Gregory Despres attempted to cross into the United States from the Canadian border with brass knuckles, a sword, a hatchet, and a chainsaw stained with human blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated his weapons, but allowed Despres passage. A day later, Canadians discovered a grisly scene: the decapitated body of an elderly country musician and the stabbed-to-death body of his girlfriend in their home. Even though Depres, who happens to have a swastika tatooed on his back and a wild-eyed stare, is an American citizen, why didn't customs detain him? What, exactly, disqualifies someone from an unmolested passage into our country?

The answer is: apparently nothing. Now, we can't even handle our Canadian borders.

They found this guy wandering around aimlessly in Mattapoisett Mass.

Looks like the Border Patrol and the cops want to wait until somebody like this kills again before they do something.

http://news.bostonherald.com/search/?searchSite=true&keyword=despres&searchSite=recent&searchType=Go%21

The best line in that article is "Nobody asked us to detain him." Gee. How comforting to know our border patrol doesn't err on the side of being proactive.

I appreciate this border patrolspokesman's half-intelligent attempt at rationalization by referring to the importance of the rule of law, etc. If the situation warranted it I would heartily agree with such deference to legal procedure. However, in this case it is mere legalism to make that defense given what the agents were specifically faced with when they confronted Despres with his cache of weapons.

For example, why did they see the need to confiscate his items, at least two of which are probably permissible to transport over the border, AND fingerprint him. I have never been fingerprinted as a matter of course when crossing over or back into Canada so unless that has become a new border policy it indicates that these agents recognized Despres as a threat and had even taken steps that may or may not have been standard procedure for them.

Have you seen his picture? He looks like a pixelated character from Mortal Kombat.

Wow what a freaking joke our Border Patrol is.

damn quebecoise! Never thought I'd be so happy to be from Southbridge (and not Mattapoisett) (It's actually a common name in Canada and the northeast).

Unbelievable.

This must be kind of encouraging to all those murders out there, and those who want to go to canada.

I have relatives who live in Canada and about two and a half years ago a relative and family friend drove across the border towing a covered snowmobile trailer and the border patrol never asked or looked to see what was inside.

There isn a book on terrorism that someone suggested I read a while back which seems relevent to all this. It's called Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism Around the World.

It’s amazing how their national inferiority complex has cultured a disdain for the U.S.

As with most countries, they’ll take our money but would be more than happy to have us disappear.