State's Attorney Asked Police to Target Freddie Gray Corner:  According to an email sent to the division chief of the Crime Strategies Unit, Baltimore, State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby requested that police focus drug enforcement efforts on the corner where Freddie Gray was chased by officers before allegedly suffering a fatal injury in police custody.  Kevin Rector of the Baltimore Sun reports that the new information reinforces the need to remove Mosby from the case because "this is a case where the witness and the prosecutor are one and the same."  Mosby's office has argued against previous requests for her removal from the case and had no immediate response to a request for comment regarding the new findings.

Amtrak Engineer Did Not Use Phone at Time of Crash:  Phone records show that Brandon Bostian, the Amtrak engineer who was operating the train that crashed near Philadelphia last month, was not using his phone at the time of the accident, which left eight people dead and hundreds injured.  Rene Marsh, Jason Hanna and Matthew Hoye of CNN report that Bostian claims no memory of the crash, saying that he is unable to recall anything that happened after he pulled the train's whistle three miles before the crash.  Though records indicate that he wasn't using his phone, investigators still need to determine whether the phone was turned off.

Female Prison Worker Supplied Tools to Escaped Killers:  Sources say that a female prison work supervisor gave two convicted murderers the power tools used to escape from a New York maximum-security prison last Friday.  Fox News reports that 51-year-old Joyce Mitchell gave Richard Matt and David Sweat power tools that they used to cut through steel walls, and also planned to provide a getaway vehicle for the escape but instead checked herself into a hospital following a panic attack.  To date no charges have been filed against her.  The two escapees are still at large.

144 Illegals Arrested Near Border:  Two separate stash house raids conducted in Texas border cities have resulted in the arrests of 144 illegal immigrants.  Ildefonso Ortiz of Breitbart reports that authorities were alerted to the locations of the stash houses after a series of interviews with people in custody.  So far this year, the U.S. Border Patrol has processed approximately 96,000 detentions, numbers that indicate "the beginning stages of a new migration wave."

Drug Use the Root Cause of Portland's Crime Spike:  Drug use may be the root cause of Portland, Oregon's spike in violent crime, according to the city's police department.  David Hench of the Portland Press Herald reports that there have been seven incidents in which a perpetrator brandished a gun or a knife in the course of a robbery, which acting Chief Vern Malloch believes to be a way for criminals to feed their drug habit.  The department notes that there have not been any comparable upticks in crime in the past.

Gun Trafficking Bill Targets Police:  New legislation requires police departments to provide federal authorities with information regarding guns recovered at crime scenes before becoming eligible for federal funding.  Time Devaney of The Hill reports that police departments must indicate how many guns they recovered the previous year, how many were sent to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing, and provide the reason why any guns were not submitted.  Currently, less than one-third of police departments use ATF's gun tracing database as a resource.