Latest / Your Leo Nation / From San Bernardino to Foiled SF Plots: The Real Work of the Joint Terrorism Task Force

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From San Bernardino to Foiled SF Plots: The Real Work of the Joint Terrorism Task Force · Your Leo Nation

• Mark Garrett: Hello America, welcome to your Leo nation where we believe in and support the rule of law. I am the chief Mark Garrett and yes, I was a chief for the California high patrol and with us today. It's a good friend of mine, a former colleague from high up patrol and we're going to introduce in a minute. what would cause me to reach out to our guests who is Nelson Duarte is because of what's going on. today with Iran ⁓ war, really the unending war against terrorism and men and women who fight that war, whether we see it or not, it's ongoing, whether it's covert, whether it's overt, whether it's the US military, or in this case, whether it's law enforcement. And what talking about is something is known as Joint Terrorism Task Force or JTTF. And with that, I'll just introduce Nelson because Nelson was a member ⁓ the Joint Terrorism Task Force as a member of the California High Patrol. Nelson, good morning. I know you're there in the great state of California. Thanks so much for joining. Nelson Duarte: Morning Mark, how are you? Appreciate you me on. Mark Garrett: Well listen, I appreciate you being here and well the last few weeks I've been thinking about this, really the last couple of weeks specifically. So I'm going to reach out to Nelson because this man was a part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and before we get into that just you know tell us a little bit about yourself, your time with the CHP before you became a member of that task force. Nelson Duarte: you yeah, well, I joined in, 1999, you know, from back East. Originally I was in the Marine Corps in California, which is what brought me to California, stationed in, on Camp Pendleton. and, yeah. You know, beautiful weather, you know, I applied to the CHP and you know, next year, you know, I'm, you know, I'm getting a call and saying that you're in the academy. So anyway, 1999 was my academy date and my first, you know, station was West Valley is where you and I met, you know, when you first promoted as a, as a sergeant there, I believe. Yeah, I did approximately. eight years on graveyards a years inside as a felony foul-welp officer from there I applied to ISU and JGTF and yeah I it was 09 when I was interviewed and selected for for Joint Terrorism Task Force as an officer I worked as an officer in Los Angeles, in the Los Angeles field office for approximately six and a half, seven years. that I promoted, I went to Exposition Park. You're with that, you know, as well. And then I was there for two years and supervisory spot the JGTF became available. I applied for that. I was able to go back to the JGTF as a supervisor. And as a supervisor, was, you know, I was, you know, is Mark, our, is, is, you know, spread and So I was the sole supervisor for CHP officers on the JTTF. And we had an officer in Redding, an officer San Diego and everywhere in between, ⁓ know, so was 12 officers altogether, 13, including me, so 13 members. And then, and there's four field offices in, in California so our guys are spread out throughout the state. you know my ⁓ Mark Garrett: No, it's interesting you touched on that with you know how we're... CHP officers are spread out and I'd like for you to dive into that. This is real important people understand I think the structure. We talk about any task force because we have auto theft task forces, we have drug task forces, we have child exploitation task forces. So in a task force, in a nutshell, is it's really a team of various agencies coming together. for a common goal, common purpose. So can you tell us with that Nelson, know, the structure of the Joint Terrorism Task Force or TBA short JTTF, at least as how it looks in California. In other words, the agencies are involved and how they're given task and And maybe if you can, what it looks like across the country if you have knowledge about that as well. What's the structure look like? Nelson Duarte: you know, obviously the JTTF is comprised of, it's federal task force, you know, ran by ⁓ FBI. It's of state, and local law enforcement agencies that come together to combat terrorism just in a nutshell. You know, it's that simple. the structure California. Well, you know, let me back a little bit. The entire structure of the JGTF, I believe there's 56 field offices throughout the ⁓ know. California a big state as it is, there's four just in California. You know, we have San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Los Angeles being the biggest, in California and the second biggest in the nation. of New York. Yeah, exactly. Nailed it. New York's number one. What's unique about Los Angeles, however, New York being the biggest. Obviously, lot of money goes there because of 9-11, of course. But New York... Mark Garrett: I would imagine behind New York. Yeah. ⁓ Nelson Duarte: I wouldn't say primarily, but it's heavy on NYPD. Whereas in California, Los Angeles specifically, it has the most partners in the nation. In Los Angeles, correct, because there's so many agencies, right? And yeah, so that's what's unique about it. So the structure in California, Mark Garrett: Angeles does, the field. Interesting. Nelson Duarte: You know, am I making sense to you? You know, in LA, you know, there's so many partners. you get to work, you brought up partnerships. We get to work with so many other agencies opposed to you in states. Does that make sense? Mark Garrett: Well, yeah, I it's a great point Nelson. I didn't know this and you know, and for the audience, you and I talked a little bit yesterday and I told you specifically, I didn't want to get too deep in the weeds because I wanted to get educated here, you know, on the show as many of my listeners, you know, will as well. And I didn't know that, but it makes sense. And just to kind of, you know, a picture, we're talking about really in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County. Nelson Duarte: Yeah. Mark Garrett: you're talking about either in total or part like the high up patrol, we have a big footprint there, you're talking about I think three of the largest, four, three of the three of the largest agencies in the country. You have ⁓ LA County Sheriff's Department, LAPD, California High Up Patrol. So you have three, I think of the top four NYPD and largest in the whole state in whole country. Nelson Duarte: in the country. Mark Garrett: So it makes sense. And then you're talking about four field offices. One is Los Angeles County. I mean, one is Los Angeles. So it's not just Los Angeles County. I would imagine part of what you're dealing with is the Inland Empire, probably San Bernardino County as well you're working with, in Riverside County maybe. Nelson Duarte: I'm glad you brought that up because yeah, the way the JTTF is structured, right, or the FBI, they field offices, right? But for LA a good example. It just doesn't encompass Los Angeles County, has Riverside, San Bernardino. It actually goes all the way up. Los Angeles goes all the way up to where it borders Francisco. It goes that high, you know, Orange as well. And just to give you a... Another example, for example, Sacramento, the Sacramento field office, obviously Sacramento goes all the way up to Redding and it comes down all the way down to Bakersfield. So it's just, the way it's structured is a little bit different than how we were structured, the highway control as well. So we kind of stay focused on an area where their area of responsibility is a lot larger. Mark Garrett: Yeah, it makes sense. It makes total sense. And we both brought up, you know, San Bernardino County. We're going to talk about San Bernardino County, the San Bernardino specifically here about an incident there you were involved in kind of after the fact, but very, very interesting. So one of the things that I asked you the other day, and again, I didn't want to get, I didn't want to get an answer, but I wanted to bring it up. When people think of a, you know, a terrorism task force, maybe, maybe the last agency they think about is the California High-Up Patrol. Terrorism, you know, what's the CHP doing with that? People just don't understand. Again, there's no reason for people to know necessarily all the things that the High-Up Patrol does in the state of California. It's an immense organization with immense resource and responsibility and expertise. But again, the perception goes back to 1970s of chips, guys motorcycles, it's always this traffic accident investigation. That is by far and away, not The I understand, but it's not accurate. But from a professional, you know, point of view from an allied agency point of view, Nelson, can you kind of describe for us? amongst the other agencies there, what was the perception of the high end patrol in that task force and you know what did you take away from that or you know what was your what was your observation of how other agencies viewed us within that task force? I say us, we're both retired but go ahead. Nelson Duarte: Yeah, I know, right? no, that's a, that's a point. My experience was, was really good. In honesty, the, we're good as, Mark, we're as good as, as our personnel, you know? So when I mean that, I mean the hybrid troll, right? So I think. The higher patrol does a really good job at selecting individuals to represent in certain task forces. And the JGTF is obviously no exception. So for lack of a better word, the bodies we put on. you know, certain task forces, you know, our people shine, you know, so my experience really good, you know, and the JTF, we're all there for a common goal, right, to combat terrorism, right, to share information. And we're all doing the same thing, you know, whether it be LAPD, L.A. sheriffs, mentioned, you know, CHP, you ⁓ FBI and the other federal agencies, we're all there for one purpose. the perception within the task force was, one of the team. You're part of the team. I think it was internal with agency where perception was a little bit different because even within certain officers, and I would even, management, not only were they not aware of JTTF, they even know that the CHP involved in JTTF, if makes sense. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ Mark Garrett: Yeah, it unfortunately does make sense. It really does. I mean, I was aware of not only the JTTF, but our involvement from, you know, a long time ago. And, but sometimes I would talk to other managers and they wouldn't have a clue as to what the JTTF was, other than maybe hearing it on the news or whatever, but they had no idea that we're involved and really no understanding of its role. Now, speaking of that, Nelson, I'm glad you're brought that up. you, know, in the, a big nutshell, if you have to, could you tell us we taught, you know, touched on it, and obviously, terrorism is in the name. But it won't get a couple of cases here. But can you tell us, really, know, other words, without giving confidential information away, you know, what does a day or week or month look like in the day of a JTTF member or operations of the JTTF? What does it mean? What does the time span look like? Whatever one you want to use? Nelson Duarte: Yeah, of course. well, you know what? I'll go. daily tasks are no different than, you know, your. I guess average detective, you know, or investigator in our case, you know, it's the same thing. You know, you to work, you have your your leads, your investigations and you work the investigations. You know, that's really in a nutshell. We're involved in ⁓ anything from, you know. interviews interrogation, surveillance, you know, obviously door knocks, ⁓ know, anything an investigator or detective would do is what the JTTF The difference is we're focused on combating terrorism, you know, I'm sure that answers your question or not. Mark Garrett: No, it does. And you I, you may not remember, but there were, remember two instances where I called you. And know you couldn't tell me like what resources you could bring to bear or what processes you used because you had a level of clearance that I wasn't privy to. ⁓ And I even your, some of your bosses didn't, didn't, you know, they didn't have the clearances that you did. And so obviously you couldn't reveal you know methods and procedures but I called you two different times I won't get into them you know over the years hey Nelson just FYI I heard this conversation with this group of fellows blah blah blah blah I observed this going on and things like that they fidget information and you say hey Mark thanks a lot we get a lot of tips a lot of leads like this people calling in whether it's officers or you know we get information from informants whatever it is, he said, and I remember he told me that you may not be able to tell me what comes of the information that I gave you. And on one hand, I thought that was a, hey, you that's really cool. This might lead to some, you know, prevention of something I'll never know about. On the other hand, it was a little frustrating because I want to know if I was on anything here. But, um... But no, you laid out pretty well that it really, a ⁓ bunch of detectives from different agencies that are either following on leads or trying to be proactive and find leads. And I'm sure both are going at the same time. So along those lines, Nelson, we know that obviously there are a lot of cases in the news. There's one right now going on. I'm gonna talk about here at the end. of the program today, but there are cases that had a role in where either a would-be attack was prevented. In other cases where an attack took place but you had a hand in investigating how it took place and information you can garner from that that could lead to prevention of possible future And one of those, talking about one that actually took place is very, very well known. That the shooting in San Bernardino terrorist attack. on government building again in San Bernardino. Actually, I think it was in the city of San Bernardino, or was it in Redlands, I forget now, but it in San Bernardino. Yeah, it's actually in Redlands, I think. But that it wasn't San Bernardino. Nelson Duarte: It was in San Bernardino and then Redlands is where the one of the suspects was. Yeah. Mark Garrett: Suspects are from one. Yeah, so 2015 now this one, you know talking about being close to home I believe there were 13 people I believe 14 died in this Yeah, and we'll get into a little bit of the detail here and let you handle that Nelson Duarte: 14, if I can recall. Mark Garrett: But one of the things I said, it brought this close to home is because one of the victims, of the who were killed in this was the daughter of a recently retired California Ohio patrol lieutenant whom I knew. And... You know, it's as much of death and destruction, just the tragedy that you and I saw over the years of being in the field. It's always bad, but when it's someone that you know, or in this case, I didn't know the daughter, but I knew her dad, it just leaves such a lump in your throat. just, the bottom drops out and... brings all this home that the people who commit these crimes are only intent on killing many innocent people as possible, but they are as intent in ruining the lives of the survivors, families, the loved ones, the coworkers. the greatest extent they can. In other words, is what terror means. They to send a message. So I'll get my soapbox here, but again, this one hits close to home and I you to talk about that, you know, whatever level you can about your role in the task force's role in this incident. Nelson Duarte: Yeah, absolutely. And you brought up some good points. It's ⁓ right, that's just crazy to me, right? You can't, know, that ideology that these terrorists have, you can't, you only do much when someone's so committed to doing, committed an act terror, right? There's just so much you can do, right? And it's, you know, it's hard to completely understand what goes in, what happened in someone's mind to have them commit those atrocious acts. Anyway, I wanted to bring that up. But my role, I remember that day we were in, as a matter of fact, was on the JGTF, I was in Los Angeles in Westwood and I was actually on a... a class, in a course, you know, week-long course. was, believe it was the second day in and morning I remember, you know, we all carry our work phones and stuff and and we got an alert. Obviously we heard about it, right, that there was a shooting so but we were assigned to the course so we're like, you know, and I remember going to lunch, coming back from lunch and at that point we get the alert to like eight. everyone all hands on even if you're, you know, if you're off or whatever, if you're on the course, let's make it back. So I was obviously me and a couple of people that were on my squad. So we head back and you know, we, at that point the ball's rolling and you know, I remember my partner and I at the time, you know, we had assigned a lead, you know, and the lead we were assigned was to, mean, obviously the individual was prior to the attack was training with his rifle and would certain ranges. ⁓ So one our, you know, the lead we got was to go to a couple of the ranges, see if that's where they were, you know. where he was training at. So we went to a certain range and this is all open source. Obviously the case has been adjudicated. So, you know, you can Google this, but went to the range and I remember, and it was late at night and the, uh, the store manager or the range manager was there. no one else there because they were closing. we're actually, you know, we're asking for video which they and obviously they're very law enforcement friendly. they were being, you know, they were letting go to video footage, answering any questions. We're going through log books, you know, to see was, you know, if we can find a certain name. And I remember this because we, you know, we through a log book. And my partner and I looked at each other. We're like, wow, I think we got our guy, you know, and then we're, we're going through the video footage and there he was, you know, so, we ended up taking, you one of good things that the JTF does in the FBI and, and, they do a lot of good things, obviously, but one of the good things is they, they have, you know, ⁓ personnel for pretty much everything, you know, so it wasn't us, you know, they have experts for everything, right? So it wasn't just us taking the footage. We actually called, you know, their team to come in and the footage and make sure that everything was, you know, taken properly. anyway, all to say that we were able to ⁓ link. the individual you while he was training for prior to the attack, if that makes sense. ⁓ Mark Garrett: Yeah, so Nelson, just to clarify, this is interesting. and I have known each other a long time and of course, 11 years post this incident. I never knew this. So you were at that where they trained? Nelson Duarte: Correct, not, I was personally at the range where he trained after the fact, obviously. Yeah, yeah. Mark Garrett: Yeah, that's a fact, obviously. But no, it's interesting. Again, it's, we've never talked about this ⁓ it's, know, even for me, being in the HIA patrol and obviously dealing with lot of investigations over the years to know that you were one of the people who actually linked them to this particular range to tie up, you know, the history of this. It's, you know, It's fascinating as I recall this, I remember as a husband and wife, I think they were both Pakistani descent, if I remember correctly. think the husband was a US citizen and maybe the wife had a green card or... But anyway, but they had been, you know, radicalized, you know, through whatever means, social media and maybe some in-person, I don't know stuff. Nelson Duarte: Yes. Mark Garrett: But here they are, they are both American citizen, the other one here legally. They're living in the freest nation earth and certainly in a religious sense. And they this desire to again, inflict as many casualties and ruin as many lives and terrorize as many people they possibly can. of course, we what happened them later on that day. They were both neutralized to use that word. by law enforcement. But this is this is one that I don't know it was off the radar but this these are people who were not prevented. from committing this heinous act. Now, what we don't know, and I say we as a lay person now, not in law enforcement, and obviously many people are in law enforcement, what we don't know is what we don't know. And what I mean by that is we never know how many of these incidents are prevented. And obviously task forces like the one that you were on and other entities keep it that way for obvious reasons because they don't want to give up sources and their resources in an effort to prevent these types of things. So thank God for people like you who investigate and what can to prevent these things. So having said that, there are other cases that did not come fruition because of the work of JTTF and other law enforcement entities. And I want to talk about that. that one. And this is one actually I had forgotten about. You actually brought this up to me when we spoke yesterday. And this was a 2017. So this is a couple years after San Bernardino. But we have another radicalized this guy, if I remember correctly, he was from Fresno. Is that? think he was a former Marine. And so this is a homegrown American born citizen. And Nelson Duarte: Yeah, ⁓ Fresno is a Marine. Mark Garrett: I'll let you talk about it. It's 2017 San Francisco. So I'll you take it from there and maybe I'll have some questions interject but go ahead. Nelson Duarte: No, this one, I wanted to bring that one up. was the Everett Jamerson case, know, in a Pier 29 in San Francisco. You know, we spoke about it yesterday. I wanted to bring that up because, again, you mentioned, you know, the San Bernardino, obviously it was after the fact, things that JTF for, there's a lot of cases that, you know, that get disrupted, right? Obviously. every day that we don't hear about and that's a good thing, And this one I brought up because the CHP had a significant role as a matter of fact and I was not a part of that, you know, but one of our officers, he's the current sergeant at right now, was, you know, played not only a key role, he's one of the, you know, lead investigators in the case, you know. And if I recall correctly, it came in, you know, as a lead this officer at the time, you know, he looked into it. And when, you know, when I mentioned earlier, our personnel, right, we have our personnel just are you know. Mark Garrett: And Nelson, can I just interject? Please don't lose your train of thought. But we said a lead came in that the lead came in from a regular control officer or a lead came directly into JTTF. I mean, can you clarify that? Nelson Duarte: Yeah, you know, I'm not too familiar on how lead came in, but I do know. Yeah, yeah, but I and we can talk about how leads come in, you know, to to clarify that a little bit later, you know, just to give you a good background on it's, you know, how we how we get lead to start working on so you can have a better understanding. But in this case, I remember that what whatever. Mark Garrett: Okay, but it did get to JTTF, obviously. Okay. Nelson Duarte: portion of the lead or whatever portion he had, right? He obviously it upon himself to say, okay, there's something else here, ⁓ you and we need to investigate further, you know, and because of that, you know, the ball starts rolling and then, you know, and turned into a, you know, a big case and That's one of them you can read about, but obviously the plan was to, if ⁓ remember was to shoot people cause chaos and then bomb the pier. But that's one you didn't hear about till after the case because it was disrupted, obviously. And I wanted to bring that up because that one in particular, because it was significant. And that one actually got the FBI Director's Award, you know, for everyone who worked it. And as a matter of fact, our officer at the time was a sergeant now. Mark Garrett: Wow. Nelson Duarte: You know, was flown to DC and, you know, got to, you know, him and his family. And, you know, he was given the director's award, you know, so those are the things that, don't necessarily, we don't necessarily know. And we, you know, we're talking about our own, the perception within our own agency. We don't know that, that we have individuals working these cases, right. Um, and I guarantee you can talk to most, uh, active officers or personnel right now on the CHP and they still wouldn't know, you know, and that's something I think we need to do a better job at, you know, highlighting things. Mark Garrett: It's a really, it's a really good point because guilty. I'd forgotten about this case until you brought it up in our conversation the other day. And it's, know, I guess there's a, there's a, not so line I get, but there is a line between over promoting one's agency and promoting it at And think it can be very dangerous when you don't promote the of agency for a lot of reasons. other words, it builds public trust when people understand that their taxpayers are going to efforts. and resources that as in this case prevent the loss of life and really beyond that prevent the ability of people who would radicalize and encourage our own citizens to turn against us. It reduces their ability and their their encouragement to do this kind of stuff. reduces their footprint. I to talk about this guy a little bit because it's really, really, it relates to where we are right now with this ongoing war. And say this with terror because I ran. Nelson Duarte: Yes. Mark Garrett: Listen, it's been their stated goal for 47 years that they want to kill you, ⁓ families, our neighbors. They want to kill everybody who does ⁓ bend the knee to their religious edict, the religious philosophy period. ⁓ proud of it. In fact, they're saying today again, the new leader, I think is over there who may not last very long. is saying it again, this is not to be understated. So let me say, let me, let me just read a little bit from article about this guy. Now, again, I say this because ⁓ the monster that you and other law enforcement representatives in JTTF prevented from carrying out the monstrous act that he had planned. Jameson also expressed support for the Halloween terror attack in New York City involving a truck that ⁓ killed eight people on November 2nd. Now again, this ⁓ 2017 days after the New York City attack. Jameson allegedly told an FBI informant quote, I'm glad to know we Muslims are finally hitting back. Alou Akbar, the Kufar now Kufar means non-believers his The Kufar deserve everything and more the lives they have taken. It's either a misquote or he left a word out. But basically they deserve to be killed even more for all the lives he'd taken if the completan said it. We finish with this FBI agents also alleged Jameson communicated with more than one undercover agent in meeting with one of those agents. Jameson expressed his belief that the US quote needed another attack like New York or Bernardino. According to the FBI ⁓ complaint and Jameson said he wanted to use both vehicles and firearms to carry out an attack. This is your point you made earlier that. He wanted to come in here right around Christmas time because the is obviously very populated, very, very busy and very festive around Christmas time in San Francisco. he wanted, one, he wanted to effect the largest of casualties possible. And number two, of course, he wanted to do it around the Christmas Christian. holiday for obvious reasons. This is again, he was praising the attack in San Bernardino, attack in New York, and he wanted to do more of it. We'll never know Nelson, how lives that you and other personnel from JTTF saved. We'll never know. And this is one of the difficulties when you're talking about prevention. It's very, very difficult for the average person, for any of us, for me, to really get excited about what we don't see happen. and, but this is what we all have to to understand. is that there are people, are men and women out there every single day that are preventing these types of attacks. And sometimes we never hear about them for a lot of operational and security reasons. Some of these people kind of go away they're used as informants, they're used as conduits to other would-be terrorists. And we don't know about it for good reasons, by the way. So I just want to acknowledge that and... and press that point that prevention goes often So thank you for that Nelson. Nelson Duarte: appreciate that Mark. you know, it's, I'm glad you brought that up because this one obviously was a good case and you know, it got the director's award, right? But there's hundreds of them that are just as close that don't get the director. And there's not, who knows how they get selected, right? I'm sure the director gets a ton of cases that are submitted. I know he does not, you know, I know they do. they can only give, you know, they can only select several, right? But many hundreds and hundreds of these cases go unnoticed not about, right? they just don't, whatever, they don't meet the criteria of a director's award, you know? for, if you think about everything else, right? You know, they're the same, just as strong, know? So I wonder, yeah. Mark Garrett: Right. It's a great point, Nelson, because even though they may not get the formal recognition, you know, don't know how important... Nelson Duarte: order to Mark Garrett: preventing a particular attack was. In other words, we don't know. mean, someone may be successful in killing one person, someone may be successful with a 9-11 attack. it doesn't determine who gets the public recognition necessarily, because again, it's hard to prove a negative. We don't know how these things end up because they didn't happen, thank God. So along those lines, this is very timely. And just pulled this up. This just yesterday. I don't know if you're aware of this or not. But again, this goes along with prevention aspect, not just the investigation aspect after the fact of JTTF. And this was a story that broke again on Wednesday the ⁓ that Iran planned to attack California with drones. Now, I'm gonna read a little bit from this article, which is, from ⁓ Kelly Rissman is the author of this article. But Iran planned to attack California with drones and retaliation for the US attacks on Tehran, according to an FBI memo. Now, what I find interesting about this, it's a little off topic, but I don't think that it is unimportant. That line says that Iran planned to attack California with drones and retaliation for US attacks on However, When you read a little bit further, it says that these attacks were planned for late February. This is before we actually attacked Iran. So I'm not sure what to make of this article other than the possibility that Iran would saw a buildup there the region and that they were playing, you know, a preemptive strike in California or for an attack that they assume was coming. But this is a bigger point. is that we have been at war with Iran since And I'm enough to remember when the Shah was thrown out and you the religious fanatics. Assume control of iran and from day one literally from day one actually even before day one the people who would assume control of iran iran were a chanting death to america and certainly since then ⁓ they've killed At least a thousand americans since then my point is this is that whether this attack was in response to our action in iran, recently almost irrelevant because this is their philosophy period for almost the last 50 years. again, there's not much in the article than the news here because the saying that's about all we can tell you is that we are aware of this. We thwarted possible attack California. Um, and there we have it, but we do know that they were aware of this and they got in front of it. So that's, know, it's that you can respond to if you want to buy. just wanted to get that out there that I want people to realize that this isn't an ongoing situation. And unfortunately, as long as we have people like this husband and wife who killed those people in 2015 in San Bernardino, as long as we have a monster like the one in Fresno who wanted to blow up people celebrating Christmas in San Francisco. So this task force and task force, task force is like it will never end. Nelson Duarte: No, no, you're right. And you know, it's back, it goes back to the ideology, right? So it's a certain ideology that you can't combat. You can't combat the ideology, right? So you mentioned 50 years. Yep, it's been 50 years. And this, know, ⁓ this article you read that from, yes, you said it was February, correct? So it was before, right? Well, it could have been in of what occurred a months ago, But you just don't know that ideology is there. They hate America and we're evil to them. they're gonna, there's no... Mark Garrett: Yes, correct. Nelson Duarte: they only have one way of thinking, you know, and it's hard to even, you know, combat that. Mark Garrett: Well, Nelson, you use the word ideology and you really put a fine point my meandering there. You put a very fine point on it that it's this is an ideology. And whether it's a response to the buildup in the Middle East with our military or the strikes in Iran or what happened last summer when we took out some nuclear facilities in Iran, this is an ideology. It's been going on for half a century. It's going to continue. And the scary thing is most of these mad people that are carrying out these terrorist attacks or want to carry them out. carry out are happy to die because they think that's their reward get into heaven and so ⁓ a very very insidious ideology to combat. So, you know, speaking of JTTF and other law enforcement efforts that are, you know, unfortunately, it's just like a patrol officer or high patrol, you're always going to have impaired drivers or people committing car theft or transporting drugs. In other words, unfortunately, cops will always have a job because people break the law and do bad, stupid things. Nelson Duarte: Yes. Mark Garrett: So the future of JTTF as far as resource, as far as funding, as far as focus, training, and you have a very good perspective because you were involved in JTTF really under, well, I I think it three administrations. Is that right? Or just two? ⁓ administrations. Nelson Duarte: No, three. Less than so, nine. ⁓ Mark Garrett: Since 09, correct. Yeah. So three administrations you were there and the bulk of that time you were there under the Biden administration. Well, I guess I go back. I want to get in front of you here, but You have a perspective and I just, you know, and again, we talked about this briefly and you say, Hey, Mark, I don't want to be too political. And you, you, you, continued there. said, Ooh, Nelson, that's not political. It's just a factual statement of how things were at one time and how they were at another time and G J TTF and how, how things evolved or changed from one administration to another. Is that, is that a fair characterization? Nelson Duarte: believe so, yeah. So you know, ⁓ no, as you you know, I was in unique position to, well, two unique positions. was there as an officer, right? And then I was there as a supervisor. So I got, you know, a broader view as a supervisor, right? But I was also there under, know, two most recent administration, obviously. Mark Garrett: Tell us about it. Nelson Duarte: and I was able to see the from one administration to another. Now, as mentioned yesterday, know, the boots on the You know, the officers, the investigators, the agents, you know, they have one way of at things. we come here, we do our job to the best of our ability, no matter who's in charge, right? But my opinion, I did see a shift from one administration to another, you know? And shift was working certain differently without too into weeds, The... focus does you know, depending on who's in charge, you know, and we, and we, we talked about us in particular, the CHP, you know, same thing. We have a boss and our boss works for the governor, right? So whatever, you know, and then, you know, whatever administration is there, we're going to follow that, you know, so one, one the things I was able to see, I, saw the transition from before Biden, know, how the type of leads and how we were working them. And then I saw the transition from when Biden took over and how, ⁓ for lack of better words, I felt like, you know, we were handcuffed a little bit, you know, and and I don't mean just the JGTF, but law enforcement as a whole. think we all saw that, you know, I mean, And then obviously I retired months ago, but I was there during the transition from the Biden administration to the second Trump administration, you know, and was pretty much overnight, the transition on how it felt the handcuffs were taken off, you know? So, yeah. Mark Garrett: It's a a powerful because we about these incidents. We talk about San Bernardino. We talk about the would-be attack in San Francisco. We can ⁓ go the line. We can go down the line. I want to read this to you. And I you. think, you know, my viewers and listeners are smart people. And we talk about, you know, we were... of told influence whatever to follow up on certain leads and not the other blah blah blah let me read this to you for people who've forgotten now again like you said it's not that we we want to be political here but we talk about law enforcement and you spelled it out really well there Nelson the boots on the ground the people are doing their job they just want to do their job they want to solve cases they want to save lives they want to prevent terrorist attacks period they don't care who the president is when it comes they just want to get their job done that's what they're for Saying that, I want people to remember this is from Politico and this is from May of 2023. This is Joe Biden. He was speaking at ⁓ University and going to quote him. Quote, white supremacy is the single most dangerous threat in our homeland. Biden said. end quote, and I'm not just saying this because I'm at a black by the way, which is because the B HBCU is black. But anyway, that's a side story here. I say this everywhere I go. Now, look, at face this is absurd. But what's important here is if the commander in chief has this philosophy, this belief supposedly that white supremacy is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States, you know, in this federal task force that you're a part of, you have to ask yourself, does that philosophy trickle down through doctrine, through SOP, through directives, through resources, through funding? to the boots on the ground. Like you said, hands get cuffed because of this nonsense? next part is here ⁓ is we see the open borders that you dealt with, Nelson. I wanna, you can, what were the conversations in whether they're... official conversations or there were professional, I mean personal conversations or did the conversations occur related to the open border crisis during the Biden administration? Nelson Duarte: You know, that's a great point. I hate to say it's funny, it's not funny, you know, but a lot of those conversations did not occur the conversation that I thought would have occurred, you know? It was almost, it almost felt like it was being ignored, right? However, you know how it is as, as, police officers and you we talk amongst each other, right? And there's, you know, that locker room talk and there's, you know, it is candid as it gets. those conversations were happening. And remember. You know, talking to a lot of my guys and, know, amongst each other. And it was nerve wracking, you know, because we're like, wow, this is that that border is open, you know, and there's millions of people coming in, you know, and I used to always bring up, if you recall, during was it during 9 11. The terrorists were in California. Yeah, you know, they were in California. Yeah, there was what, eight of them, I believe. Mark Garrett: Right, yes. In flight school. Yeah. I believe so. Eight or nine, yeah. Nelson Duarte: Yeah, yeah. And I always always I remember saying, I don't know, did 20 million cross 10 million doesn't matter. What's 1 % of 10 million, right? That's more than that's more than eight. I know that I'm not good math. So it I just remember thinking like it's and I still think this way. I think it's unfortunately. You know, um, we're doing, we're doing cleanup now, right? The new administration is doing cleanup, but, um, we're not going to get everyone, you know? Uh, and this, going back to that ideology, that ideology, they're here to stay and they're not, you know, they will wait. They would, you know, they're way us out. You know, they were for during nine 11, they were here for years, you know? And so if we miss one, two or three or eight of them, like nine 11, you know, you can imagine right so i'm sure i know i kind of went off topic a little bit but but yeah Mark Garrett: No, it's, was absolutely on point. ⁓ what you said ⁓ the point is that if you have a boss, if you have a first time supervisor or you have a top management manager or executive manager or commander in chief who tells you ⁓ unit or your division or your section or your country, Nelson Duarte: Yeah. Mark Garrett: that don't look the massive wildfire over there, but look at this little match I have here in the desert. That's a problem. And when the commander in chief says that our biggest terrorist threat is white supremacy, that's a problem. And... That's what we dealt with a while. And again, everyone knows that I'm staunch conservative, but I call it as I see it. And if someone tells me that, look, if someone says that, Nelson Duarte: Yeah. Mark Garrett: biggest problem as far as preventable fatalities, it's not it's not safety restraints, it's not unsafe lane changes, it's expired registration. think, what are you nuts? Are you out of mind? And that's what I ⁓ read that quote, I She's President Biden. Are you, were you out of your mind? And the answer to me is you either were out of your mind or you're lying for political reasons. Either way, it's dangerous for the safety of American citizens that he's supposed to be or was supposed to be responsible for his time in office. ⁓ Nelson Duarte: And what does that mean, white supremacy? Like, so we just go after white guys? Like, you know, it just doesn't even make sense, you know? So, yeah. Mark Garrett: Listen. I, it's a great rhetorical question. What does that mean? know, ⁓ means nothing, of course. It's just, listen, when we, when we, as ⁓ say we, when the federal government dismantled the Ku Klux Klan, as it did dismantle to a large extent the organizations in this country, they were going after specific, specific entities that were committing specific crimes. Nelson Duarte: Yeah. Mark Garrett: don't have that. Thank goodness. I'll talk about the Ku Klux Klan committing acts. We don't have that. And look, I live in the deep south. So I think I'm, you know, I'm probably good eyes on. We don't have it. Thank God. ⁓ Does happen sometimes? Probably. But it's the greatest threat. I think it's ⁓ it's a it was a dumb thing to say. So. Well, Nelson Duarte, it's been my pleasure. By the way, it was more my pleasure when I got to see your lovely wife yesterday, we were setting your camera up. So, but you know, I'll settle for you today. But no, it's really been an education for me, as I'm sure it has my audience about the Joint Terrorism Task Force. My guest has been Nelson Duarte, retired California high patrol sergeant and my friend Nelson. Nelson Duarte: Of course. Mark Garrett: Best of luck. I know you guys are in new digs where you used to live when I was out there and I'm happy for your move. We talked about it. You're happy where you are now. Unfortunately for you, from my point of view, you're still in Commie-Fornia, but ⁓ we'll see if things change for you in future. Nelson, thanks so much. God bless you. Thank you for your service in protecting the people, the citizens of California and United States. Nelson Duarte: Yeah. I appreciate you, sir. Thank you for of me and I hope I was able to bring some value to it, you know? And yeah, God bless you too and your family. Appreciate you. Yeah. Mark Garrett: You did and thank you again my friend. Take care.