Not Incompetence – Not Anymore

This is part of a much larger personal story, but I just want to share with you something I said a long time ago.  I’d just launched a major new marketing program involving supermarket customers, their buying and their support for that new program.  Three days after the program’s launch, I went to look at the store sales figures to see how it had all shaken down.

The IT department had lost all the data.  Worse still, they couldn’t tell me when they’d be able to show me any data, going forward.

In a rage, I stormed into the CFO’s office and told him what had happened.  If anything, his shock was greater than mine.  He’d seen my sales projections, my gross profit projections and likely market share gain — but all that was gone.  I looked at him, and said, “It is really difficult for me to come to terms with such gross incompetence and profound indifference of its consequences.  I cannot begin to understand how such incompetence even exists in a huge corporation like ours.”  He looked at me, and nodded.  Then I said, “In fact, if I were a paranoid person — which I’m not — I would actually ascribe negligence on this scale to sabotage.”  And I turned and left.

I have had the same reaction to this situation in south Texas.

Law enforcement officials are seeking a “Mexican male” in connection with a shooting that left five people dead in Cleveland, Texas, Friday night, Fox News reports.
The San Jacinto Sheriff’s Office received a “harassment” call and responding deputies found four victims shot to death and an eight-year-old boy critically wounded. The boy was transported to a hospital, where he died.
All of the victims are believed to be from Honduras, according to San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers.
Capers said his office received the “harassment” call at 11:31 p.m.
Capers said law enforcement is actively searching for the “Mexican male subject” believed to be the shooter and have “a copy of his consulate card.”
He said the Mexican man “has been known to shoot his .223 in the front yard, which is evident from the shell casings in the front yard.”
Capers believes the suspect has fled the area.

And this update:

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers indicated Francisco Oropesa, the Mexican national who allegedly shot and killed five people in Cleveland, Texas, on Friday, has eluded police and “could be anywhere now.”
The FBI is warning people to stay clear of the 38-year-old suspect if they spot him, FOX News reported: “Reminder, if you see him DO NOT approach him. He is armed and dangerous. If you have a tip about his whereabouts call the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office at 936-653-4367.”
On Sunday, FBI special agent in charge Fred Smith said police and agents have just been “running into dead ends” in their search for Oropesa.
He added, “Right now, we have zero leads of him.”

And the last little cherry on top of this shitcake:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials provided updated information on the suspected killer of five Honduran migrants. Officials report that an immigration judge first ordered Francisco Oropeza Perez-Torres, 38, to be removed from the United States on March 19, 2009. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers deported the migrant to Mexico later that month.
Subsequent to this, Oropeza illegally re-entered the U.S. and was removed, once again, in September 2009. He was removed two more times in January 2012 and July 2016.
In January 2012, a Texas court in Montgomery County (which neighbors San Jacinto County where the alleged murders took place) convicted the Mexican national for driving while intoxicated. The court sentenced him to an unreported period of incarceration.

So this murderous asshole has been deported before, not once but four times.  On his last entry into the U.S., he somehow got hold of an AR-15 rifle (despite all the fucking laws that exist to prevent felons and illegal aliens from possessing guns), with the depressingly-foreseeable outcome.

Between Immigration, local law enforcement, the Justice Department and the FBI, there has been not just one cockup, but a multiyear succession of cockups which eventually ended in the death of an entire, innocent family.

So, to go back to my original story:  at what point do we stop ascribing this disaster to gross incompetence, and start thinking about actual sabotage — a deliberate undermining of our immigration laws and the legal system?

By the way, a week after my meeting with the CFO, the head of IT was ignominiously fired.

Do not expect anything like this, though, to happen to anyone in government or the legal system.