Must read for all.
Couldn't say it better Ping.
Posted on 02/20/2006 8:53:52 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
FORT HANCOCK — The threat to Johnny Schuller came Jan. 25, two days after a border incursion — allegedly involving the Mexican army — put this remote farming town on center stage in the international drug war.
"There were three individuals driving a car with Mexican plates. They pulled up to my residence way out in the country," recalled the Hudspeth County deputy, 61, who stands 6 feet 4 inches and weighs 260 pounds.
"My wife was out walking. The driver called her by name. He told her in broken English to tell me to stay off the river," said Schuller, who regrets he wasn't home at the time.
"I'd have taken appropriate action," he said without elaborating.
Though smuggling has been part of life in Hudspeth County at least since Prohibition, when Mexicans packed booze north through the thorn brush, in recent years the stakes have changed.
What deputies once called "mom-and-pop" dope smuggling that involved small loads and quick surrenders at the flash of blue and red police lights is now a thing of the past.
Instead, they say, they are confronted by powerful cartels, working with the Mexican military, intent on crossing huge loads along one of the most isolated stretches of the Texas border.
The Mexican government adamantly denies its military is involved in the smuggling.
"It's to the point where people coming out of Mexico are carrying automatic weapons and standing at the crossings, protecting their loads. Now it's organized crime," said Chief Deputy Mike Doyal.
And with only a dozen deputies working in the 4,571 square miles of the state's third-largest county, which includes nearly 100 miles of riverfront, there is a sense that things are getting out of hand.
On Jan. 23, deputies said, a Mexican army Humvee backed by two dozen armed and uniformed men crossed the Rio Grande in a failed attempt to smuggle three vehicles loaded with marijuana.
Photographs taken by deputies did not capture the Humvee on the U.S. side of the river but clearly show people unloading plastic bales of suspected dope from another vehicle that got stuck in it.
Nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana was recovered from another SUV that blew a tire during the same chase, in which speeds exceeded 100 mph. Wrapped in pink plastic, that dope joined tons of pot seized earlier.
The alleged military incursion prompted a diplomatic protest note from U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza to the Mexican government, which continues to deny involvement by its military.
But such protestations elicit scoffs here.
In Hudspeth County, few doubt Mexican soldiers have been involved in several recent smuggling attempts.
"I'm still saying it's the Mexican military," said Arvin West, the outspoken sheriff. "We've stopped convoys of trucks hauling merchandise into Mexico at those crossings, and the drivers say it's cheaper to pay the Mexican military than to go through customs."
Late last fall, deputies pursuing a dump truck loaded with pot back to the border had to stop and stare in disbelief when a bulldozer appeared from the Mexican side and towed the truck to safety.
According to deputies, armed Mexican military personnel were present at that episode.
Since the most recent incident, West and two deputies have gone to Washington to testify before a House subcommittee.
Officials from the capital have also come here for guided tours of a serpentine border that can be easily crossed by vehicles at a dozen spots in the county.
West has assigned more deputies to Fort Hancock, 35 miles west of the county seat of Sierra Blanca, where other deputies have received more explicit threats. Sheriff's guards are now posted at the two public schools.
And now, a subtle sense of menace lurks amid the picturesque irrigated bottomlands that surround Fort Hancock and will soon be growing pima cotton, alfalfa and chiles. Even people not involved in police work are taking protective measures.
"I sleep with a double-barreled shotgun on my bed stand. I'm worried about my family," said County Commissioner Curtis Carr, 58, who lives less than a mile from the river. "I think it's a remote possibility, but there is so much money involved in drugs, anything could happen."
Another commissioner, Jim Ed Miller, who farms along the river, has had to rein in his elderly mother, who became accustomed to running off strange vehicles she found on the farm.
"We finally convinced her to quit chasing the drug vehicles off. Now she calls the Border Patrol," he said.
County Judge Becky Dean Walker said the escalation of drug smuggling and the recent armed confrontations are alarming.
"There's a huge level of concern. I don't feel like households here are in danger, although people are scared. I do feel like the wives and families of the deputies are in danger because of the threats," she said.
"The people across the river know the deputies by name and by sight, and where they live. And they know they can get to the deputies through their families," Walker said.
And, she said, attempts elsewhere to deny what is happening here are insulting.
"It was kind of insinuated that the sheriff had a hidden agenda, but that's bull," she said.
Terry Rose, 59, a farmer and lifelong resident of Fort Hancock, fears the worst is to come, most likely as the result of a high-speed chase or shootout.
"Somebody innocent is going to die, either law enforcement or some innocent bystander," he said over coffee at Angie's, the local nerve center. "Let's be logical. The whole border has to be sealed. If you can't stop the drug traffickers and illegal immigrants, you can't stop terrorists from coming in."
But not everyone feels a sense of rising danger.
Among them is Gene Henderson, a former Border Patrol agent who now farms in Fort Hancock. On a recent day, he climbed down from his huge John Deere tractor to chat.
"In my personal opinion, things haven't changed much in the last 20 or 30 years. They've been smuggling narcotics here for that long, and we've had lots of confrontations with drug smugglers," he said.
He said the latest incident has drawn the attention of national leaders to the problem. But he has little hope that will stop the smugglers.
"The only way you'll solve the flow of narcotics into this country is to make it unprofitable. Let the American farmer grow it for one year and it won't be worth 2 cents," he joked.
But for those caught in the cross hairs, it's anything but a theoretical problem.
Kelly Lagarreta, 34, the first deputy to arrive on the riverbank Jan. 23 to encounter the Humvee, said both he and his partner have since received threats.
"They told the girlfriend of my partner that we were going to get hit. They said they had photos and addresses," said Lagarreta, a star halfback on the state championship six-man football teams in the late '80s.
"I don't put anything past 'em. I've been here all my life and I've seen people disappear," he said.
Lagarreta said he is now doubly cautious about his own movements and the safety of his family. And, he said, he expects more trouble.
"It's not going to end. It's been so lucrative for so long and they are taking extreme measures to protect their shipments. It was just a matter of time," he said.
But, if nothing else, he said, the situation he and others believe involves the Mexican military in drug smuggling is no longer a secret.
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jmaccormack@express-news.net
George...time to get on it.
No more politicking with your Hispanic base. Got to close the border down NOW!!!!
In this case, appropriate action would consist of the triple S solution: shoot, shovel and shut up.
Anyone who is familiar with Mexico knows the whole place is corrupt, including the police force.
Why on earth would anyone think the Mexican Army is not corrupt? Of course they are.
I am sicerely hoping no one else gets hurt down there. That being said I wouldn't go anywhere without packing. .357 revolver on the hip, 9 mil in the shoulder holster and a rifle in the gun rack.
If there are armed Mexicans violating our borders, why are we not shooting back at them? What are we waiting for?
Someone should dig a hole for Arvin, just in case his body is recovered after the federal-es deal with him.
Later read.
BTTT.
Must read for all.
I only have 1 question about this whole situation:
How many Americans will need to die at the hands of these thugs before George Bush takes action?
NOTHING will be done until then.
Now, shall we takes some bets? How many Americans must die? 5? 8? 50? 3,000?
Border ping!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this South Texas/Mexico ping list.
ping
George takes his orders from the NWO leadership. The intent is to merge the US and Mexico at "third world" status. This will stop once the "Americas" hemisphere has been merged. If we do nothing to throw off a government that does not represent its citizens, and we don't have much of a future. A "grass roots" efforts is required to replace all who pretend to represent us. This goes for Democrats and Republicans alike.
Interesting
Most of the hispanics I know in my part of TX are all for tightening border security.
At a recent "don't close the border" rally in San Antonio, most of the protestors were people who came in buses from California than locals.
Why do Bush et al continue to alienate tens of millions of potential voting Americans in order to "His-pander" to maybe 5 million Mexican voters in favor of a new shamnesty?.......what's the matter with these knuckelheads?.......don't they understand math?
Must read for all.
Couldn't say it better Ping.
Exactly, I find it amusing when people propose to only fence or concentrate LE efforts in the "high traffic" areas. Three guesses what happens next in the so-called low traffic areas.
Mexico is the new Colombia, the official government is no longer in control. Mexico is controlled by drug lords and Mexican "mafia" style gangs. The officials are only figureheads.
The drug lords and gangs used to pay off officials, now there is no need to pay off anyone. Most officials are part of the illegal activities and those that aren't are killed.
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