positions to escape blood spatters, while working diligently to open more and more veins. It seems not only incomprehensible, but actively impossible, as no one could have applied the kind of force needed without being in a position where they should have been covered in blood, but it's as if the spatters went right through the killer and landed on the passenger seat, window and other surfaces.

However, it's not as if the truck won't reward DNA analysis, as they'll find genetic material from numerous open cases in it, including the six bodies in the Walmart. Also, at least a dozen other open murders, in California, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as two or three around Dallas.

Yeah, Buddy Duke will have a quiet word with Lacoste about what they can and can't say, as well as whether they need to burn the bodies, I guess. He's still operating on the assumption that this is an Evil Dead/vampires/zombies kind of situation.

I'm guessing Duke just says he saw someone leaving the truck, running into the night.

Carillo was divorced and lived in a rental apartment. Several people in neighbouring apartments heard the shot.

It's quite possible that whatever tortured Alberto didn't need knives or screwdrivers, but merely felt that using the contents of the toolbox open on the floor of the passenger side of the truck was amusing. Also, wanted to secure Alberto in an appropriately dramatic pose, for which purpose the sharp implements jammed through him were necessary.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

I had assumed him still being up - albeit staggered - would clue them in, but I see your games are run in a fashion where that could actually be chalked up to him just taking a moment to fall, and Lacoste acting quickly enough to decapitate that one can't know for certain if he was still "alive" when it happened.

That makes a great deal of sense. It would make him sound absolutely insane to anyone affected by the Facade, or course, but I'd say it speaks well of his personal character that he would take such a risk to rescue the soul of someone who was attempting to murder him mere moments before.

Yeah, that all makes this a serious head-scratcher. It's almost as if the thing wants more people to break through the Facade. But that's certainly nonsense... right?
EDIT: Incidentally, did you ever happen to read the novel Door to December? Re-reading your description of what was done (and considering Alice wasn't physically present, but clearly involved) made me think of the "monster" from that.

Huh, so it was a murder-van. Well, murder-transport-van, anyway.

You'll need to determine, of course, when - and indeed if - any of the neighbors called 911 to report the gunshot. It's close enough to New Year's that it's possible someone could mistake it for a firework of some sort (I can't speak to Texas, but here in Indiana it's not uncommon to hear fireworks in the week between Christmas and New Year's), particularly if it wasn't a terribly powerful handgun. While not in an apartment, there was a time at my brother's house (in an urban neighborhood) when someone stupidly test-fired an AR-15 in the backyard, and no police were ever notified.

Re: Acceptable Self-Defense, Limits, Decapitations
 

Yeah, in actual play, none of the players knew Igor's actual state and I told them he was collapsing, but they'd need a second of estimation (allowing a relative +4 to Situational Awareness compared to passive checks) if they wanted any kind of certainty about his exact condition.

Lacoste's player decided to finish his charge and attack rather than stop and evaluate, which no officer-involved death investigation can really fault, as Igor was still a potential threat at the time (even without the rifle, he was carrying a slung AK pistol at his side).

Yes, Lacoste is fundamentally a good guy, just one struggling to adjust after a near death experience where he lost his partner, with whom he was closer than any of his family. Untreated PTSD and survivor's guilt is being expressed in risk-seeking behaviour and irresponsible actions, as Lacoste unconsciously feels that him surviving while LaDarius 'Dee' Fournette remains dead is a betrayal of his partner.

This despite the fact that Dee's family (with whom Lacoste spent Christmas) doesn't blame Lacoste and that Dee's apparent ghost (who 'haunts' Lacoste as his spirit Ally) keeps telling Lacoste that he needs to forgive himself for not being able to prevent bad things from happening. And not to try to find a way to fix or atone for something that was never his fault.

As it is, the spirit wearing the form of Dee also tells Lacoste that just because they both experience him as Dee, that doesn't make him a ghost, he's probably a free spirit taking that form because of Lacoste's powerful psychic projection. The real Dee is gone whereever souls go after death, not doomed to some kind of half-existence because of anything Lacoste did or didn't do. Dee might not have been a Bible scholar in life, but his spirit can't believe in ghosts, as it is incompatible with what simple faith he has, in a benevolent God and a just afterlife.

The spirit Lacoste treats as Dee (and, in fairness, who seems to act like Dee would) does his level best to warn Lacoste of danger and manipulate probability just enough to keep him alive despite his terminal recklessness. And hopes that Lacoste will find a way to forgive himself before he kills himself by throwing himself at every threat with a lusty laugh.

As for Lacoste's beliefs, he's a Catholic, but not a very orthodox one. And Lacoste absolutely believes that the spirits he sees and talks to are ghosts and he feels a Sense of Duty toward them just as toward living people. Lacoste will absolutely risk his life to lay a tormented spirit to rest or to give what he believes is the soul of a deceased mortal a chance to go to the afterlife, to experience God's mercy.

As for why God would allow souls to be trapped on Earth, without passing on, Lacoste believes that evil men and entities are capable of trapping them and that just as God relies on mortal servants to protect his flock from disease, catastrophe and violence in life, so He relies on servants to tend to such trapped souls and send them to the afterlife. Servants like Lacoste, who believes that this is why he has been granted the ability to see spirits and affect them.

We may safely assume that whatever Alice has wrought, the Entity is pretty clearly prepared to simply murder anyone who learns too much and may indeed delight in creating situations where more murders are an option that Alice might need to consider. It's probably not a nice Entity.
I don't recall reading this specific book, but I've read a great quantity of Dean Koontz books, usually while on vacation.
Yes, exactly. Not usually used for murders, but often used to transport kidnap victims and their bodies, later. The murders must have been committed elsewhere (in places where the Threshold was weak or corrupted and the local energies favoured dark rituals, as the murders were all occult sacrifices).
I rolled for it. One neighbour called 911 at 00:01, almost ten minutes before the first shot was fired in the ambush.

Incident Investigation and Personalities
 

Right, formally, Chief Vernon Hale of the Galveston PD is in charge of the investigation and Sheriff Henry Trochesset will provide support from the GCSO.

The Texas DPS will send detectives, crime scene investigators and hordes of support personnel, to include at least one Texas Ranger. I wonder how high-ranking the LEO in charge of the Texas DPS contingent should be? Someone from Texas DPS CID Southeast Region in Houston? Someone sent from Austin HQ? A Texas Ranger from Company A in Houston?

Coordinating the manhunt for suspects in the shooting and any accomplices will be the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force, led by the US Marshals and already manned by Galveston PD, GCSO, Texas DPS and numerous local PDs, all used to working together. The federal 'assistance' will be provided by attaching elements from the FBI, ATF and other federal agencies to the existing Task Force.

The commander of the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force, Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Norman D. Merkel was traveling in from Corpus Christi to head his task force, but did not arrive during the day of the 29th of December, 2018, as he should have. The PCs are unaware of this, but it is because Supervisory Deputy Merkell collapsed from a heart attack at the airport and was taken to hospital. His subordinates have been notified, but the PCs have been out of the loop for a few hours and so missed that information. In any case, that means that either the most senior Deputy US Marshal in the small Galveston office who belongs to the GCVO Task Force or a Supervisory Deputy from Houston will represent the U.S. Marshals Service, at least for the time being.

U.S. Marshals' Texas southern district spokesman Alfredo Perez is meant to handle press relations for the task force, although no one, from Chief Hale up to senior DPS staff and various federal LEOs, has any plans on avoiding talking to the press.

Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Houston office, Edward Michel, will lead the FBI contingent and practically considers himself in charge of the investigation, with the locals retaining the lead in name only.

Purely by accident, it turns out that PC Lucien Lacoste's backstory includes serving as the NOPD liaison to several task forces with state and federal LEAs in Louisiana, which means that Lacoste knows ASAC Michel from when Michel was Supervisory Senior Resident Agent in Baton Rouge from 2007-2009. Also, looking over Michel's career, he worked with Lacoste's father in the early 90s, in the NOPD. Rolling for Reaction with all suitable modifiers, the two men have a good professional relationship (14, Good). That should help Lacoste avoid being sidelined as a crazy person.

What kind of rank should the Texas DPS representative, who also probably believes unequivacally that they are actually in charge, have?

Lacoste is Totally Not a Serial Killer, Honest!
 

Lucien Lacoste (PC) is really great at making himself appear... less than sane.

When Chief Hale arrived at the scene, he noticed a hulking guy in a duster with a cowboy hat kneeling over a dead body. After sprinkling something on it, the guy walked to a GCSO patrol vehicle, where paramedics were removing a critically wounded Deputy De La Cruz from the shot-up cruiser. Without sparing a glance for the Chief or explaining anything to the paramedics, the guy starts anointing the wounded deputy with oil, feeding her a sip of wine and chanting Latin over her.

As the big guy notices Chief Hale watching, he sprinkles salt and water over Deputy De La Cruz, makes the sign of the cross, and asks Chief Hale if he would like a benediction. Whereupon I roll a Reaction Roll for Chief Hale. 1-1-1. I ask Lacoste's player if there is any number below which he'd consider using Luck on the Reaction Roll.

Player: "Is he gonna shoot me?"
GM: "He's probably going to have a very strong feeling that you are a serial killer, considering all the blood you have on you and the fact that you're giving people the Last Rites, instead of, uh, acting like a cop at a crime scene where there are still wounded people and the suspects might even be close by."
Player: "Right. So, he might shoot me?"
GM: "Let's say he'd consider it."

So Lacoste's player used Luck and managed to convince Chief Hale he was just really religious (Lacoste is a Jesuit-educated seminarian), not a psycho killer. Sergeant Duke's testimony helped. The two severed heads didn't.

The two reporters from the Daily News who caught pictures of Igor's head lying on the street and Lacoste performing his occult Catholic rituals over the bodies and wounded did not improve Chief Hale's night.

Of course, Lacoste's player felt that it was unfair that anyone might suspect Lacoste of being a deranged killer, as he'd decided not to kill Alberto, the driver of the box truck that blocked Broadway Street. Lacoste got to the truck shortly after Buddy Duke and when he saw the ruin that someone had made of the poor driver, Lacoste's player genuinely felt that the only humane thing to do would be to put Alberto out of his misery. Aware that shooting him would probably be hard to explain, Lacoste actually deliberated: a) Strangling him, b) Snapping his neck, c) Suffocating him, d) Severing his jugular or e) Giving him an overdose of morphine from the ambulance.

Only after all the other players argued that Lacoste would never get away with it did Lacoste relent and simply injected enough morphine into Alberto to make him more comfortable as he gradually slipped into unconsciousness while bleeding out. Lacoste might or might not have been able to stop the massive bleeding from arteries in all limbs, but in the event, he didn't really try, he just held Alberto and used Diplomacy to calm him while he died.

Yes, that is where most of the blood came from. Well, that, and beheading two people with a Bowie knfe.

Aftet seeing Alberto, the players weren't really that shocked when they found the four other butchered bodies inside the gated compound garden. It was what they found in the next garden that convinced them of the utter and inhuman evil they were dealing with.

Using a garden rake snapped into two sharp sticks, someone had crucified a yellow/cream coloured Lacy Dog to a house. Spinal injury paralyzed the dog below the waist, but someone had carefully made an incision higher up on the belly to eviscarate it where it could feel it. The throat had been cut artistically, severing the vocal cords and windpipe, but not the carotid or jugular, and the tongue pulled through the cut. Finally, the eyes had been put out and the flesh on the face flayed.

The PCs later learned that the dog was formally named 'The Yellow Rose of Texas', but most often called 'Rose' or 'Texas Rose'. And she was still whimpering when the PCs found her.

This time, no one stopped Lacoste when he pulled out his Bowie knife and finished cutting her throat. Before her owner could come out, Lacoste performed a Lay to Rest ritual*, the same as he would later use on the humans killed in the ambush, and then covered Rose's body with a tarp.

*Lacoste's player thought about it and then declared that dogs had souls, citing the well-known 'All dogs go to Heaven' doctrine.

Re: Lacoste is Totally Not a Serial Killer, Honest!
 

That reminded me of something rather strongly. So I went and checked:
Some players show through different characters.

Re: Lacoste is Totally Not a Serial Killer, Honest!
 

The other players were starting to worry that Lacoste was just looking for justifications to 'mercy kill' someone. When 'Nonc' Morel, who'd thrown himself out of a running car during the ambush, was asked if he needed medical assistance, his player looked at Lacoste's player: "No! I'm fine!"

He later accepted an ambulance ride (he'd taken 6 HP damage), but that was more to keep an eye on 'Gwen Delvano'.

What Happens After a New Incident?
 

The Gulf Coast Violent Offender Task Force is being used as the structure for the manhunt surrounding the investigation of the shooting of law enforcement officers on the corner of Broadway Street and 71st Street in Galveston, just after midnight on Friday, i.e., properly speaking, Saturday, December the 29th, 2018, at 00:01.

The FBI and many other federal agencies are claiming jurisdiction of the investigation in general, but US Attorney Ryan Patrick has ruled that until definite evidence of terrorism is uncovered, this remains a local murder case, albeit a very high priority one where all necessary assistance is being provided by state and federal agencies.

The Galveston County Sheriff's Office was officially the first agency on the scene and they have both dead and wounded officers in the shooting. The Galveston PD can claim to have been present on scene the entire time, as they lost two officers and had two officers wounded, and Sergeant Buddy Duke from the GPD was among the first responders.

So both Galveston law enforcement agencies are claiming lead status on the investigation of the murder of their officers. At the moment, there is therefore something of an uncertain chain of command, given that the case can be broken up into many parts and different agencies claim priority for different responsibilities.

Officially, the US Marshals are in charge of the manhunt for those suspects still at large, as the senior officer of the GCVOTF is a US Marshal. The FBI are providing investigative support, but definitely consider themselves to be the senior partners of any investigation, if not the only important agency. The Texas Rangers and other Texas Department of Public Safety have sent investigators and troopers from the Highway Patrol Division are doing much of the work on road blocks.

Making use of the somewhat unclear division of responsibilities in the investigation, two PCs who volunteer as Reserve Deputies of several County Sheriff's Offices, among them Galveston County, got Sheriff Henry Trochesset to authorize them transporting a suspect in custody, Raul Sandoval Jara, to the harbor to check out information he had given them.

Stretching their authority even further, the PCs then lost the federal tail their vehicle had and took Mr. Sandoval out on a boat, with the intention of having him point out a container vessel connected to the shooters,* which was heading for the Port of Houston.

With questionable legality**, the PCs then boarded the container vessel Aqueronte while it was still in Galveston County waters, accompanied by Deputy Marshal Natalie Garza of the GCVOTF. Shortly after boarding, the PCs and Marshal Garza took heavy fire and called for assistance. The Galveston County Sheriff's Office SWAT and Marine Unit were already in position, as was a team from the Marine Safety Security Team Houston (MSST 91104) of the US Coast Guard, but before they made it to the Aqueronte, the PCs, with the aid of some 'local boaters'*** had subdued the resistance aboard.

The result is at least 21 dead, with numerous victims and suspects severely wounded enough so that survival is uncertain. And 41 surviving women from many different countries who appear to be victims of human trafficking are being taken to hospitals, with some of them talking to law enforcement.

Also, the information provided by Raul Sandoval Jara to the PCs has proven accurate, with two companies in the harbor area of Houston having a verifiable connection with cargo on the Aqueronte. Forensic accounting will reveal connections to companies already under investigation because suspects in the earlier shooting worked there and Sandoval's testimony proves enough for warrants for over a dozen sites in Houston and Dallas.

Those arrested in Dallas or Houston mostly refuse to talk, but numerous known associates and/or employees of the four companies connected to the incidents are not found and APBs are issued for them while police work on getting search warrants for their homes, places of work and any other relevant areas.

Now, I'm looking for guidelines on how the official response will continue to evolve over the night of Saturday the 29th of December, 2018 and then on Sunday the 30th and Monday the 31st of December, i.e. New Year's Eve, 2018.

In light of this new incident, I'm sure that at least one and possibly two task forces will be created.

Will anything change about the lead agency?

What is the response from the Texas Department of Public Safety going to be?

What is the highest ranking TxDPS officer involved going to be?

*Yes, I'm aware that the PCs could have just gotten the name of the ship without Sandoval having to go with them, but they claimed he did not know the name of the ship but could identify it, in order to provide a legal figleaf for why they were present at the ship in a law enforcement capacity. The cooperative Sandoval even agreed to back up their story in exchange for certain considerations.
**However, it may turn out to be just enough legality for the PCs to get away with it, especially as they seem to have saved almost forty women from what are clearly violent criminals with illegal weapons.
***Other 'Night Riders' (Monster Hunters) working for Kessler.

Re: What Happens After a New Incident?
 

Given that this involves people traveling across not just state lines, but national borders (the shooters came up from Mexico, IIRC), as well as out into international waters to commit crimes, 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.

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).

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.

The governor will send someone from his office (maybe even the lieutenant governor, if they get along) and the congresscritters will want to remain fully apprised of everything that happens. A liaison appointed by the FBI to assist the special agent with such matters would probably be enough for the congressional delegation, as long as said liaison remained both forthcoming and reachable.

Do expect every congresscritter to insist on a visit and a personal briefing -- with a press conference, afterwards.

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.

As for the sorta "fast-and-loose" stuff done so far, the PCs involved in law enforcement should get a moderate reaming, which will include a "no we're really not kidding" warning that the reaming for any future deviations will involve a deep-core drilling Derrick, and result in an unhappy future as a paper-pushing desk-jockey with no hope of career advancement. Ever.

Re: What Happens After a New Incident?
 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What Happens to the PCs?
 

Well, Lucien Lacoste and Teddy Smith are volunteer Reserve Deputies. Sheriff Trochesset can't dock their pay and can't threaten to reassign them, really, because they're not paid and if reassigned, can just stop donating their time. That being said, while their boss will allow them to get away with astonishing things, as long as he's convinced that they are bending the law to deal with occult things that normal police can't handle, the senior people from alphabet agencies, state and federal, will not be so understanding.

Legally, the PCs are actually technically in the clear. They had a warrant from the local judge, authority from their boss, the county sheriff, and the Sheriff has pretty unambigous jurisdictional authority in his county. What's going to infuriate the feds is that the PCs clearly deliberately kept them out of things and used obfusticating paperwork (critical success on Administration) and expert knowledge of exactly how far they could stretch institutional rivalries (success by 10 on Savoir-Faire (Police)) to ensure that by the time the feds got there, everything was over.

Aside from making the feds look like idiots and demonstrating cavalier disregard for interagency relations, the PCs were technically legally empowered to enforce the warrant. However, their excuses for not waiting until they had SWAT, USCG and other alphabet agendy support a mere 10-15 minutes later will sound very thin, albeit precisely the sort of thin excuses that would hold up in court, even as the feds know very well that the PCs are lying. Basically, the PCs risked their lives without needing to do so, but can justify it well enough to escape any formal punishment. The feds can try to blame the deaths on the GCSO Reserve Deputies not waiting for backup, but the PCs will counter that their paper-thin excuse that they believed they heard a cry for help actually checks out, as several victims appear to have been killed before the PCs boarded, and they rescued others that were being attacked.*

To ASAC Michel of the FBI and any other senior figures involved, however, the PCs appear to be crazy reckless and/or actively hostile to federal agencies. Or lying through their teeth because they had important inside information gathered through illegal means and needed to come up with an alternative way to justify boarding the Aqueronte. So a savvy fed might conclude that the PCs have an informant** but don't want to enter him into the official case files or that they had an illegal wiretap.

A savvy and occult-aware fed might conclude that the PCs knew about a supernatural threat and were avoiding exposing mundane cops to a vortex of dark spirits that had a high chance of causing blue-on-blue incidents.

*A somewhat awkward issue may be the mistreated victim who was executed with a shot to the back of the head. True, not with any weapon carried by the PCs, but not with a weapon found aboard either. And her status as victim or perpetrator is complex, given that her face is smeared with the blood of another victim and pieces of intenstines will be found in her mouth and gullet.
**Other than Mr. Sandoval, who refused to talk to federal investigators, but strangely was very cooperative with the PCs. Mr. Sandoval is now claiming to be an innocent bystander who had no idea what the men in whose company he briefly found himself were planning to do, but is willing to give all the information that might be desired about his place of employment, in case anyone there was responsible for this heinous attack. It may be significant that the PCs, whose testimony would be crucial to convict Mr. Sandoval of any serious crimes, are now saying that it's possible that he was involuntarily in the company of the shooters and picked up a weapon during the shooting to defend himself and/or help the police in an active shooter situation. Yes, the PCs absolutely made a deal with the leader of the OpFor that they'd do their best to let him escape the consequences of his actions if he'd help them catch his bosses.

Re: What Happens to the PCs?
 

If only they could be so lucky.

I'm going to assume the gunshot was either the work of Alice Talbot (who I believe you stated escaped the scene prior to the authorities knowing she was ever on boards) or Nonc Morel (who tends to do similar vanishing acts), to eliminate a sacrifice who had clearly been possessed by Something.

I recently read back through the rest of this thread, and couldn't help but wonder if Raul might have considered going to the PC's for help, given his Secret Masters had basically ordered him to do the near-impossible or face horrifying consequences. This is why ruling through fear falls apart when faced with highly-competent foes - it's rather in your minions' interest to betray you as soon as someone who can defeat you and is likely to treat them better shows up. "Fail and I'll kill you" backfires if a potential failure mode involves getting captured, as it leaves them with betraying you as the best option for survival. A shame Raul didn't opt for the betrayal before having his men murder a number of LEO's and a paramedic.

...

Apologies I can't really add anything to the discussion of jurisdictions and political jockeying, but I do rather enjoy reading about the events of your campaign.

Re: What Happens to the PCs?
 

Well, they get friendly local law enforcement for their 100 points in the Patron Advantage. Federal and state law enforcement can sputter in fury and drag them through bureaucratic gauntlets, but while Sheriff Trochesset backs them to the hilt and they technically have a legal warrant, no amount of official displeasure from Austin or D.C. can seriously harm them.

Though I'll grant that such important authority figures as a senior Texas Ranger, FBI agent or even a US Attorney (or at least an Assistant US Attorney) would not be nice Enemies to have moving forward, even if they were just (Watcher) or (Rival) level. Have to hope that the PCs can handle the aftermath with enough grace, diplomacy and tact to smooth some of those ruffled feathers.

Lacoste may be prone to reckless and hard to explain behaviour, but he's also a legendary detective formerly of the NOPD, decorated for heroism and extremely popular with any cop who has worked with him (+2 to +10 Reaction bonus from most cops, depending on a variety of factors; Savoir-Faire (Police) -20). And Teddy Smith, while no charmer, at least spent more than ten years as an NCO and is an expert at Administration. He knows when to turn in exact paperwork and say absolutely nothing more than he has to.

It was Alice and for exactly the reason you state. 'Nonc' Morel doesn't kill people.

In fact, 'Nonc' Morel tried his best to stop Alice from killing Ms. Alba. As Lacoste and 'Nonc' proved, it was possible to expel the possessing entity without murder, although I'll grant that there was no guarantee that this would have succeeded in this case before more people died. However, while shooting Ms. Alba might theoretically have been justifiable, it is perhaps even harder to explain why it was necessary to slash, cut and stab her several times and put six bullets in her kidneys, spine and heart before executing her with the last bullet.

Yes, this is why, in general, a sensible Evil Overlord should aim to treat his employees firmly, but fairly, not punishing them for events beyond their control and reward honesty, even if your minions are telling you upsetting truths. Abusive managment styles just lead to poor performance. Also, loyalty enforced through threats tends to be very volatile, as you note. Once Raul Sandoval was sure that his bosses would seek to visit upon him a fate worse than death for his failure, switching sides to any enemy of your old masters that appear powerful becomes the only rational choice.

It's always good when people can derive enjoyment from one's modest little amusements.

Re: What Happens to the PCs?
 

Quiet little Alice is somewhat bloodthirsty these days, isn't she? One might even wonder if she's quite the same person as before she was sacrificed?

Alice? Who the ---- is Alice?
 

I've replied in the Caribbean by Night thread, where discussion of PCs specifically is more appropriate.

I like to be able to find posts that might contain valuable information (because my own notes are very fragmentary), so I'm trying to ruthlessly classify discussion about the campaign to appropriately titled threads.

The Response of the Texas Department of Public Safety
 

In light of the 2016 Dallas shooting of law enforcement officers that happened in both the real world and my campaign setting, the incidents around Galveston trigger a strong public reaction, an even stronger reaction within the law enforcement community and are consequently perceived as a political hot-button issue.

The ambush of the prisoner transport at the corner of Broadway Street and 71st Street in Galveston at midnight between Friday the 28th and Saturday the 29th of December, 2018, will terrify many cops but has also led to an outpouring of support for Galveston law enforcement and a lot of anger within the law enforcement community. Regardless of whether the attack and the second incident meet the legal standards for acts of terrorism for jurisdictional purposes, rumours within Texas law enforcement are swirling and most cops believe that the two incidents are definitely linked and connected to some dangerous drug cartel and/or terrorist organization.

Politicians, mostly in Texas, but some on the national stage, are falling all over each other to prove how seriously they are taking the deaths of five officers and a paramedic, as well as the critical injuries of several other officers. Reminder for non-US forumites, Sheriffs are elected officials almost everywhere in the United States, including Texas, which makes them both cops and politicians.

That means that Sheriff Henry Trochesset is at the center of a storm of publicity and pressure, made worse for him by the fact that he has to somehow try to conceal any irregularities in the case caused by inexplicable paranormal phenomena and the extracurricular activities of Kessler's people. So Sheriff Trochesset will try to retain as much control over events as he can, but realistically, he will in practical terms be mostly superseded by the absolutely vast law enforcement and investigative resources that the federal government and the state of Texas can bring to bear.

District Attorney Jack Roady in Galveston County can technically claim jurisdiction over all the serious crimes connected to the two incidents and is inclined to support Sheriff Trochesset, but while he is favorably inclined to local interests in Galveston, DA Roady has no idea about the supernatural and won't risk his career by pitting himself against any powerful political forces in Austin or Washington. So while he'd love to prosecute some or all of these cases, the ultimate decision about that will be made by more powerful and influential people than DA Roady.

From what I gather from everything I've ever read on US law enforcement, the natural inclination of most federal agencies with potential jurisdiction over an incident of this magnitude and political importance is to swoop in and take control. However, the feds are hampered in this specific case by the US Attorney to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas and the person with the authority to resolve federal jurisdictional disputes, is Ryan Patrick, the son of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick.

And while the Patricks are not in perfect political lockstep with Texas Governor Greg Abbot (they are fairly significant rivals for influence within the Republican Party in Texas), all three of them feel very strongly that Texas can handle the investigation of an attack on Texas law enforcement (and by extension, on their sovereignty as a state) without the federal government stepping in to sideline vital Texas institutions. So US Attorney Ryan Patrick will do his political best to back up Governor Abbot and his father, as well as ensure that the federal agencies concerned will be acting in support of Texas law enforcement, not seizing jurisdiction from them.

As a consequence of all of the above, I'm imagining that the Texas Department of Public Safety will be very central to the investigation moving forward.

So I have to make some decisions. First of all, what kind of authority figures will Texas send?

Major Grover Huff, of the Texas Rangers Company A, in whose area of responsibility both incidents are?

Regional Director Jason Taylor of TxDPS Region 2 in Houston, which consists of counties in Southeast Texas?

Chief Chance Collins, the head of the Texas Rangers?

Deputy Director of Law Enforcement Operations Randall Prince of the Texas Department of Public Safety?

All four men are recently promoted to their positions and all have fairly recent stints at headquarters, so they are all somewhat logical choices as the face of the investigation and probably have the trust of Colonel Steven McCraw, Executive Director of the TxDPS.

Of course, McCraw himself might travel to Houston. He's a former FBI agent, so he might be uncomfortable personally taking a strong anti-federal position insisting on the primacy of Texas law enforcement in the case, however. Also, McCraw might have ambitions to higher office in law enforcement, which would require a presidential appointment (such positions as ICE or FBI Director or even Secretary of Homeland Security* would be possible ambitions for him), so McCraw might be inclined to favor federal interests over local political considerations.

Are there any other figures that Austin might send?

What about someone from the headquarter staff of the Texas Rangers, TxDPS or the Texas Governor's Public Safety Office?

Deputy Director Freeman F. Martin of TxDPS Homeland Security Operations springs to mind. He's a long-time Texas Ranger and experienced at being in charge of criminal investigations and wide-ranging law enforcement operations. However, putting him instead of Deputy Director Randy Prince in charge of the Texas response would send a signal that Austin was regarding these incidents as terrorism or at least terrorism-adjacent, instead of as simple criminal acts. This may or may not be what Governor Abbot wants to do.

Obviously, Governor Abbot and Lieutenant-Governor Patrick will make statements aplenty, but even if either or both come to Houston and Galveston, they are unlikely to be personally involved in making investigative decisions. Would there be any senior staffers who might get involved, however?

Also, I'm imagining that the Texas Rangers will send special units from the Special Operations Group (SOG). At minimum, the Texas Rangers will mobilize the SRT of TxDPS Region 2, Southeast Texas, and they might send in the SWAT team from headquarters in Austin, to serve high-risk warrants connected to the case, in light of the perceived risks of armed resistance.**

What else do I need to think about in connection to the Texas response?

*In the real world, there would be actual rumours about him being considered for that position only a few months later.
**The US Marshals will probably mobilize deputy marshals from their own SOG, headquartered a short distance away at Camp Beauregard in Louisiana, and both FBI and ICE will likely send tactical teams, at least regional ones.

Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

Something that may be of use to you - when trying to look up more information on the four possible Texas Law Enforcement representatives you mentioned, I came across this article, and later this biography, about the longest-serving Ranger currently still serving (he's currently in Jasper, which isn't terribly far from Galveston, and checking the Wayback Machine indicates he was stationed there back in December of 2018 as well; note he's 68 at the time of the campaign, but still serving). In addition to apparently being a certified badass, he's also a Vietnam War veteran, a hypnotist, and was involved in some capacity in the investigation of the Galveston Killing Fields. His biography indicates he joined the Rangers in 1981 (conveniently, right around the time magic started seeping back into the world), has been involved in nearly every type of case - "murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping, and on and on" - and has been present at no fewer than 3 incidents where the suspect opted for suicide over arrest. That's in our world; in your world with a supernaturally-boosted murder and suicide rate, he's likely seen even more. "Ranger Joe" seems a strong contender for someone in law enforcement who has pierced the Facade, and some degree of connection to Kessler is certainly possible. While he's further away than the Rangers in Houston, I don't think it would be out of the question for him to be brought in for the Galveston investigation. He could certainly be another ally for the PC's (or a complication, if he isn't associated with Kessler).

Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

Yeah, thanks!

Note that Ranger Joe Haralson has lived in Texas City since 1981, literally less than ten miles from Galveston. His children grew up in Galveston County and he's been working with the Galveston County Sheriff's Office for 37 years.

In fact, Ranger Joe was on the scene of the ambush of the prisoner transport within half an hour (because he had the weekend off and was at home, instead of in Jasper). And apparently knew both Mr. Alexandre and Kessler very well, as he was closeted with them for a long time after he visited the Penemue in the aftermath.

The Aqueronte was also stopped about ten miles away from Haralson's home, but that happened on the evening on the next day and Haralson was still at work, looking for the suspects of previous night's attack. He was actually two hours north of Galveston at the time of the second incident and operating on far too little sleep. He'll be at the port when Aqueronte is brought there, wherever that is done (the PCs want Galveston, the feds will want Houston).

Re: What Happens to the PCs?
 

It seems to me that the excluded agencies will be looking for a reason why the PCs did what they did. If they are satisfied with "they're adrenalin junkies who really didn't want to be excluded from the bust", which is after all a real thing that happens, then they don't need to go further.

Re: What Happens to the PCs?
 

Yes, but the situation is still fraught with risk.

Remember, 21 people died. Most of those people were, judging from the evidence on the scene, probably bad dudes. But not all of them can be proven to have been dangerous criminals currently holding a weapon. Indeed, people who were clearly unarmed also died, as did people who appear to have been more victims than perpetrators. Even if everyone who died had been certified, 100% dyed-in-the-wool unrepentant villain bent on mass murder and this could somehow be proven, law enforcement is not supposed to use tactics that result in suspect deaths if other methods might have allowed them to arrest the suspects.

If the PCs give answers that satisfy the feds that they are simply reckless adrenaline junky Reserve Deputies in a two-bit, small-town, Sheriff's Office that really, really, really didn't want to miss a chance to play cut-rate Navy SEALs and board a ship full of 'pirates'*, those answers might also be used against them in wrongful death suits or even criminal proceedings.

If sufficiently irate, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Michel, especially if he can convince the senior Supervisory Deputy US Marshal of the GCVOFTF, could easily make the case that if not for the reckless actions of three Reserve Deputies of the Galveston County Sheriff's Office, a coordinated tactical operation conducted by all the concerned agencies once the Aqueronte had docked in Houston could have arrested the entire crew without a firefight that killed 21 people. He could argue that the crew only resisted because there was not sufficiently overwhelming force present to deter them from doing so.

Now, the PCs have done several things to make it harder to take that line. First of all, the alleged testimony of Raul Sandoval Jara, while obviously lies**, is carefully crafted (by the PCs), to give them legitimate reason to want to check out Aqueronte and to suspect something fishy about the ship, as well as enabling a local judge (who happens to be in Kessler's pocket) to issue a warrant to search the vessel for evidence of a) the presence of a suspected accessory to last night's shooting, b) human trafficking and/or c) other smuggling, while not including anything that can be pointed at in court as evidence the PCs should definitely have known that they'd meet armed resistance as soon as they boarded.

The warrant is issued on the basis of some pretty circumstantial evidence and might not have held up in court. For one thing, they called the judge from their boat and supplemented their earlier paperwork wirh new information, i.e. an alleged sighting through thermal sights of a female form when no women were part of the crew manifest, which allowed the judge to issue the warrant (and send an electronic copy to the PCs***).

However, as it happened, while the PCs did approach the Aqueronte because they planned to execute the warrant and they did stop the vessel by addressing them with a bullhorn asking them to submit to a search by the Galveston County Sheriff's Office and offered to show the warrant to the Captain, they were fired upon before they had a chance to execute the warrant.

While everyone they talk to, from the initial agents on up, will know damn well that the PCs didn't just happen to have scuba gear for two of their number with them and were thus planning to board tactically from the start and are lying through their teeth about having decided to not to wait for backup only after hearing a scream that made them afraid that people were being murdered aboard the Aqueronte, their story can't be disproven.

One PC and the NPC ally and fellow Reserve Deputy who also had scuba gear are licensed diving instructors who donate their time to train members of the Marine Units of several nearby Sheriff's Offices. They do have a legitimate, if not entirely plausible (in light of the fact it was the holidays) reason to have full suits of tactical team diving gear in their boat and no laws actually prohibit them having been planning on developing some training material for next year over the weekend. It also helps that both men are known to spend much of their free time diving, though usually not in full tactical gear.

Also, good forensics will determine that several of the victims aboard Aqueronte have severe injuries inflicted before they died and, indeed, in some cases, probably well before. A case can be made that at the time the PCs boarded, two and perhaps more people were being tortured and killed. Even though the PCs almost certainly didn't hear any screams from the engine room deep in the bowels of the ship all the way through a quarter mile of foggy evening at sea, no one can exactly disprove that, either.

A lot depends on who gets credit, here. If the official reports are accurate and truthful to the point that the FBI and other federal or state agencies involved get no credit, with the potential heroes being from the Galveston County Sheriff's Office, the Powers That Be will have every reason to try to taint the operation and even get the PCs in legal trouble. Even if the PCs successfully navigate through that with their prepared stories, one or more senior feds will almost certainly become Enemy (Watcher) or even (Rival).

But the PCs are wise in the ways of buraucracy and inter-agency rivalries. You see, executing the warrant with Reserve Deputy Lucien Lacoste was Deputy Marshal Natalie Garza of the United States Marshals Service, currently serving as a member of the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitives Task Force. And the PCs are entirely willing to claim the operation as a joint task force endeavour, ably supported by the USCG and the FBI, as well as any number of thirsty AF state and federal agencies.

That changes the equation considerably. Now, the feds will have a vested interest in not exposing any flaws in the official version of the story. Oh, sure, large parts will be fiction, but they'll be a polite fiction bureaucratically agreed-on for purposes of sharing credit and not embarrassing anyone. And nobody wants a potentially weak warrant or improper actions by anyone on the GCVOFTF to taint the evidence aboard or the warrants that result from it, not if their agencies are potentially involved too, so irregularies will not be pursued.

So, ironically, it might actually be better for the PCs if the feds strongly suspect that they are lying to cover up an informant they are shielding or an illegal black-bag job or wiretap, because as long as that can't be proven and all the alphabet agencies share in the success, no one has a compelling motive to try to undermine the official version of events.

*An international crew of human traffickers with illegal, fully-automatic assault weapons is probably the closest to actual pirates any of the law-enforcement agents involved is going to see in his life.
**For one thing, Mr. Sandoval claims only have realized later that what he saw was suspicious and carefully mentions nothing that implicates him in any illegal activities. He just happened to see X and overhear Y, which only afterwards, once he knew that the people in question had ambushed police officers, he realized might have been evidence of other illegal activity.
***As well as a copy to Deputy Marshal Garza, on the GCVOFTF, which would become important when Lucien Lacoste (PC) found that not only could he not access the file on his smartphone, but his smartphone somehow crashed when he tried and wouldn't start again.

Command of a Joint Task Force Covering Both Incidents
 

The 18 hours after the ambush of the prisoner transport in Galveston were a period where command of the law enforcement response was ambigious, with Galveston PD nominally the lead agency for the investigation, but both Texas DPS and the FBI treating that as a legal fiction while providing 'support' in the form of trying to run the investigation.

The Gulf Coast Violent Offender and Fugitive Task Force (GCVOFTF) was used as the temporary structure for the manhunt for escaped suspects and potential accessories, with the US Marshals leading the manhunt (by virtue of their primacy on the permanent GCVOFTF) and local Sheriff's Offices and police departments having personnel on that task force.

However, after the shootout aboard the container vessel Aqueronte in the waters of Galveston Bay, the law enforcement response will alter again and probably take the form of a special task force. I will roll whether the state government of Texas or federal law enforcement agencies win the turf battle for command of the task force, with the losers stuck with a subordinate support position.

What I was wondering, what kind of rank should the commander of such a task force be?

If he's from the Texas DPS, is he a CID or Texas Rangers Major of the local DPS command? Or the Regional Director of the Southeast Region, which includes Houston and Galveston? Even higher up? Or even possibly, just a Captain or even Lieutenant being considered for higher things and good with the media?

If a federal LEO, what kind of rank?

Assistant Special Agent in Charge? Higher? Lower?

Re: Command of a Joint Task Force Covering Both Incidents
 

This is (I think) at least big enough for an Assistant Special Agent in Charge to be involved, but depending on how much coverage it's getting in the national news (given the context, it sounds like the answer would be 'a lot,' unless there's something else big going on to distract the media), a full Special Agent in Charge might be better.

EDIT: A lot of people in the public and even the media in the US don't have a great understanding of FBI ranks (and some in the media may pretend not to, to stir people up), so someone with 'assistant' in front of their title talking to the press may have people thinking that the person who is actually in charge sent his/her assistant to talk to the press, which doesn't always go over well.

Re: Command of a Joint Task Force Covering Both Incidents
 

Good point.

The first incident took place Friday night (actually a few minutes past midnight, so strictly speaking, Saturday morning, 29th of December, 2018). The FBI has a resident agency or satellite office administered from its Houston field office located in Texas City, 15 miles from the scene of the shooting.

Within ten minutes of the shooting, Special Agent Richard Rennison of that resident agency, who has worked closely with the Galveston County Sheriff's Office for more than a decade and who knew the deputies shot in the attack, had contacted the Sheriff's Office offering his support.

Within half an hour, Special Agent Rennison was at the scene and the FBI had officially offered the services of other agents and support personnel from its Houston field office to assist the Galveston PD and Galveston County Sheriff's Office. During the night, Special Agent Rennison was joined by other agents from the Texas City resident agency and functioned as, effectively, the case agent for the FBI response during the first few hours.

Texas City Resident Agency Supervisory Special Agent Bryan C. Gaines coordinated the FBI response during this first night and prepared a briefing for the Special Agent in Charge of the Houston field office and other senior FBI personnel who would be coming in that morning.

Special Agents Rennison and Gaines both wanted to take point on the investigation, but while Agent Rennison will continue to be the lead investigator from the FBI moving forward, Special Agent Gaines is not senior enough to continue in the role of the top commander of the FBI response once dozens of agents are assigned to the case on Saturday morning.

ASAC Ed Michel of the FBI Houston field office was obviously not at work on a Friday night, but he decided to come in early that Saturday morning. At a meeting with his boss, SAC Perrye K. Turner, the decision to send ASAC Michel down to Galveston was made, in preparation for the FBI taking over the case.

The selection of ASAC Michel made sense to me as in real life, he's worked several cases with the Galveston PD and Galveston County Sheriff's Office, including a high-profile one in 2018. There are five ASACs in the Houston field office, but at least from 2017-2018, ASAC Michel effectively functioned as the second-in-command of the field office and chief of staff. This is, therefore, a sign that the Houston field office is taking the murder of peace officers in Galveston very seriously.

The only more senior person they could have sent would have been the SAC himself, which would have left the Houston office leaderless, which would have been sub-optimal in light of the facts that; a) one of the largest field offices in the United States will always have other ongoing cases, b) aspects of the investigation of the incident required coordination with Texas DPS, Dallas PD, Houston PD and the Harris County Sheriff's Office, as well as the law enforcement agencies located in the Galveston area, and c) administration, investigative support, forensics and all sorts of other things for the investigation would be coordinated from Houston anyway.

ASAC Michel is an experienced agent with a background in homicide investigations, counter-terrorism and emergency management. Crucially, he's also the person in the FBI Houston field office who most often seems to manage media relations and coordination with local police forces during high-profile homicide cases, active shooter incidents and terrorist scares.

One factor to keep in mind about ASAC Michel is that he has applied for several senior executive law enforcement jobs outside the FBI, as he evidently does not expect to be promoted to the FBI senior executive service, i.e. to have a chance at Special Agent in Charge of one of the main field offices. In real life, he would retire from the FBI a few months after these events to take a job in his home town of New Orleans.

That means that ASAC Michel is probably extra sensitive to public scrutiny at this time (as he's trying to land a job as a top cop of a state-level law enforcement agency or as the chief of a major municipal police force), but as he has already been passed over for promotion within the FBI, he might be less susceptible to pressure from Washington.

All in all, ASAC Michel is most likely to navigate a middle course between the demands of his FBI bosses and the political sensibilities of Texas politicians. His primary motivation, however, will be to discharge his responsibilities to the best of his ability, but also to be seen by the public, and any governor or mayor looking for a new police chief, managing this crisis professionally and well.

However, when Michel has just finished his first full day as the senior FBI man in Galveston, officially providing support to the Galveston PD and the Gulf Coast Violent Offender and Fugitive Task Force, but practically behaving as if the FBI are in charge, the second incident occurs, around 18:00 of that Saturday, the 29th of December, 2018.

And now the investigation is going to get a lot bigger and the legal fiction of the Galveston PD being the primary agency will come to an end. At this point, it is entirely possible that ASAC Michel will remain attached to the Gulf Coast Violent Offender and Fugitive Task Force in Galveston and continue to work on the case, but another, special task force will be a created and a more senior FBI man, possibly one sent from Washington, will be placed at its head.

Is that something that might happen? And if so, what kind of FBI man might that be, i.e. would be a sort of roving Special Agent in Charge or is there a division within the FBI from which a senior figure might be sent to handle such a case?

Or, alternatively, of course, from the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security, and/or any of their constituent agencies that might claim jurisdiction; in practice, most likely ICE - Homeland Security Investigations.

Federal Government Response
 

Ok, I've determined that after the second incident, Washington will dispatch two to three senior figures.

One will be a very senior field agent or even an executive (who is a former field agent) of the FBI more senior than Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ed Michel. I'm thinking someone currently serving at headquarters, but with a wealth of investigative and command experience.

At least SAC-level, but possibly someone with a management position within a division like CIRG or even someone on the staff of either the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch (CCRSB) or the National Security Branch (NSB), depending on what the Attorney-General's office determines about the jurisdictional issues and the legal determination of 'terrorist' act.

The FBI response will be 100% mundane, in that no one among those sent from Washington will be able to pierce the Facade and all of them will have Mundane Background.

Can anyone imagine what rank the senior FBI person should hold? Or suggest a real person of SAC or higher rank whom I could fictionalize?

The other will be a very experienced field agent from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) - Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), chosen especially to be one level above whomever the FBI send. Also, the informal network or faction within the Department of Homeland Security composed of people who've learned about the supernatural and are trying to let the government respond to it, managed to influence events to the point that while the senior ICE person sent is not a believer, his second in command is and so are a number of the agents dispatched.

Any suggestion for a real person in this role?

Also, the hypothetical third senior figure would be a high-ranking prosecutor. I'm not sure whether it is appropriate to assign a prosecutor from federal headquarters to a law enforcement task force operating within the geographical area of responsibility of a United States Attorney, but if the Justice Department can get away with doing so, they will try, because US Attorney Ryan Patrick is entirely too pro-Texas for the tastes of the federal government.

Oh, and President Trump tweets about the events in Texas. Any suggestions for his tweets, the media response and the effects, if any, on actual government policy?

So Who Ends Up in Charge?
 

As far as I can determine, there are three law enforcement agencies with the most realistic claim to the role of lead agency in an investigation that covers both the ambush of law enforcement officers transporting 'Gwen Delvano' and the incident aboard the container vessel Aqueronte, as well as any criminal conspiracies that might lie behind these acts of violence. So far, the evidence strongly supports a human trafficking operation and money laundering that might be linked to other criminal activity, but anything else is conjecture.

The three agencies with the most realistic claim to being the primary agency and receiving command of any joint task force are: the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (under ICE) and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

ATF, CBT, the Secret Service, USCG, Houston PD, Galveston PD, Dallas PD and several nearby Sheriff's Offices will intimately involved, but none of them had a realistic claim (or ability, in the case of the smaller Sheriff's Offices or PDs) to being the lead agency.

Due to the involvement of Deputy US Marshal Natalie Garza and the status of the Marshals Service-led Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force (GCVOFTF) as the entity responsible for serving the warrant aboard Aqueronte, the US Marshals actually have a very strong claim. I also rolled a critical success for their unnamed senior bureaucrat back in Washington. This means that the US Marshals could actually make a case that the GCVOFTF should continue to be the primary unit concerned with the case, led by a Supervisory Deputy US Marshal.

However, that isn't what they really want, as they don't really have the investigative manpower to handle an investigation of this magnitude. Instead, a heavy dose of any credit will be given to the GCVOFTF and the US Marshals, not to mention that the task force, under US Marshal leadership, will continue to serve warrants based on the results of the ongoing investigation.

To that end, the US Marshals Service are sending detachments from their Special Operations Group (SOG) to the Dallas and Houston areas, as well as calling up all DUSMs belonging to Special Response Teams in any nearby office.

The logistics people for the mysterious Consortium in Dallas and Houston will have warrants out on them as soon as the lawyers can transcribe what Raul Sandoval shared with the PCs and the US Marshals will lead that manhunt, but won't really be concerned with investigating the crime scene or doing field interviews, forensics accounting or all the other vital tasks that the US Marshals don't have enough personnel for.

As for the investigation itself, there will be a massive joint task force incorporating federal, state and local law enforcement. And I rolled for who would end up commanding it...

Texas Department of Public Safety won.
FBI had a margin of only 1 less on the QC.
Then after that, the Homeland Security Investigations only had 1 less on their QC margin.

These results are close enough so that the PCs' preferences can actually change who ends up in charge, especially given that Lucien Lacoste has dealt extremely competently with the initial response aboard Aqueronte, deflecting any anger and accusation and getting ASAC Ed Michel (in charge of the FBI contingent until someone more senior is sent) decisively on his side.

Hmm... I think I will have Lacoste roll a default Politics check to determine if he realizes that his optimal course of action is accepting that the FBI will appoint the deputy commander of the task force if they don't get the command and he should direct all his energies to ensuring that this person is ASAC Ed Michel and not someone more senior.

If Lacoste can make Michel look indispensable enough in the hours until Washington gets around to deciding on a new special joint task force, as well as showing Michel managing relations with local police well enough, it would be very hard for The Powers That Be in Washington to sideline him from the investigation.

We'll call that an application of Politics that can default from Savoir-Faire (Police) instead of IQ, at the normal -5, so Lacoste succeeds on his skill check.

So, I'll need a Texan law enforcement officer to put in charge of the task force that will handle the investigation. This will be someone friendly to Kessler and his people, because the PCs' roll against Patron succeeded.

It shall be Regional Director Jason Taylor, recently promoted to command all TxDPS assets in Region 2, which includes Houston and Galveston, and before that a long-time Texas Ranger and the Major of Company A in Houston, responsible for the area which, again, includes Galveston.

Jason Taylor is actually someone who can be reasoned with when it comes to resolving an investigation involving the supernatural, because while he doesn't quite understand everything about it, he's been convinced by some of his best investigators that many murders and other serious crimes involve aspects which can't really be written about in reports, because nobody would believe them. So, stroke of luck there.

I'll also need a senior Homeland Security Investigation figure. This one will be resentful that they are not the lead agency on something that is clearly a human trafficking case, which is their core competency. They'll also dislike Lacoste specifically, because he's reckless and clearly should have shared his information with ICE before boarding the Aqueronte.*

Edit: I'm considering having her be a fictional Special Agent in Charge dispatched from headquarters, by the name of Valeria Sanders (b. August 16, 1974; Chugwater, Wyoming).

*And because I rolled a very low Reaction roll for them.

Re: Federal Government Response
 

A message of condolence to and solidarity with the police and the families of those who were lost is, of course, a given. Both sides of the media will certainly echo this. If there’s decent indication (and there seems to be) that some degree of illegal immigration was involved with the case, expect Trump to call strongly for more support for border security, with the right supporting him and the left denouncing his statements as anti-immigrant and/or racist. Once the pishtaco attack the hospital (assuming you still go that route), expect this to ramp up. Given the scope of this ongoing event, it’s certainly going to come up in his State of the Union in February. Some sort of immigration crackdown (potentially including severe political pressure on “sanctuary cities,” particularly if any of the attackers can be linked to one) is possible, and given the grimness of your setting we can expect detainees to be beset by malign supernatural influences.

Trump Tweet
 

Love it.

Anyone want to attempt an actual Tweet from the Commander-in-Chief, maybe set when the news about the firefight on the Aqueronte are everywhere, no confirmation of any immigrants being involved has been made, but rumours are trending that way?

New Joint Task Force [Name Suggestions Welcome...]
 

Ok, we've got a multi-agency task force led by Regional Director Jason Taylor of the Texas DPS, veteran Texas Ranger and Major of Company A (Houston) until his promotion a couple of months ago.

Second in command is ASAC Ed Michel of the FBI, because Lacoste recognised that the FBI would inevitably have a strong claim to controlling the jurisdiction and decided to shade his own report and the official version from the Galveston County Sheriff's Office to present Michel as vital to the strong spirit of interagency coordination that yielded the success aboard the Aqueronte.* So instead of appointing someone more senior from Washington to the task force, ASAC Michel is made the XO and due to Jason Taylor's preferences, will end up being the one doing most of the talking in the media.

The senior ICE-HSI figure is SAC Valeria Sanders, an ambitious, politicially-savvy attorney whose hands-on law enforcement experience is much less than Taylor and Michel's, but whose connections in Washington are considerably better. Brilliant, hard-nosed, organized and effective, but unfortunately for Lacoste, inexplicably biased against him.

SAC Sanders also seems to be bitter to be reporting to a 'provinvial cowboy cop' and an 'over-the-hill FBI dinosaur' she outranks, but has no choice but to accept it, especially after the third incident, which happened at the UTMB-TDCJH inmate hospital in Galveston and serves to put the violent attacks on law enforcement back into the foreground and reduce the focus on human trafficking.

Lacoste will be brought on at the Galveston County Sheriff's Office full-time for the duration of the investigation, at his previous NOPD rank, Detective Lieutenant. He'll be the case officer for GCSO and while Sheriff Trochesset also belongs to the new task force, there's no question that Lt. Lacoste will be the primary investigator from the GCSO and the Sheriff is going to badk him to the hilt.

From all appearances, it also looks like ASAC Michel and Lt. Lacoste are establishing a solid working relationship, despite some early clashes, as Michel has noticed that Lacoste chose to color his reports so that Michel now has the chance of a lifetime to shine on national television.

America is watching and Lacoste has given the correct subtle signs to indicate that credit for his work is to flow to Sheriff Trochesset, the US Marshals in the person of Deputy Marshal Natalie Garza (made acting supervisor of the GCVOFTF and responsible for high-risk warrant service around Galveston in relation to the investigation) and ASAC Michel, as Lacoste is going to remain in the background as far as the media are concerned.

Now, I've got a few questions.

First, what should the special task force for investigating the violent criminal incidents between 27th and 30th of December 2018 on and around Galveston be named?

Second, Teddy Smith is a Reserve Deputy, but not one with any training, experience or credibility as a detective. He's been volunteering his time to train the Marine Units in nearby Sheriff's Offices in boating, diving and maritime search and rescue, as well as giving helpful courses for the armorers for the SWAT teams. The closest he gets to detective skills are 1 point in Interrogation and 4 points in Intelligence Analysis, from pseudo-operations in the Selous Scouts and nine years as, effectively, a senior Intelligence and Operations NCO in Kessler's emerging anti-supernatural threat network.

Can Sheriff Trochesset plausibly put a Reserve Deputy who is not a detective on a special task force instead of a deputy with detective experience? Would such a task force have billets for administrators or analysts from the local Sheriff's Office or would all such support personnel be provided from the much more numerous and better funded state or federal agencies?

Third, how many people, in total, might there be on a task force investigating a total of 40+ murders, almost that many wounded, about that many victims of human trafficking, 25 suspects in custody and about 30 persons of interest being sought, with that number growing hourly?

What might be a rough breakdown of local, state and federal personnel?

*Yes, the PCs managed to dodge being held responsible for a catastrophe and instead managed to buy favors and influence by doling out credit for what is being presented as a heroic success by law enforcement. Movies love the trope of the protagonist who is clueless about office politics, service rivalries and the power of presentation, but PCs who are well-connected and extremely skilled at social engineering tend to have lot more plausible opportunities for shaping the course of events.

Command of the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force
 

In the real world, the commander of the GCVOFTF, Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Normal Merkel, died of heart-failure on January 16, 2019. In my campaign, Merkel was hospitalized after a heart attack on December 28, 2018. Whether he dies as in real history has not yet been determined, but because of how central the GCVOFTF is to the manhunt for suspects from the police shooting in Galveston and the serving of any warrants that the ongoing investigation may lead to, the task force can't be leaderless.

Second-in-command of the GCVOFTF rotates among the local and state law enforcement agencies involved in the task force. As officers assigned to the task force are deputized by the US Marshals, I don't imagine that a local cop can lead what is in effect a federal task force. The Marshals Service therefore have to make one of their other Deputy US Marshals on the task force Acting Commander and/or they need to promote or transfer someone to Houston to take over the job.

In the real world, Merkel's successor seems to have been Chief Deputy US Marshal / Senior Inspector Johnny Ray Williams Jr.*, who was previously the Chief Deputy in Oklahoma. However, I can't find data on when Williams took over the GCVOFTF, other than he signed paperwork for overtime for local cops assigne to it in July 2019, so he might have come aboard at any time between January 17 to July 2019.

I'm unsure of whether the Marshals Service would officially replace a man with his permanent successor while he was in the hospital and his prognosis unclear, but at the same time, it's clear that the GCVOFTF needs strong leadership immediately. And while it's a sizable task force, it seems that only a few Deputy US Marshals actually serve on it (the manpower is mostly local) and none of the DUSMs I've found have the requisite experience to be credible as a task force commander.

There is a temptation to make DUSM Natalie Garza the Acting Commander. She's one of five Deputy Marshals who were in the Galveston area before the second incident. She was also the first federal law enforcement officer to board the Aqueronte and the PCs have portrayed her participation in the investigation and arrest as inspired, brilliant and heroic.

However, she's in her early thirties, joined the USMS right out of college and has ten years service, which I'm concerned makes her less experienced than other suitable Deputy US Marshals, some of whom were military veterans or experienced law enforcers before they joined the USMS and have 15+ years in that service.

Besides, how plausible is it that good press and nice mentions in reports lead immediately to a functional promotion, with no attention paid to administrative competence?

No matter how heroic the act captured on TV; i.e. the carrying a rescued and injured young girl from a ship where she was the victim of human traffickers, after a firefight where you and local police (unnamed) rescued 39 girls from heavily armed criminals. Still seems that the Acting Commander is more likely to be someone with experience coordinating investigations and manhunts.

What do the forumites say? Should Natalie Garza get the job or is she more likely to the case officer and point person for the USMS while an older and more experienced colleague does the actual running of the task force?

In simple, gamist, terms, is it really plausible for the character with Administartion -11 and Leadership -12 to get handed a job which primarily requires Administration, Leadership and other management skills, just because she demonstrated high Will, combat skills and a degree of luck?

*Somehow, not a professional country singer, although I'm pretty certain from the name that he's thought about it as a career path.

US Marshals Command
 

I note that the Chief Deputy US Marshal for the Southern District of Texas, i.e. the most senior career USMS federal law enforcement officer in Houston*, Richard 'Rich' Hunter, retires in January 2019. In my campaign, at the end of December 2018, he has already handed in his papers and is probably not expecting to do any major work for the couple of days left until he officially retires.

Hell, since it's a weekend, he probably just expects to drop by Monday to say goodbye to everyone, and has already done all the administrative stuff necessary to transfer any cases he's overseeing to other deputies.

By contrast, however, his successor is probably not yet at work, not expected to be until after New Year's.

So I'm still struggling to determine who will be the most senior US Marshal figure connected to the investigation. After all, not only will the Marshal-led GCVOFTF be important in serving warrants connected to the investigation of the main special task force, but anyone detained by federal agents (or local/state LEOs deputized by being part of a federal task force) becomes the responsibility of the US Marshals. Including Raul Sandoval and 'Gwen Delvano'.

Does anyone know who the US Marshal for the Southern District of Texas was in December 2018 through the next few months of 2019 in the real world? That is, who was the predecessor for T. Michael O'Connor? Edit: From 2014-2019, the US Marshal for the Southern District of Texas was Gary Blankinship, former Harris County Sheriff's deputy and thirty-year veteran Houston PD officer, long-time president of the Houston PD union and former Vice President for the National Association of Police Organizations. This means Blankinship is in office in my campaign.

And does anyone have any idea about real people serving as Supervisory Deputy US Marshals in the Houston division of the US Marshals?

If I invent one, how many people of that rank would there be in the Southern District of Texas?

Depending on who is the most senior figure from the US Marshals connected with the case, the PCs might be able to have a great deal of influence of what happens to their prisoners, given that they have explained the supernatural situation to DUSM Natalie Garza and, shockingly, she seems to accept the existence of supernatural threats in stride and is both willing and able to help them work within the federal bureaucracy to handle these threats. Especially when she doesn't even have to lie, just accurately report unspecified criminal connections that pose a threat to the safety of the prisoners and not mention that these are magic-using cultists and their controlled monsters.

I'm assuming that even with the heart attack of Garza's boss in the GCVOFTF, she still has bosses. But who are they and can they be manipulated or worked with?

The ideal situation would be if Garza was allowed to hand-pick a team of Deputy US Marshals and deputized members of local and state law enforcement to handle the safety of the prisoners, moving them to an undisclosed location. That would allow the picking of people who already know about the supernatural and with whom Kessler or his people have preexisting relationships. But that rather depends on how many people there are in the local hierarchy above DUSM Garza and what her relationship with them is.

*I'm excluding the actual US Marshal for the Southern District of Texas, because that is a political appointment and may or may not be a career federal LEO. US Marshal Gary Blankinship was in office 2014-2019, before the current appointment (in our world) of T. Michael O'Connor, a Texan rancher and former county sheriff from a prominent local family in Victoria County.

Re: US Marshals Command
 

Using the Wayback Machine, the most recent archive from this page, which shows the current US Marshal in charge of the Southern District, is from August 6, 2017. That shows US Marshal Gary Blankinship; a bit of research finds this, which makes it clear that O'Connor replaced Blankinship (or, rather, was set to replace him, at the time of the article's writing), with nobody in-between, so I'd say we've found our man.

Re: US Marshals Command
 

Thanks.

Note that because small and/or local US papers often don't want to deal with recent EU/EEC regulations, many articles like the last linked are unavailable to me for legal reasons. That is, I can't open the link with a European IP number.

Still, I did manage to find Marshal Blankinship's relevant background, although I still don't know his exact age (it matters whether he's fifty five or seventy five, in regards to how involved he can be in events that take place at night and when most senior figures are operating on little sleep).

Now I just have to find or invent a Supervisory Deputy US Marshal based in Houston.

Breaking News! FBI Informed of Existence of the Occult!
 

Because Lucien Lacoste's player believes that ASAC Ed Michel won't accept any cover story he can imagine for how the people after 'Gwen Delvano' knew in what room she was and how they were able to bypass layer after layer of high-tech security as well as most of the 200 correctional officers at UTMB-TDCJH, and because Lucien Lacoste is an Impulsive, On the Edge madman, Lacoste is going to speak to Michel, man-to-man, and tell him about the Keepers of the Last Hearth (apocalyptic cult of the Cold Ones, Outsiders representing the End of Everything).

Lacoste will be clear that he's confiding information that he can't prove to the satisfaction of lawyers and which therefore shouldn't be put into official reports, but which Lacoste, nevertheless, believes in light of his confidential sources and experience as a detective. To some extent, ASAC Michel asked for this, as he earnestly asked Lacoste to tell him everything he knew about these people and gave him his word of honor that he wouldn't put any inconvenient details about confidential informants or unlicensed Sheriff's Office operations into the reports against Lacoste's wishes. Because, well, Michel believed Lacoste knew more than he was saying, although Michel likely believed that the answers were more 'secrets about a criminal concpiracy we don't tell the feds because we don't trust them not to take away our informant if we do' and less 'secret world of occult horror'.

Backing up Lacoste's claims are suggestive facts such as the OpFor of cultists and their support personnel having had either incredible luck or phenomenal and terrifying access to confidential law enforcement information about the location of 'Gwen Delvano', not to mention the way literally dozens of security gates, manned and unmanned check-points, cameras, alarms and all sorts of other high-tech surveillance and security gear failed at the same time.

The risk here is that Ed Michel will fail his roll against the Facade and/or otherwide refuse to accept or believe in the possibility of supernatural forces. If he does, he'll search for any alternative explanation that doesn't require him to change his entire worldview.

Unfortunately, two plausible scenarios that suggest themselves as alternatives are that Lacoste is crazy, or, worse, that Lacoste is trying to deceive Michel for some purpose of his own. The better arguments and more evidence Lacoste can bring to bear, the less likely the first explanation is, but unless Michel can overcome the Facade completely and face a new and terrifying world head-on, the second explanation is going to be awfully tempting for him to take refuge in.

Lacoste is also going to show Michel the partially dissected body of a pishtaco as well as the autopsy notes and hope that the time elapsed since the shooting hasn't been enough for the unnatural body to have taken on a perfectly normal human appearance. If the body still looks like it did when Lacoste saw it opened, it should provide a hefty bonus to believe something is not normal, but not necessarily be enough to allow Michel to accept a new and terrifying reality in the long term. Memories are surprisingly mutable and for everyone except the most strong-willed and clear-eyed, the mind finds a way to re-adjust while continuing to deny the implications of anything supernatural they see.

It may amuse readers to note that Lacoste's player justified his chosen action with, as far as I can tell, an entirely unironic "Honesty is the best policy".

Re: Breaking News! FBI Informed of Existence of the Occult!
 

What does the medical examiner have to say about the body? Those guys are normally good at distinguishing between facts, impressions and ideas.

Re: Breaking News! FBI Informed of Existence of the Occult!
 

Happily, Thurman Montoya, the ME on duty that night, was one of Kessler's 'scholarship boys' at the University of Texas - Medical Branch, so he had planned to say one thing to the mundane authorities and entirely different and more accurate things to Kessler's inner circle, to whom he'd deliver his unredacted report.

What he will say to a senior FBI agent is not yet revealed, but Dr. Montoya will no doubt fervently wish that he was not put into this position.

In any case, Lacoste left Dr. Montoya finishing up his preliminary physical examination of the body while he went to speak with ASAC Michel. Both Lacoste and Montoya have enough familiarity with the occult, the Facade and the effects of Very Low or No Mana areas on what appears to be conclusive evidence of the paranormal to be aware that as soon as Dr. Montoya wheeled the body into the autopsy room and turned on various devices, he started a metaphorical (and metaphysical) clock that would soon ruin any conclusive evidence.

Before he did so, Dr. Montoya had unofficially opened up the body for Lacoste in another room of the morgue, one without any active modern technological devices, and used his skills to determine that at the time of death, this creature, while superficially human, was profoundly different in internal physiological makeup.

Re: Breaking News! FBI Informed of Existence of the Occult!
 

And, of course, Lacoste didn't think to prevent that clock from starting while he went to talk to Michel . . .
Damn right he is.
Well, if Michel sees nothing wrong in the corpse, and Montoya doesn't want to join Lacoste on the Self-Sabotage Express, the odds on him deciding that Lacoste needs a long relaxing holiday somewhere where the fashionable clothing laces up the back increase noticeably.

Re: Breaking News! FBI Informed of Existence of the Occult!
 

In fairness, at the end of last session, when Lacoste's player decided to go back upstairs to deal with the massive numbers of law enforcement there and see if Sheriff Trochesset (the first senior officer on the scene) had been superseded, he didn't know he was going to be confiding in Ed Michel. There was no certainty that ASAC Michel would come to the scene (even feds need to sleep, it was near dawn and Lacoste was aware that Michel had spent most of the night working at the Aqueronte crime scene). And even if he would, Lacoste's player had no information on who would be in charge or what they'd choose to do.

So, when the decision was made to allow the body to start the process of becoming mundane enough not to raise questions, Lacoste and Montoya both assumed that they'd be following SOP for Kessler's people, i.e. tell the authorities only as much of the truth as practical, avoiding supernatural elements or confessions of criminal vigilantism.

It was when I was preparing for the next session and sent Lacoste's player information on what took place next, abstracting procedural stuff down to dice rolls and ending with some dialogue that was supposed to establish for the PCs how scared, frustrated and without answers ASAC Michel was. And Lacoste's player just... decided that he felt he could trust Michel, that he was similar in background to Lacoste (which he is, they are both from New Orleans and worked for NOPD, with Michel even being colleague and friend of Lacoste's father, as well as Michel and Lacoste having worked together before on some task forces up in Baton Rouge) and would understand.

In fairness, that was based on rolls against Body Language, Psychology, Savoir-Faire (Police) and Intuition. With the caveat that I told Lacoste's player that most ordinary people couldn't handle the truth, because of the Facade if nothing else. Essentially, he was betting, going all in on, really, that Michel would decisively win not one, but several Contests of Will against the Facade. And even if he's right about Michel being made of sterner stuff than he lets on, that's still probably no better than 50/50.

Allegedly, less now that he's buying Self-Control rolls down to SC 15-. Which, of course, in no way protects Lacoste from his player making impulsive, risky decisions because he believes it's the right thing to do.

Very true.

Working in Lacoste's favor is his Savoir-Faire (Police) -20. He had already established a good rapport with Michel, one cop to another, and that's the kind of skill level that allows you a fighting chance to convince people of extraordinary claims, even absorbing the penalties for not having conclusive evidence.

I certainly can't complain that this is bad roleplaying. Lacoste's Overconfidence means that he likely does believe, without reservations, that he can convince Michel, earn his trust and investigate the case with the FBI as allies, instead of Enemy (Watcher). And his snap decision to confide in Michel was also entirely in character. Essentially, Michel's Savoir-Faire (Police) succeeded on Lacoste (without rolling for it, just the player responding to dialogue) and Lacoste couldn't let a fellow former NOPD cop he liked and admired flounder about under pressure from everyone without having enough information to really work the case.

Apparently, Lacoste still thinks of detectives trying to find the truth as the good guys, for all that he's technically on the other side of the law now. Suppose he isn't very temperamentally suitable for covert work, he's loyal to his allies and doesn't compartmentalize people into categories like 'useful asset, but not worth trusting'.

Re: Breaking News! FBI Informed of Existence of the Occult!
 

Fair enough.
Definitely - it's all very much in-character for Lacoste, just not necessarily a great plan.

Re: Breaking News! FBI Informed of Existence of the Occult!
 

The great irony is that completely unknown to Lacoste or his player, Ed Michel (who at this time is the real ASAC of the FBI Houston office, albeit fictionalized) was at one time Supervisory Special Agent of the Indian Country/Special Jurisdiction Unit, between 2005-2007, and in this setting, it means he ran across some difficult to explain stuff.

Tribal police or BIA criminal investigators who really did believe in supernatural explanations have tried to explain things to Michel before and while he didn't put those things in the reports, neither did he recommend that such officers be subjected to psychological counseling. So while Michel might not have perfect understanding of occult matters and might be struggling with his memories of a few things, he's made the decision to trust investigators under his command in a task force before, even when that meant that the final reports didn't have much to do with what actually happened.

PCs Not Yet Arrested...
 

Well, Lucien Lacoste's attempt to explain the supernatural to FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ed Michel was predictably hard going. Dr. Thurman Montoya did not prove willing to confirm anything outside of his (sanitized) official preliminary report, the carcass of the pishtaco had taken on a more normal human appearance this long after its death (a Diagnosis or Physiology check might still have revealed differences, but Michel is not a doctor) and, well, a story about an apocalyptic cult attempting to end the world by sacrificing scores of girls at the site of some murders is a pretty big bite to swallow without proof.

That being said, Michel listened respectfully to Lacoste and had to admit that no explanation that Michel can advance can account for every single security measure, electronically locked door, backup and failsafe going down at the same time.

Michel's degrees are in pre-law and Homeland Security /Emergency Management / Intelligence / Critical Infrastructure, not computer science, but he's been head of a Threat Review Process that evaluated threats to cyber security as one of the threats and knew the right questions to ask technicians, so Michel is well aware that the systems that failed were not linked in any plausible way and outside movies, no 'hacker' is going to do that. Hell, gates, doors and security systems installed by more than one contracting company, at different times, and not linked through any networked systems, all failed.

Nor can Michel explain how the people after 'Gwen Delvano' appeared to know exactly where she was in the hospital, even when this information had never been discussed over any kind of open communications and was, in fact, so tightly held that not even important members of the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force, like Deputy US Marshal Garza and Lacoste himself, had it.

So, while Michel wasn't ready to accept the explanation that the people after the girl had access to supernatural means of gathering information and compromising security, he couldn't really object to the reality that in light of what had just happened, no place he could move 'Gwen Delvano' to after this could be certified as entirely safe.

The new special task force created for just this investigation was not quite up and running yet, things being somewhat in flux, so aside from Sheriff Trochesset, Michel was the most senior LEO on scene and no one could gainsay him, but that could change at any moment.

In addition, the attack on UTMB-TDCJH hadn't been formally added to the responsibilities of that hypothetical task force yet and a case could be made that it fell under the jurisdiction of the Galveston PD or Galveston County Sheriff's Office, in addition to Texas state level criminal investigators (the dead were Texas correctional officers). It was obviously going to end up under the joint task force as soon as people in air-conditioned offices woke up and got to making decisions this Sunday, but 'obviously' is not a term with much legal force.

So, custody of 'Gwen Delvano', should she leave the hospital, was still in the hands of Galveston PD and the Galveston County Sheriff's Office, under that peculiar gentleman's understanding the two organisations came to when they took her in. But, of course, they'd have to release her soon if they didn't charge her with something before Monday.

So, Lacoste, with all his mastery of how far procedure could be stretched to get the effect you want, proposed a course of action. He said that Deputy Smith could convince Ms. 'Delvano' to ask for protective custody from them, which could mean the new task force or the Gulf Coast Violent Offender and Fugitive Task force. Either way, they were deputized under federal statues and responsibility for a federal detainee, even one in protective custody as a potential witness, fell to the US Marshals.

So, Lacoste proposed that DUSM Garza selected a couple of Deputy Marshals she knew and trusted, ones who hadn't known 'Gwen Delvano's' location at UTMB-TDCJH and they took her to an undisclosed location, a safehouse known only to an absolute minimum of people. This would address pressing real-world security concerns about a potential leak of confidential information about her previous location, while simultaneously being necessary, in Lacoste's opinion, to protect her from the supernatural powers of the cultists.

Lacoste could suggest the location of the home of a retired cop of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, Detective Lieutenant Saul Ndlovu*, and his wife, in Beaumont, as a place where the Sheriff Offices in the area occasionally stashed somebody who absolutely had to be kept secret and safe. Location never put in any official reports and the practice only known to a few, select people.

As Lacoste and his allies were able to get DUSM Garza to back this plan, as well as secure acquiescence from Regional Director Jason Taylor and Sheriff Trochesset, ASAC Michel authorized it after some thought. He knew his bosses would probably prefer some kind of federal black site, but in legal essence, Ms. 'Delvano' agreeing to protective federal custody and receiving a round-the-clock US Marshal security detail was the absolute best that the federal government could ask for. The exact location of her safehouse was the kind of detail that should be kept confidential from as many people as possible, anyway, with plenty of legal precedent on his side in that regard.

Officially, as well, the US Marshals Service was responsible for the selection of the safehouse and if things should go pear-shaped, the ultimate responsibility would lie with DUSM Natalie Garza. Who realized this and asked Lacoste if he really needed her to take the risk. When he said that he did, she agreed without negotiation or discussion.**

All in all, therefore, while ASAC Michel is officially reserving judgment on Lacoste's sanity, the PCs got what they wanted.

*Ex-Rhodesian British South Africa Police and Selous Scout, French Foreign Legion and worked for Kessler since 1987. And the reason why a family home is needed, instead of a motel or a government safehouse, is that this setting uses Thresholds that are strongest on long-time family homes.
**Unknown to Michel, Lacoste and Natalie Garza are romantically involved and her judgment might be considered impaired due to having discovered the existence of the supernatural, gone through a horrific experience and simultaneously believed she was falling in love with the strong, heroic guy who could make sense of all that.

Organized Crime in Houston
 

What are the biggest organized crime targets in Houston at the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019?

I plan to research it myself, but if anyone happens to know anything, either generalities or specifics, it would be great.

What kind of ethnic criminal organizations exist there?

If someone without specific knowledge of Houston had a lot of Wealth and criminal connections with several international criminal organizations where someone might have contacts with someone in Houston, what kind of local talent might be available for hire in Houston?

Re: US Law Enforcement Response, Time, Scale and Coordination (Galveston, TX)
 

Except in Hawaii, where the INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS use the H prefix. N.b. H-1, H-2 & H-3... go figure.

Re: Organized Crime in Houston
 

Politicians?