Author: KESQ

John White

CALEXICO, CA (KESQ) – A report by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General indicates that the federal government’s focus on immigration investigations may have resulted in fewer resources allocated to fentanyl investigations. The report also found that 90% of interdicted fentanyl entering the United States is stopped directly at designated ports of entry.

The findings come as border officials manage heavy commercial and passenger traffic at two major ports of entry in Calexico, located just over two hours South of the Coachella Valley. Federal agents at these crossings are tasked with inspecting rail and vehicular cargo while maintaining the flow of trade between the United States and Mexico.

I-Team: Check Out Part 2 of John White’s Report – Changes over the past 18 months

At the Calexico ports of entry, border officials rely on specialized non-intrusive inspection technology to scan incoming cargo and vehicles for illegal narcotics and security threats. Bonnie Arellano, Assistant Port Director in Calexico, outlined how new portals help manage the flow of traffic crossing the border. “These are called MEPs. That’s multi-energy portals, basically non-intrusive inspection equipment that is set to make the process coming in from Mexico into the United States a lot smoother,” Arellano said.

The two Calexico crossings accommodate billions of dollars in trade, including rail and automobile transport, while processing an average of 20,000 vehicles, carrying 40,000 to 50,000 people daily.

The travelers represent a major economic driver for local businesses and U.S. commerce, with visitors traveling into the country for heavy shopping and tourism destinations. Vehicles selected for secondary inspection undergo comprehensive searches, which can include undercarriage checks and canine sweeps. In one recent secondary inspection, agents uncovered more than 14 kilograms of methamphetamine concealed inside a vehicle’s dashboard.

Vehicles seized during drug interdictions are thoroughly inspected and dismantled before being sent to public auctions. “I refer to every car as a soap opera for the 23-plus years that I’ve been into this effort,” Arellano said. “If I take all those inspections that way, then I get a chance to get to the bottom of it every single time and that’s what we talk about here with the officers.”

Pedestrian inspection lanes are also monitored by officers who inspect documentation for every traveler walking across the border. Arellano emphasized the necessity of strict operational oversight at the physical ports of entry. “It’s to control the chaos, right?” Arellano said. “Because if you if you don’t have control of the area, then you’re in a situation where you get overrun and we can’t have that.”

Travelers utilizing the Calexico West port of entry face an average wait time of 58 minutes, though delays can exceed 2 hours during busy periods.

Check Out: Wait Times at Calexico Ports of Entry

Border officials state that wait times at Calexico border crossings are expected to increase in the coming weeks as the regional agricultural season gets underway, bringing an influx of cross-border workers between Mexico and the United States.

See Part Two of John White’s I-Team investigation, “Return to the Border,” Thursday at 6pm on News Channel 3.

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Tommy Gallegos

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (KESQ) — Palm Springs High School was placed on a brief lockdown Wednesday, just before 11:30 a.m., while law enforcement investigated a reported safety concern on campus, according to Palm Springs Unified School District.

PSUSD said students and staff were safe and that there was no evacuation.

PSUSD announced that law enforcement had completed its investigation and cleared the campus.

“There is no verified threat to students or staff,” the district said. School operations have returned to normal, and all students and staff are safe.

During the investigation, investigators identified and located a minor suspected of making the threat. The minor was detained on suspicion of making a false report of a bomb, police said.

Police emphasized that there is no indication of an ongoing threat to the school community.

Palm Springs Unified School District released the following statement to News Channel 3:

“We are pleased to share that law enforcement has completed its investigation of the reported safety concern in campus. The campus has been cleared, and there is no verified threat to students or staff. School operations have returned to normal, all students and staff are safe. We appreciate the quick response and support of law enforcement. We understand that situations like this can be concerning, and we thank you for your patience and cooperation as we worked to ensure the safety of our school community. The safety and well-being of our students and staff will always remain our highest priority.”

News Channel 3 originally held off on reporting this on air due to our policy on promoting unfounded threats. We are now reporting to illustrate the consequences of threats.

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Matthew Pearce

THOUSAND PALMS, Calif. (KESQ) — In a news conference yesterday, Steve Hilton announced a plan to abolish the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

“This is step one in our plan to cut the cost of living for Californians,” Hilton said.

The proposal aims to simplify vehicle services and reduce registration costs across California. In addition to shifting routine transactions away from the state agency, the campaign plan calls for repurposing existing DMV buildings to expand educational facilities for children.

Under Hilton’s proposal, DMV services such as routine title, registration, license-plate and renewal transactions would move to county offices and certified local service centers.

Hilton also wants to replace the current vehicle-registration fee formula, which can cost hundreds of dollars, with a flat $73 fee.

The proposal has drawn mixed reactions from local drivers concerning state revenue and overall logistics. Matt Vogel, a Palm Desert resident, expressed interest in the lower cost while noting potential budget impacts.

“It certainly would make it easier in my pocket book, but I’m sure they have to consider how they’re going to make up the lost revenue,” Vogel said.

Some drivers expressed concern that closing DMV offices could add to the area’s vacant commercial buildings, while supporters argue that consolidating services could improve administrative efficiency.

This is not the first time a Republican California governor candidate has made DMV and vehicle-registration fees a campaign issue. In 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigned on repealing Gov. Gray Davis’ tripling of the vehicle license fee, which had become a major issue in the recall election. After taking office, Schwarzenegger rescinded the increase.

Hilton and competitor Xavier Becerra are set to face off in a candidate debate scheduled for Sept. 30. Becerra has not yet issued a response regarding Hilton’s proposal to eliminate the DMV.

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Kiera McKinney

THOUSAND PALMS, Calif. (KESQ)- As temperatures remain high across the Coachella Valley, humidity can add another challenge for people spending time outdoors.

When humidity rises, sweat has a harder time evaporating off the skin. That matters because evaporation is one of the main ways the body cools itself. Even though sweat may not evaporate as easily in humid conditions, the body can continue sweating and losing fluids.

A 2026 study looking at people exercising in 95-degree conditions found that about 89% of sweat effectively evaporated at 15% humidity. At 75% humidity, that dropped to about 45%.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says high humidity can make it harder for sweat to evaporate, while continued sweating can increase fluid loss and the risk of dehydration and heat-related illness.

NIOSH recommends people doing moderate activity in the heat for less than two hours drink about eight ounces of water every 15 to 20 minutes.

But how should you change the way you hydrate when humidity rises? And when should you reach for electrolytes instead of just water?

News Channel 3 is speaking with a registered dietitian about what you should drink and eat during humid weather, the signs you may not be getting enough fluids and who may need to be especially careful.

Watch News Channel 3 at 5 for what you need to know about staying hydrated when the Valley gets hot and humid.

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Julia Castro

THOUSAND PALMS, Calif. (KESQ) — News Channel 3 has returned to the air after technical difficulties temporarily disrupted the station’s local broadcast Wednesday morning.

Network programming aired during the outage while station staff worked to restore service.

Normal News Channel 3 programming has since resumed.

We appreciate viewers’ patience while crews worked to resolve the issue.

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Tommy Gallegos

MORONGO BAISN, CA (KESQ) – An off-duty San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy helped lead authorities to the recovery of nearly $50,000 worth of merchandise allegedly stolen from a freight train in the Morongo Basin, says the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff’s say the incident began Friday, Sept. 4, when deputies were notified of a train heist near Amboy involving an estimated 15 to 20 vehicles, including several white box trucks. Investigators said the stolen cargo included Ariat boots and DeWalt construction equipment valued at approximately $50,000.

The department said later that evening, an off-duty deputy traveling home spotted a white box truck matching the description provided by investigators on Twentynine Palms Highway. The deputy immediately notified on-duty personnel and provided the vehicle’s location and direction of travel.

Deputies later stopped the truck near Cholla Avenue. Two occupants fled on foot, while a third was detained with assistance from the California Highway Patrol. Deputies pursued the fleeing suspects, and a sheriff’s helicopter located one suspect hiding in a nearby bush.

Two suspects were arrested and booked into the Morongo Basin Jail on suspicion of commercial burglary and grand theft of cargo valued at more than $950.

Authorities said the case highlights growing concerns over organized thefts targeting freight trains and emphasized the importance of reporting suspicious activity. News Channel 3’s Garret Hottle covered the process authorities under-go when tracking train robberies. The investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Morongo Basin Station at (760) 366-4175. Anonymous tips can be submitted through We-Tip or by texting “REPORT” to (844) 909-3006.

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Gavin Nguyen

CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. (KESQ) – Cathedral City officially swore in its newest police chief, Rick Sanchez, Tuesday evening at City Hall.

Sanchez had served as the acting chief since the retirement of former Chief George Crum in December 2025. He is the first Latino to lead the department. He’s a nearly 20-year veteran with the department having joined the department in 2006.

The ceremony filled Cathedral City’s council chambers with city leaders, top law enforcement officials from across the valley, and residents of the city.

“I think it’s great,” said Sandra Martinez, one of the residents in attendance. “Having the first Latino chief is great for the community. It sounds like he’s going to represent the community really well.”

It was a months-long process to find the right person for the job. Mayor Raymond Gregory added, “We needed someone that could hit the ground running that could, you know, keep control of the police department, be accountable and transparent to the public. And we think we have the right man.”

Mayor Gregory said while home-grown, the position wasn’t handed to Sanchez just because of his history with the department. He said he earned it – and with that, he’s made the city proud.

“This was something that was earned. But to be able to find someone inside the ranks,” the mayor said. “Our first Latino chief, a chief that came up through the ranks… it’s a really proud day for Cathedral City.”

In August, News Channel 3 spoke exclusively with the incoming chief. He outlined his goals, including a commitment to public trust, collaboration, accountability and community-oriented policing.

We followed up with the chief on those goals after the ceremony. He led our crews on a walkthrough of the station, giving us an inside look.

Newly sworn-in Chief Rick Sanchez surveys his department’s vehicle fleet

When asked about where he plans to steer the department next, he replied, “Continue to move forward. We need to embrace technology to see how it can help our job be a little more efficient. Our drone first responder program has been a tremendous help not only to our department, but to the other departments as well in our city.”

Some of these new technologies, like license plate cameras, have received public pushback in recent weeks. He made it clear that he was prioritizing being transparent and educating the community about the tech.

“Technology… you need to be responsible with it,” Chief Sanchez affirmed. “There has to be the training, the supervision, the auditing and the transparency in place to share with the residents as to why the technology is needed, how it benefits them and the department and how there’s some type of oversight to protect people from this using it.”

The chief was quick to offer a chance for our cameras to peek into the brains of the department: the dispatch center. Like other departments in the valley, this is where it controls its drone program and safety cameras. The personnel inside said the technology they’re leveraging is helping boost safety for both officers and the public.

“Do you think you’re going to give tours just like this to members of the public, if they want it?” we asked Chief Sanchez after he finished showing us around.

“We would hope so, especially once we get more drone operators,” he teased.

While there’s no concrete timeline for getting station tours running for Cathedral City residents, he said it’s certainly in the cards as more personnel, like drone operators, are hired.

As chief, Sanchez now oversees a department with 81.5 sworn and professional employees serving more than 52,000 residents. He said he plans to build on the department’s existing foundation while emphasizing professionalism, transparency, innovation and community partnerships.

Our walk with Rick ended on the top floor of the station, feet away from the Chief’s Office. Hanging on the wall were the portraits of the chiefs that came before him. With a proud look in his eye, Sanchez said, “I am the first one in the Cathedral City Police Department to actually have started here from the ground level and worked my way up and promoted throughout the ranks, which is definitely a tremendous honor and privilege for me.”

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Tommy Gallegos

PALM SPRINGS, CA (KESQ) – Palm Springs residents will have another chance to see how the city’s police department uses real-time technology, this time on a Saturday.

The Palm Springs Police Department is bringing back its community tours of the Real Time Intelligence Center (RTIC) on Saturday, September 26, following feedback from residents who said they were interested in attending previous tours but couldn’t make it during the workweek.

The department will offer three tour sessions throughout the day at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Each session will be limited to 25 participants, and advance registration is required.

The RTIC tours are intended to give community members a behind-the-scenes look at the technology and systems, such as FLOCK cameras, available to Palm Springs police, while also providing an opportunity to learn about the safeguards surrounding their use.

During the guided experience, participants will see demonstrations of some of the technology used by the department, walk through a real-world scenario and learn how information is used to help support public safety operations.

The department also plans to discuss the policies and safeguards governing the RTIC, including access controls, audits, oversight and privacy protections. As automated license plate readers continue to face scrutiny locally and nationwide, Palm Springs Police has told KESQ that regardless of whether information originates from Flock or another technology, human verification remains a necessary part of the investigative process.

All three sessions will have limited capacity, with 25 participants allowed per session.

Residents interested in attending can register online and selecting one of the available tour times.

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Garrett Hottle

SKY VALLEY, Calif. (KESQ) Bobbee McGuire never went to Ground Zero. Ground Zero came to her, one roll of film at a time.

In September 2001, McGuire was an assistant manager at an Eckerd drugstore on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie, New York, about 80 miles north of the World Trade Center. She also ran the store’s one-hour photo lab.

On the morning of Sept. 11, she says, her store manager sent her home early because colleges across the Hudson Valley, including the Culinary Institute of America, where her husband was a student, were locking down. She called her mother and asked her to turn on the news.

“I just stood there looking at the TV like, did I just really see that?” she said.

The next morning, McGuire arrived to open the store and found military trucks in the parking lot. The men inside were New York Guard volunteers, members of the state’s unpaid defense force, on their way to the World Trade Center site.

“They literally took every little shopping cart that we had,” she said. “Cases of water, bottles of water, any type of first aid supplies, gauze, bandages, you name it. They really cleared out my store.”

When they came to the register, she refused to ring them up.

“I said, I can’t charge you. There’s so many more people down there that need it more than we do,” McGuire said. “One of my newer employees was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re going to get fired.’ And I went, well, I guess if I do, it’s for a good reason.”

She wasn’t fired. Her district manager, she says, had nine stores on the east side of the Hudson start over-ordering supplies and trucking the extra to her location. For weeks, the drugstore became a resupply point, with volunteers eventually arriving in big rigs to haul donations south.

On the return trips, they brought her their film.

“The sergeant in charge said, some of these are very graphic and we only want one person in charge of processing the film,” McGuire said. “And he said, I want you to be that person.”

About 25 volunteers dropped off two or three rolls each every other day, she says. She estimates more than 40,000 images of the site passed through her lab, most of which have never been seen publicly.

“I would sit for hours, even sometimes after my shift was over, processing rolls of film,” she said. “I saw things that nobody should ever have to see or experience.”

The volunteers offered to let her keep one print. She chose a photograph of the flag-raising at Ground Zero, an image she says was taken moments after the famous photograph by The Record’s Thomas E. Franklin that became the “Heroes of 2001” postage stamp. She was told, she says, that the frame she picked would probably never be published.

Her binder also holds photos of a relief fundraiser the store organized about two weeks after the attacks, with Poughkeepsie police fingerprinting children for identification cards, Culinary Institute students running the grills and a table collecting donations for the Red Cross. One of the children fingerprinted that day was her daughter, Amanda, then a year old.

“The only reason she remembers is because I have pictures and I have stories,” McGuire said.

A framed photograph on her wall, signed by the unit, thanks “the Eckerd’s staff” from “Task Force Poughkeepsie, Disaster Relief, 4th Bde, N.Y. Guard.” The New York Guard was mobilized after the attacks in what the state’s Division of Military and Naval Affairs called its largest activation since World War I.

Friday marks the 25th anniversary. For the first time, the ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum will include a permanent seventh moment of silence for those who have died of 9/11-related illnesses, a toll the museum says now exceeds 9,000.

McGuire thinks about the men who came through her store.

“I don’t even know if their health has been affected,” she said. “It would be nice to know.”

The Eckerd chain no longer exists. Its New York stores became Rite Aids in 2007, and the Poughkeepsie location closed last year in Rite Aid’s liquidation. McGuire moved to Arizona in 2003 and now lives in Sky Valley.

She has hung the photographs in every home since.

“I had somebody ask me, why would you put pictures up of something so horrific?” she said. “And I said, because I think it’s important that we remember.”

Asked what she would say to the volunteers today, she didn’t hesitate.

“I’ll always be eternally grateful that you chose my store to stop at,” she said. “I wish I remembered all of their names.”

Local 9/11 ceremonies Friday include the Cathedral City Fire Department remembrance at 8:15 a.m. at Fire Station 1, the Palm Springs Fire Department ceremony at 8:30 a.m. at Fire Station 2, and the dedication of Indio’s new 9/11 memorial, built around a steel beam from the World Trade Center, at 9 a.m. at Miles Avenue Park.

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