On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S. - Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States.
The next day there was a gruesome killing discovered which included the beheading of a 74-year-old man and the stabbing death of his wife. Despres immediately was a suspect and was arrested two days later wandering down a highway in a sweat shirt with red and brown stains.
He was held and questioned for about two hours before they let him go. They checked for warrants and to see if he broke any laws tying to get into the country. Nobody asked for him to be detained and according to Bill Anthony, spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, "Being bizarre is not a reason to keep someone out of this country or lock them up . . . We are governed by laws and regulations, and he did not violate any regulations." I 100% agree with that.
But in this hi-tech world I would think that cross referencing records should give you the information you need to assess someone. As it turns out, on the day that Despres crossed the border, he was due in a Canadian court to be sentenced on charges of assaulting and threatening to kill Frederick Mowat, the son-in-law of the couple he killed.
I do agree that the border guards did the right thing with the information they were able to access, but I also feel if there was a better sharing of information between law agencies, even between countries, this may have been stopped.
The answer here is not to stop someone for their appearance, which is why I attached his picture with this article, but you must have reliable intelligence that is shared with law enforcement agencies. Remember, on the same day he was due to be sentenced for a crime. There should have been a trail to follow there.
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