El Paso Fusion Center

massacre is the deadliest terrorist attack on american soil since 9/11… and today, president obama said the plot originated on american soil. this is certainly an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time. officials are learning more about the gunman, 29 year old omar mateen, who was born in new york to afghan parents. at this point, federal investigators say there’s no evidence to suggest that mateen was directed to carry out sunday’s attack by a terrorist network. the fbi says it had been tracking mateen since may 2013 … after claiming his family had connections to al qaeda: over the next 10 months, we attempted to determine whether he was possibly a terrorist, something we do in hundreds and hundreds of cases all across the country. the city of orlando has released the names of eleven officers who fired at the nightclub shooter. one of them was michael napolitano, who was shot in his kevlar helmet. here in el paso, authorities monitor the situation at the el paso fusion center. a network of these centers operates across the country. abc-7’s darren hunt is live to tell us … what a fusion center is and how it works … darren. rick/estela, our fusion center is one of 72 across the country. members of different law enforcement agencies analyze information, identify trends and share timely information with each other. “things can be unpredictable, w live in a crazy world, unfortunately … we see far too much of this and its horrific when it happens.” sheriff richard wiles says fusion centers are a relatively new network across the country. local, state and federal law enforcers all get and share information at the same time. “we will get immediate emails o our phones to alert us from the fusion center as to what’s occurring and these things come in constantly … every time something new happens in regards to that incident it is updated … they monitor social media in case people make threats or we get information about a crime and that information is taken and given to the appropriate agency even if its from another jurisdiction.” el paso’s fusion center is located at the el paso police department headquarters on raynor in central el paso. police denied our request to show it to you. “its probably one of the best i’ve ever seen, they had a lot of grant funding that went into it, it’s fully staffed, although its not open 24 hours right now we’re moving towards that and eventually we’ll have that.” wiles said although it not currently open all the time, it can be activated at any time, like it was this past weekend. “if something were to happe that would indicate an immediate threat to this area, they would open it up … we’re good here in a lot of aspects and other communities probably don’t have that same type relationship and collaborative effort that we have in el paso.” wiles told me that following the orlando incident, the f-b-i and homeland security have led conference calls the past two days that his agency has taken part in. he told me there is no specific threat related to el paso at this time. rick and estela. let’s take you outside for a view of the borderland this