Posted on 11/24/2006 4:50:42 AM PST by King of Florida
For years, Roger Barnett has holstered a pistol to his hip, tucked an assault rifle in his truck and set out over the scrub brush on his thousands of acres of ranchland near the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona to hunt.
Hunt illegal immigrants, that is, often chronicled in the news.
“They’re flooding across, invading the place,” Mr. Barnett told the ABC program “Nightline” this spring. “They’re going to bring their families, their wives, and they’re going to bring their kids. We don’t need them.”
But now, after boasting of having captured 12,000 illegal crossers on land he owns or leases from the state and emerging as one of the earliest and most prominent of the self-appointed border watchers, Mr. Barnett finds himself the prey.
Immigrant rights groups have filed lawsuits, accusing him of harassing and unlawfully imprisoning people he has confronted on his ranch near Douglas. One suit pending in federal court accuses him, his wife and his brother of pointing guns at 16 illegal immigrants they intercepted, threatening them with dogs and kicking one woman in the group.
Another suit, accusing Mr. Barnett of threatening two Mexican-American hunters and three young children with an assault rifle and insulting them with racial epithets, ended Wednesday night in Bisbee with a jury awarding the hunters $98,750 in damages.
The court actions are the latest example of attempts by immigrant rights groups to curb armed border-monitoring groups by going after their money, if not their guns. They have won civil judgments in Texas, and this year two illegal Salvadoran immigrants who had been held against their will took possession of a 70-acre ranch in southern Arizona after winning a case last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I'll bet dollars to donuts they aren't.
He's got a perfect right to escort trespassers off his property at gunpoint. He's also got a perfect right to keep them off that way.
He's also well within his rights to make a citizens arrest and hold suspected lawbreakers until the proper authorities arrive.
You've really got to quit taking anything in the NYT at face value.
L
Maybe not in front of reporters ....
I can easily imagine their making bigoted remarks about white, male, Catholic Republicans. The reporters themselves would make such remarks, I would guess. I can also easily imagine their security guards or the police they summon pointing guns at me and delivering a few coups de main or coups depied if I didn't comply, yes.
It sounds to me like you think the rancher was excessive. Maybe he was. But evidently Texas law gives him the right to compel trespassers to leave his property. My GUESS, entirely unjustified, is that the kick was a response to non-compliance.
It certainly gets my attention that ONE vibe here is that the illegales MIGHT have been culpable, but the rancher is guilty of what's alleged against him until proved innocent.
The information about killing cattle is interesting, but surely the laws have changed? Hanging (and killing a human) for the killing of animals (which, granted, are also a livelihood) is too much.
Go back and read the comments, particularly the first one, the only on that directly is about the article (all the others are in response to others' posts). You will see that it states if the article is factual.
Surely? Don't call me Shirley....
Anyway, no....the Texas laws regarding malishous mischief have not changed....Malicious mischief conducted at nighttime in Texas allows a defense to prosecution in the use of deadly force. It does not require that the perp threaten the defenders life...although that helps...
These 19th century laws were designed to deter that which was happening then and is happening today.
And you're not being called Hardy, either.
Bull! Cops can do it. Store owners can do it. Land owners can do it.
This was a set up. Maybe he should mine his property line and you won't see any crying over gun pointing.
And any such scenario would have to be approved by the government. Again, vigilantism/vigilanteism is bad.
In Texas it is....be warned....
I am not exaggerating. Hunting on private property without permission is called poaching...and that is even a more serious offense...especially at night....then is is called rustling...
And as for mining the property line. Hypoethetically, what if you tried that and some child goes wandering over because there dog or toy did, too, and they blow up. Imagine how your neighbors would view you then.
It's private property..and in Texas, that still have a special meaning... Sadly, public scrhools seem to teach that everything can be rationalized....even property damage, trespassing, and theft.....
Will you rationalize it when they start coming across with bombs strapped to their waists?
Anyone can make racist statements unless you are a white American male. The thought police only arrest whites for hate speech.
How can people trespass (if that is the it) in a store?
Once the owner asks you to leave his property and you don't you are trespassing.
For cops, that is another case. If some stranger trespasses into a police station-- type, the locker room, then it could be that the police would feel threatened enough to draw their guns (again, it hinges on whether they feel threatened; did the man in the article feel threatened? He could have, but it doesn't state that in the article).
He doesn't have to feel threatened if they are trespassing. Get it through your head. We don't' live in a socialist world where "what you have is also mine".
And for land owners, unless they are threatened, such as if they lived in a dangerous neighborhood, they would have no reason to point a gun at a trespasser on their property.
Not leaving private property when requested by the owner is considered a threat. You may see it as a threat to your person and take necessary action.
Furthermore, it is highly suggestive that this man had a lot of land; it's not as though some guy is in your small backyard.
So what? Are you really a socialist? It doesn't matter the size of the land. It just matters that they are on your property. That is really some demented train of thought. I would expect that from Mao or Karl Marx but not from a thinking American.
And as for mining the property line. Hypoethetically, what if you tried that and some child goes wandering over because there dog or toy did, too, and they blow up. Imagine how your neighbors would view you then.
I don't exist on my property to please my neighbors. That is clearly another socialist point of view.
Of course, calling the police won't help. They take too long to arrive most of the time.
I'm afraiaad your view comes down to there being NOTHING a property owner may do to protect his interest in his property and his privacy.
Is there anything morally licit the nation can do, in our opinion? And if there is, does that mean that we citizens of a representative republic are at the mercy of our state and federal government when it comes to protecting our property from trespassers? Personally, I think if you put yourself in the position ofo someone trying to protect what it his, if you try to come up with an effective solution, you may find the problem looks different and the alleged actions of the subject of this article may bear a different moral weight. It's easy to find fault with someone who does what you've never attempted.
However, I do NOT think he has legal authority to detain them at gunpoint unless he caught them breaking into his home or car on his property (I think he SHOULD be able to, but that's not what Texas law says, from what I can gather).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.