Drone Threat Mitigation and UAV Deployment: The Next Tactical Frontier in American Policing

Drones have become one of the most disruptive forces in modern policing. Once considered recreational gadgets, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now occupy the same tactical significance as radios, patrol cars, and body-worn cameras. They represent both a powerful tool for law enforcement and a growing threat exploited by criminals, cartels, and hostile actors. As agencies move deeper into 2026, drone threat mitigation and UAV deployment have shifted from optional skillsets to essential operational competencies.

The Expanding Airborne Threat

In recent years, criminal misuse of drones has grown rapidly. The Department of Homeland Security reports that drones have been used to drop contraband into correctional facilities, conduct surveillance of police activity, and attempt to disrupt critical infrastructure. Border authorities have documented cartel-operated drones conducting reconnaissance and moving narcotics across the Southwest border.

Off-the-shelf quadcopters, racing-style FPV drones, and autonomous GPS-guided models are now inexpensive, powerful, and easy to modify. Many can carry payloads, stream encrypted video, or maneuver at speeds and angles that make detection difficult. For patrol officers and tactical teams, this means the airspace above them has become a new vulnerability—one criminals can exploit without ever being physically present.

Understanding Criminal Drone Tactics

Criminal and extremist groups have studied police response patterns and increasingly use drones in ways that complicate officer safety and operations. Common applications include reconnaissance of tactical positions, surveillance during warrant service, real-time streaming of officer movements to aid in escape or ambush, contraband drops to jails and prisons, and harassment or intimidation during public events.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also warned that drones could be used to deploy hazardous materials, ignite fires, or drop small explosive devices. While such incidents remain rare in the United States, international case studies show a clear trajectory: hostile drone activity tends to expand as technology becomes cheaper and more capable.

Tactical Risks to Officers

The presence of a drone above a crime scene or tactical operation introduces several immediate risks. Drones can compromise positions by revealing the location of officers preparing for entry. They can monitor approach routes, document vehicle movements, or beam video to an accomplice nearby. FPV drones—high-speed first-person-view aircraft—can rapidly close distance on officers with little warning and may be equipped with improvised payloads.

Beyond physical risk, hostile drones create operational noise: distractions, uncertainty, and information gaps that slow decision-making. For command staff, the difficulty lies in determining whether a drone is merely recreational, opportunistic, or part of a coordinated threat.

Legal Boundaries and Authority Limits

One of the most significant challenges for police agencies is the legal framework. Most counter-drone tactics, including signal jamming, GPS interference, or physically disabling a drone, are prohibited under federal law except for a limited set of federal agencies.

Local and state police cannot shoot down drones, jam them, or interfere with their signals unless operating under specific federal authorization. This legal reality means that the majority of counter-drone responses must focus on detection, documentation, repositioning, and coordination with federal partners such as the FBI or DHS.

Understanding FAA regulations, airspace classifications, and lawful deployment of police-owned drones is now a basic competency for any department operating a UAV program.

Detection, Tracking, and Identification

The most realistic drone mitigation tools available to local law enforcement focus on detection and identification. Agencies across the United States are adopting RF scanners, acoustic sensors, radar systems tailored for low-altitude detection, and thermal imaging to identify drones in restricted areas. Some systems allow agencies to track the signal back to the operator, enabling ground teams to locate and detain the individual controlling the device.

Visual detection remains valuable but limited. Drones designed with dark exteriors, low profiles, or high-speed maneuverability can evade officers’ sight, especially during night operations.

Building a Department UAV Capability

While drones pose a threat, they also provide transformative capability for officers. Agencies large and small have adopted UAVs to support search and rescue operations, crime scene mapping, disaster response, vehicle pursuits, barricaded-suspect incidents, and SWAT overwatch.

Research by public safety organizations shows that drones reduce officer risk by allowing aerial observation before entry, improve situational awareness during high-risk calls, and provide thermal imaging capabilities that previously required aviation support units.

Departments launching UAV programs must address several core components: pilot certification, night-operation training, thermal imaging proficiency, pre-flight planning, emergency procedures, and integration with manned aircraft when helicopters are present.

Policies, SOPs, and Community Trust

Public acceptance of police drone programs relies heavily on clear policy. Transparent guidelines on flight purpose, privacy protections, data retention, and footage use are essential to maintaining trust. Agencies that publicly articulate their safeguards tend to face fewer complaints and less resistance to drone deployment.

Community engagement—public demonstrations, town halls, and informational campaigns—remains one of the most effective means of ensuring that UAV operations are seen as safety-enhancing rather than surveillance-driven.

Scenario-Based Training

Because drone threats are dynamic, scenario-based training is critical. Tactical teams must rehearse hostile drone encounters, simulate drone surveillance during a warrant service, practice repositioning to conceal movements, and integrate their own drones for overwatch. Departments that treat drone tactics as an afterthought risk being outmaneuvered by criminals who have embraced the technology more aggressively.

Preparing for the Air Threat of 2026

The airspace above police operations has become an active domain of concern. Criminal drone use will expand, not contract. Police UAV usage will grow more complex, not less. Agencies that develop disciplined, well-trained UAV programs and adopt defensive counter-drone awareness will be best positioned to protect officers and communities.

Drone threat mitigation is no longer futuristic. It is the new tactical frontier of modern policing.

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References

Department of Homeland Security. (2024). Impact of artificial intelligence on criminal and illicit activities. Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2022). Unmanned aircraft systems: Emerging threats and homeland security challenges.

Federal Aviation Administration. (2023). Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) regulation summary.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2023). Border security report: Unmanned aerial vehicles used in transnational criminal activity.

National Institute of Justice. (2022). Drones in law enforcement: Benefits, challenges, and best practices.

International Association of Chiefs of Police. (2023). Considerations for unmanned aircraft systems in public safety operations.

Counter Ambush Training Must Be Central to Law-Enforcement Preparedness

When two members of the West Virginia National Guard were ambushed near the White House on November 26, 2025, and one later died from his injuries, the United States was confronted with a stark reminder: even uniformed personnel on duty in the nation’s capital are vulnerable to sudden, violent attack. Reporting from Reuters described the shooting as a “targeted ambush,” carried out with a .357-magnum revolver against soldiers performing a high-visibility patrol near Farragut West. The incident underscores the escalating threat of surprise attacks against law-enforcement and military personnel and demonstrates the need for counter-ambush training as a core element of modern policing and security preparedness.

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A Stark Reminder in the Heart of Washington

According to multiple reports, the attack occurred without warning, and the assailant fled before being apprehended. One Guardsman died within hours; another was critically injured. Official statements characterized the assault as a deliberate ambush intended to take the patrol by surprise. The event, occurring blocks from the White House, highlights a troubling fact: familiarity of surroundings or symbolic visibility does not equate to safety. The evolving nature of ambush attacks — often involving lone actors, concealed movement, and rapid violence — requires law-enforcement agencies to prepare for extreme unpredictability.

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Why Counter-Ambush Training Is Essential

Ambush Attacks Remain a Leading Cause of Officer Fatalities

For decades, ambushes have represented a disproportionate share of law-enforcement deaths. Research published through the National Institute of Justice shows that many officers killed in the line of duty were taken by surprise, struck before they could react, or attacked while responding to routine calls. Training literature across policing institutions reinforces the same idea: ambush survival requires more than firearms proficiency — it requires instinctive, practiced responses to sudden threats.

Speed, Reaction, and Tactical Confidence

Counter-ambush training programs such as Counter Ambush Response (C.A.R.) teach officers to recognize pre-attack indicators, utilize available cover, communicate under fire, and rapidly move or return fire when necessary. These programs stress that ambushes unfold in seconds. Officers must learn to process, react, and move instinctively. Tactical trainers emphasize that hesitation in an ambush event is often fatal; drilled muscle memory is critical to survival.

Ambush Threats Are Expanding Across Contexts

While historically associated with criminal violence or targeted attacks on patrol officers, ambushes now appear across a wider range of scenarios: foot patrols, protective details, vehicle stops, and high-visibility deployments like those carried out by the National Guard in Washington. As threats diversify, counter-ambush preparation must likewise expand. Law-enforcement officers, guardsmen, and federal agents all face the possibility of sudden aggression — whether for ideological, personal, or opportunistic motives.

Protecting Officers Also Protects the Public

Each ambush not only endangers officers but shakes public confidence, disrupts community safety efforts, and erodes morale across police and military communities. Well-prepared officers are better able to protect themselves and those around them. Comprehensive ambush training demonstrates institutional commitment to officer safety and community security.

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What Counter-Ambush Training Should Include

Effective counter-ambush training should be mandatory and comprehensive. Core elements include:

• Recognition of ambush setups such as linear ambushes, L-shaped ambushes, and confined-space attacks.

• Immediate action drills, emphasizing cover, concealment, communication, and movement.

• Scenario-based training that replicates real-world unpredictability.

• Vehicle-related ambush training, as many assaults occur during traffic stops or while approaching a vehicle.

• Integrated medical training, including tourniquet use and life-saving interventions, given the frequency of critical injuries in ambush events.

• Regular refreshers and after-action reviews to prevent skill degradation and complacency.

These components are consistent across programs offered by law-enforcement academies, tactical instruction centers, and federal training entities.

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A National Priority, Not a Local Option

The 2025 Washington, D.C., ambush should be viewed as a national signal — not an isolated anomaly. Threats to law-enforcement and military personnel are evolving faster than many agencies’ training models. Ambush attacks are increasing in sophistication, speed, and lethality. A single officer’s lack of preparation can escalate to catastrophic outcomes for the broader community.

By making counter-ambush training a required, recurring component of law-enforcement certification and in-service training, agencies can significantly reduce avoidable fatalities. This is not a matter of tactical preference but of moral responsibility.

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Conclusion

The lethal ambush of National Guard members near the White House illustrates an uncomfortable truth: no deployment setting is immune to sudden violence. Law-enforcement and military agencies must respond by institutionalizing counter-ambush training as a fundamental requirement of modern policing and security operations. Lives depend on preparedness. The nation depends on the men and women who serve. Their training must reflect the realities of the threats they face.

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References

Belotto, A. (n.d.). Counter-Ambush Tactics for Patrol Officers. National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.

Douglas, L., Winter, J., & Stewart, P. (2025, November 26). National Guard soldiers shot in ‘targeted’ attack near White House. Reuters.

Miami Dade College Justice & Safety Training Center. (n.d.). Counter Ambush Response (C.A.R.) Training Program.

TI Training. (2025). Police Ambush Tactics and Survival Strategies.

Wolfe, D. (2017). Police Ambush Attacks: Four Strategies for Survival. Police1 Research Center.

Sigsauer Academy. (n.d.). Counter Ambush Tactics for Law Enforcement.

Center for Justice & Intelligence Training (CJI). (n.d.). Counter-Ambush Tactics Course Overview.

Polishing the Ashlar: How Modern Policing Is Confronting Its Rough Edges

In Freemasonry, the movement from Rough Ashlar to Perfect Ashlar is the story of a life: a common stone, chosen for its potential, gradually shaped into something that can bear weight in a sacred structure. As The Temple Within explains, “The Rough Ashlar represents potential and possibility, while the Perfect Ashlar embodies the fulfillment of that potential through deliberate and disciplined action.” This transformation mirrors the work of modern policing, where agencies across the nation are beginning to acknowledge their rough edges—cultural, ethical, procedural—and engaging in the deliberate labor of refinement.

Over the past year, two concrete developments illustrate how policing institutions are engaging in what Masons would call “ashlar work”: the Louisville Metro Police Department’s federal consent decree and the national expansion of scenario-based de-escalation training. These efforts, though different in scale, reveal the same underlying truth: meaningful reform requires the courage to face imperfection and the discipline to reshape it.

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The Masonic Blueprint: Rough Ashlar, Perfect Ashlar, and the Trestleboard

The Temple Within identifies a triad of transformation: the Rough Ashlar, the Perfect Ashlar, and the Trestleboard. “The Rough Ashlar represents the beginning of the journey, full of potential but requiring refinement. The Perfect Ashlar symbolizes the ultimate goal: a man who embodies virtue, wisdom, and moral discipline. The Trestleboard acts as the guiding plan, ensuring that progress is intentional and aligned with Masonic principles.”

Two principles are especially relevant to policing:

1. The stone is chosen for its potential.

2. The work must follow a plan.

When we ask how police agencies change, we are really asking whether they are recruiting the right people from the “quarry of life” and whether they are forming those people according to a clear ethical blueprint. These questions sit behind every serious reform effort, including Louisville’s.

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Case Study 1: Louisville’s Consent Decree as a Civic Trestleboard

In December 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice and Louisville Metro Government entered into a court-enforceable consent decree following a pattern-or-practice investigation prompted by the killing of Breonna Taylor. The Justice Department described the decree as a “blueprint for reform,” requiring changes that touch the core of police culture and operations. These include:

• mandatory de-escalation techniques
• use of force only when reasonable, necessary, and proportional
• fair and impartial enforcement
• expanded behavioral-health crisis responses
• public reporting and independent monitoring

This structure is, in Masonic terms, a trestleboard. It transforms broad aspiration—“restore trust,” “improve safety”—into specific, enforceable labor.

The Temple Within notes that the Mason must “remove from ourselves all that is impure and unrefined, allowing us to become living stones fit for the spiritual building of the Temple.” Louisville’s reforms parallel this process: identifying constitutional violations, racial disparities, and inadequate crisis responses, and striking at them deliberately.

Scholarly research on consent decrees reinforces the importance of clarity and accountability. Analyses of previous decrees in cities such as Ferguson and Pittsburgh show that reforms falter when municipalities lack transparency or when community participation is weak. A trestleboard not read—and not followed—cannot build a temple.

Louisville’s decree attempts to address this by requiring community oversight, independent evaluation, and public reporting. Whether this will succeed depends on whether the city remains committed to the slow, difficult work of shaping the stone.

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Case Study 2: Scenario-Based De-escalation and the Ethics of the Common Gavel

A second major reform effort involves the national expansion of scenario-based de-escalation training. In 2024, bipartisan federal legislation was introduced directing the Department of Justice to create and distribute scenario-based training on use of force, crisis intervention, and ethical decision-making. The bill also provided grants so departments of all sizes could participate.

Supporters emphasized that such training saves lives, improves officer safety, and equips officers to respond more effectively to mental-health crises. With nearly six in ten police encounters involving a person with a serious mental illness, lawmakers framed the initiative as essential to both community safety and officer preparedness.

From a Masonic perspective, scenario-based de-escalation training is the institutional equivalent of the Common Gavel. The Gavel, as The Temple Within explains, is the tool used “to ‘chip away’ vices and excesses, molding [the Mason] into a virtuous being.” In law enforcement, those vices include impulsive escalation, failure to recognize mental-health distress, and reliance on force as the primary tool of control. Training designed to chip away at these habits is moral work, not merely tactical instruction.

The virtues emphasized in The Temple Within—temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice—align perfectly with modern de-escalation models:

• Temperance: control of emotion and impulse
• Fortitude: courage under stress
• Prudence: sound, life-preserving judgment
• Justice: fairness and restraint in application of authority

Research on policing tools reinforces that procedural changes must be embedded in culture. Studies on body-worn cameras show that rules governing how footage is reviewed can either enhance accountability or compromise due process. Crisis-response research highlights the importance of interagency partnerships and officer wellness. All these findings point to a single truth: the tools of reform must be used with discipline, integrity, and purpose—exactly as Masons are taught to labor.

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Culture as a Living Stone: Beyond Policy Into Formation

Both Louisville’s decree and the national shift toward scenario-based training demonstrate that culture is malleable—but only with sustained intention. Reform organizations emphasize that “police are not born; they are made.” What officers are trained, encouraged, and permitted to do ultimately defines the culture they inhabit.

This mirrors a central theme in The Temple Within: “labor is worship,” and a Mason’s work is judged not by words but by conduct. When policing is framed as a vocation dedicated to protecting the vulnerable, upholding justice, and exercising authority under restraint, it aligns with this vision. When framed instead around domination or unquestioned group loyalty, it diverges sharply from both democratic and Masonic ideals.

Reform is therefore a question of formation:

• Recruitment asks: What stones do we bring from the quarry?
• Training asks: What tools do we place in their hands?
• Policy and oversight ask: What trestleboard do we draw, and do we build to it?

Research, federal oversight, and emerging best practices all suggest the same conclusion: institutions improve only when they commit to structural accountability, ethical formation, and ongoing evaluation.

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Conclusion: Before the Stone Becomes Strong, It Must Become True

The Temple Within reminds us that “the progression from Rough Ashlar to Perfect Ashlar is a lifelong journey,” measured by daily effort, not instant transformation. Policing faces a similar journey. The Louisville consent decree provides a trestleboard for one city that must rebuild trust after profound failures. National scenario-based de-escalation initiatives offer the tools needed to form officers capable of restraint, empathy, and good judgment.

Benjamin Franklin observed that without continual growth, words like improvement and success lose their meaning. Institutions, like individuals, become what they practice. If police agencies commit to confronting their rough edges—bias, impatience, flawed tactics, and weak accountability—they, too, can move toward the strength that comes only from truth.

Before the stone becomes strong, it must become true. The hope for both Masons and police officers is that strength and truth may one day be indistinguishable in the lives of those who serve and in the institutions entrusted with public safety.

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References

Department of Justice. (2024). Justice Department secures agreement with Louisville Metro Government to reform Louisville Metro’s and Louisville Metro Police Department’s unconstitutional and unlawful practices. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.

Farber, H. B. (2024). Policies for police body-worn cameras that preserve due process. American Criminal Law Review.

Foster, R. E. (n.d.). The Temple Within. Unpublished manuscript.

National Policing Institute. (2025). Building resilience in policing: Preventing stress and supporting officer mental health.

O’Connor, A. (2024). Examining the effectiveness of consent decrees in relation to police accountability. IMAGINE, University of California, Santa Barbara.

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. (2024). Implementation of De-escalation Training Act Program.

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. (2025). Safer Outcomes: Behavioral-health collaboration in law enforcement.

U.S. House of Representatives. (2024). Law Enforcement Scenario-Based Training for Safety and De-escalation Act of 2024.

United States Attorney Announces Largest Meth Seizure In Colorado History, So-Called ‘Kingpin’ Charge Filed Against Leader of Drug Trafficking Organization

DENVER – The United States Attorney for the District of Colorado announces that 15 individuals were indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the largest methamphetamine seizure in Colorado history.  One defendant is facing the so-called ‘drug kingpin’ charge as an alleged leader of a drug trafficking organization.

Defendants named in the indictment include: Marco Antonio De Silva Lara, Sergio Ivan  Arce Lopez, Juan Luis Cabrera Saucedo, Luis Enrique Lopez Lopez, Rigoberto Aranda, Erik Alejandro Benitez Chavez, Robert Shane Gerstner, Joseph Ricardo Menzor, William Joseph Rollins, Brittney Pierce, Francisco Javier Armenta Barraza, Jamie Cash Hoover, Cesar Andres Huizar Guerra, and Trenton Anthony Thompson. Eleven of these defendants are in federal custody, while the remaining defendants are believed to remain in Mexico.

As detailed in the complaint, federal wiretaps, extensive surveillance, undercover operations, and swift enforcement efforts led to the seizure of more than 1,000 pounds of methamphetamine linked to this organization, including the following:

• In December 2024, agents seized 96 pounds of methamphetamine from a member of the organization on a Greyhound Bus in Vail, Colorado.
• In February 2025, 101 pounds of methamphetamine and a half kilogram of fentanyl powder were seized from another member of the organization on a highway in Colorado.
• In April 2025, over 700 pounds of methamphetamine was seized from a residence in Lakewood, Colorado, along with freezers, propane tanks, and other equipment consistent with methamphetamine manufacturing or conversion.  Investigators found thousands of packages of methamphetamine concealed in the corners of containers of fruit.
• In August 2025, nearly 50 pounds of methamphetamine was seized from a residence in Arvada, Colorado.

All 15 defendants face drug charges which carry a potential sentence of no less than ten years and up to life in federal prison.  Four of the defendants are charged with money laundering, which carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison. Marco Antonio De Silva Lara is charged with operating a Continuing Criminal Enterprise in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848(a), commonly known as the ‘drug kingpin’ charge. This charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years and up to life in prison.

“This successful investigation boasts the largest methamphetamine seizure in Colorado history and intercepted more than 1,000 pounds of methamphetamine before it could be distributed into our community,” said United States Attorney for the District of Colorado Peter McNeilly. “This investigation showcases what we are able to accomplish when we combine the resources, tools, and expertise of federal agencies with the passion, experience, and sweat equity of local law enforcement officers.”

The investigation is being handled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations. The Adams County Sheriff’s Office, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, and the Arvada Police Department each made significant contributions to this case.

This operation is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. The Rocky Mountain HSTF comprises agents and officers from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Internal Revenue Service, Office of Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), United States Marshals Service (USMS), Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement / Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE/ERO) with the prosecution being led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado.

The Transnational Organized Crime and Money Laundering Section of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado is handling the prosecutions.

The charges contained in the indictments are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Case Number: 1:25-CR-240-PAB

Former Police Officer Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for Possessing Machine Guns

CAPE GIRARDEAU – U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. on Tuesday sentenced a former police officer to five years in prison for possessing machine guns.

Ira Brown, 56, admitted that on Oct. 23, 2020, Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers found a fully automatic AR-15 rifle and an auto sear that converts an AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon. The items were found during a court-approved search of Brown’s home prompted by an unrelated investigation. Investigators also found 10,000 rounds of belt-fed .223 caliber ammunition, including armor piercing rounds, in Brown’s Viburnum home, his plea says.

Brown was employed as a dispatcher at a 911 call center at the time of his arrest but formerly worked as a police officer.

Brown fled while out on bond and was arrested in 2024 in Oregon. He pleaded guilty in July of 2025 to possession of a machine gun.

Brown’s son Zerak Brown, now 24, is now serving a 125-month prison sentence after he was convicted at trial in 2021 of two counts of assaulting a federal officer and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.

Evidence and testimony at trial showed that when troopers showed up to allow Zerak Brown’s girlfriend to remove her belongings from Ira Brown’s home, Zerak Brown refused to allow them to enter. Zerak Brown struggled with the troopers, asked his brother to bring him a gun and then fled. Zerak Brown was later spotted with a rifle and ran away again, encountering law enforcement officers a third time and pointing a rifle at them, evidence and testimony showed. He later turned himself in.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Viburnum Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Hunter prosecuted the case.

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Convicted felon gets 15-year maximum sentence after pointing gun at law enforcement officer

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – A 45-year-old Robstown resident has been sentenced to federal prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.

Guadalupe Calderon III pleaded guilty July 31.

U.S. District Judge Davis S. Morales has now ordered Calderon to serve 180 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by three years of supervised release. At the sentencing hearing, the court saw footage of Calderon pointing and attempting to fire a handgun at a local sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop. In handing down the sentence, the court noted he would have sentenced Calderon to a higher sentence, but the statutory maximum penalty was 180 months.

On July 26, 2024, law enforcement had conducted a traffic stop on Calderon’s truck. When asked for his license and insurance, he pointed a Ruger pistol at the officer’s face and pulled the trigger. When the gun did not fire, Calderon fled the scene in his truck.

Authorities located him approximately six hours later riding in another vehicle. A search resulted in the discovery of the firearm in the back seat where he had been sitting along with over 30 rounds of ammunition and a high-capacity drum magazine.

Calderon admitted the gun was his and that he had pointed it at the officer earlier that day.

He has multiple prior felony convictions. As such, he is prohibited from possessing firearms per federal law.

Calderon has been and will remain in custody.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted the investigation with the assistance of the Nueces County Sheriff’s Department and Corpus Christi Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Martin prosecuted the case.