Posted on 02/09/2007 6:59:55 PM PST by SandRat
The detailed picture that emerged Friday about events that led to bandits shooting and killing three Central American illegal entrants in northwest Tucson provides a glimpse into the violent underbelly of human trafficking in Arizona where people are viewed as commodities.
Here's how events unfolded early Thursday morning northwest of Tucson near the Silver Bell Mine Road area that took the lives of two men and one woman.
Authorities have not yet released the nationally, age or names of the victims.
Between 4:30-5 a.m., a Dodge pickup stolen out of Phoenix was driving north across the Tohono O'dham Reservation with a group of 15-20 Central American illegal entrants, said a press release from the Pima County Sheriff's Office.
A group of bandits tried to stop the vehicle and opened fire when the truck refused to stop. Authorities estimated the gunfire came from four bandits shooting high powered rifles. Bullets entered the front and side of the truck, the release states.
The gunfire likely came from assault weapons or AK-47s, judging by the casings found said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is also investigating the shooting. After the shooting began, the truck continued traveling at high speed along Silver Bell Mine Road before it lost control and ran off the the dirt roadway into the desert. The occupants got out of the vehicle and ran into the desert.
There were at least seven people in the vehicle that the Pima County Sheriff's Office has accounted for but there could have been at least 10 more people involved, based on interviews with the four survivors.
The four people that fled the scene left behind a dead female in the center front seat and a dead man in the bed of the truck, said Pima County Sheriff's Department Bureau Chief Richard Kastigar.
They made it back to the roadway, apparently dragging a man who had been shot in the head. A 21-year-old Mexican man who was shot in the hand and lost some of his fingers left the group and went in another direction. Authorities learned Friday that that individual, Pedro Luis Beltran-Camargo, 21, of Chapalita, Sonora, Mexico was the guide, or coyote, in the truck and arrested him. The other four were picked up on the Silverbell Mine Road by another truck carrying illegal entrants. The truck drove about eight to 10 miles northwest until the driver realized the seriousness of the injuries his passengers, Kastigar said.
They ordered the three illegal entrants still alive out of the vehicle, dumped the body of the man who had been shot in the head and kept driving, the report says. The man died on the side of the road, the report said.
A local rancher found the three survivors and called 911. He found:
TROUBLE AT THE BORDER
More of the same and it is only going to get worse.
Thanks for a great job, Washington, DC!
Illegal "entrants"
oh wow...
now they will be just undocumented entrants throughout the MSM within days...
lovely how people claim that "entering" is their only crime...
I mean stealing trucks and high speed gun battles with AK47's is just a routine day for most Americans, eh?
All I can say is they have better changed the ROE after for the National Guard.
Makes sense.
When the revolving door is unlocked, there is no need to break before entering.
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