Along border, hunters become hunted

Austin American-Statesman ^ | Thursday, November 30, 2006 | Mike Leggett - Outdoors

[WestTexasWend]

-Attack on Americans on private ranch may signal shift in Laredo-area violence-

I'm surprised it hadn't happened sooner, hunters being attacked or kidnapped along the border.

The news that Laredo businessman Librado Piña Jr., his son and three other men were kidnapped Sunday from Piña's ranch just across the border in Coahuila was shocking in the brazen way the attack was carried out. Less surprising was the fact that it happened.

According to news reports from Laredo, Piña, his son Librado Piña III, David Mueller of Roscoe, plus Fidel Rodriguez Cerdan and Marco Ortiz were taken hostage by a group of heavily armed men at the ranch Sunday night. As many as 50 armed men stormed the ranch and held the victims at gunpoint while they ransacked the house and stole vehicles, furniture, deer mounts and guns.

Mueller and Cerdan, a businessman from Monterrey, were freed Wednesday, authorities said. Ortiz works as a cook at Piña's hunting ranch, Coahuila state prosecutor Jesus Torres said.

There had been no previous threats to the ranch or to the family, according to family members. However, the violence and frequent bloodshed that have wracked the area around Laredo and Nuevo Laredo may have spilled over into the hunting community.

Nobody who hunts in Mexico is unaware of the problems, though most of the time things go smoothly when Texans are crossing the border to hunt deer or doves. The danger usually resides on the drives from the border crossing to ranches inside Mexico, not on the ranches themselves. Now those might harbor danger, too, according to one Texas ranch owner.

"I carry a handgun with me all the time now," said Bill Carter, a Houston businessman who owns the famed Sombrerito Ranch just north of Laredo. "I just don't feel like I can take any chances any more."

The last time I fished in Mexico, on Lake Comedero on the West Coast north of Mazatlan, we were met by armed guards as soon as we had cleared customs. The guards, who stayed with us on the entire trip, including four days on the water, carried automatic weapons and never let us out of their sight.

That seemed to be a necessary precaution, of course, though most of the time in rural Mexico, American citizens are OK. The violence mostly has been limited to people on some side of the drug wars. Now that the problem has spilled over to American citizens on a private ranch, we have to wonder whether ranches and ranchers along the border might be at risk.

Carter said illegal traffic through his ranch has shifted significantly since the U.S. Border Patrol recently moved its Laredo checkpoint 25 miles north of his ranch on Interstate 35. Most of the illegal traffic, whether it involve drugs or immigrants, centers around evading the agents at the station itself, which has taken pressure off the ranch. However, Carter's ranch suffered significant damage before the checkpoint shifted.

"We just replaced the entire fence around the Sombrerito," he said. "Twenty six miles. There was almost nothing left but the posts, and we were carrying a roll of wire with us and patching fence everywhere we went."

Carter has been ranching and hunting in South Texas for more than 30 years, and he has seen the border region change from a quiet area populated by a small group of hunters and ranchers into a booming real estate market and drug-smuggling mecca. "Texans should be concerned," he said. "We have 700 miles of border with Mexico, and this isn't getting better."

Many hunters come to Texas with plans to enjoy the nightlife and food across the border in Nuevo Laredo, Carter said, but he now advises them against crossing. "In the old days, the Cadillac Bar was the place to be on New Year's Eve. If there was somebody you hadn't seen in 10 years or a politician on a hunting trip, you could find them there," Carter said.

Now, Carter says, he doesn't go to Nuevo Laredo at all, and only visits the airport in Laredo to pick up hunters.

"We just go through the gate at the Sombrerito and lock it up behind us," he said.

[razorback-bert]

I know a couple of people, who used to go Mexico to hunt and fish, now they go to Russia.

[Minnesoootan]

Had some trail camera pics sent to me a few weeks ago from the border country...rather than deer,they were full of illegals.

[ASOC]

Sounds like the TEXAS Rangers had better put thier Special Force back on duty.

From http://www.lsjunction.com/facts/rangers.htm

In 1874, the Texas legislature sought to restore order by forming two groups of Rangers: the Special Force of Rangers and the Frontier Battalion. Under Captain Leander H. McNelly, the Special Force of Rangers moved into the Nueces Strip (between Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande) to combat lawlessness in that region.

Meanwhile, the Frontier Battalion, a force of some 450 Rangers under Major John B. Jones, participated in over fifteen Indian battles, and effectively neutralized the once powerful Commanches and Kiowas.

But perhaps more importantly, this group also "thinned out" more than 3,000 Texas desperados including bank robber Sam Bass and notorious gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.

[Jack Black]

I think we need the Frontier Battalion reconstituted. I think it's long past time for "thinning out" the badmen who run the border.

[ASOC]

The Special Force actually went cross border to take out bad guys from time to time.

Lots of history and short stories here
http://www.texasranger.org/history/Timeenforce.htm

The more things change, the more they stay the same, seems the "lawless border" is making a comeback. MAy take the US Army to sort it all out, just like olden days.

[ridesthemiles]

WHY is the checkpoint 25 miles NORTH of this guy's ranch, which is NORTH of the Border???

I can hide/put alot of illegal intruder aliens inside 25 miles+ of open land!!!!

No wonder these ranchers are in such jeopardy. North of the border doesn't make a difference to these intruders.