Posted on 06/11/2010 6:56:48 PM PDT by SandRat
During a 911 call Sunday, a wounded smuggler revealed tantalizing familiarity with the shooting of a Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy, the sheriff said Friday.
The caller — suspected of being a smuggler because he had strap marks on his shoulders — called 911 Sunday evening after he and a partner were shot while walking up a smuggling trail in southwestern Pinal County. He and the partner died in a remote area before officers could find him.
While trying to explain his location to a dispatcher the suspected smuggler said in Spanish he was “Right here where they shot the sheriff.”
Later, he said “I’m telling you I am in the place where they shot the sheriff.”
Deputy Louis Puroll reported being shot, apparently by smugglers he had been tracking, in the Vekol Valley near Antelope Peak on April 30. He was lightly wounded and is back on duty, but nobody has been arrested in the shootings.
The area where both incidents occurred is about 85 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border and about the same distance northwest of Tucson.
In a news conference at Casa Grande Municipal Airport Friday, Sheriff Paul Babeu was asked if he thought the wounded caller’s mentions of the deputy’s shooting meant he had been involved.
“That’s a possibility,” he said, noting that other explanations are possible.
Babeu’s broader point in calling the news conference was to argue, as he has in frequent national TV appearances, that the federal government needs to do more to secure the border, including deploying thousands of troops — more than the 1,200 the president has authorized.
In that remote area of Pinal County, about 20 miles southwest of Casa Grande “Drug cartels are in control,” Babeu said.
“We don’t own that.”
The killings Sunday took place in the southwestern corner of the Sonoran Desert National Monument, which is Bureau of Land Mangement land.
The chief ranger of the bureau in Arizona, Tom Lister, said in a separate interview that he doesn’t accept the idea that drug smugglers control that area. Smuggling in the area has risen and fallen in the area since the 1970s, he said, but it spiked beginning in 2009.
“Certainly they’re much more active and bold than I would like to see it,” Lister said.
Contact reporter Tim Steller at 807-8427 or at tsteller@azstarnet.com
Border crime Ping
Isn’t it interesting that he KNEW EXACTLY WHERE?
Maybe Pineal Co should get a clone of Sheriff Joe.
The Pinal County Sheriff supports Juan McLame too.
“The chief ranger of the bureau in Arizona, Tom Lister, said in a separate interview that he doesn’t accept the idea that drug smugglers control that area.”
More bureaucratic baffle-gab from the Armed & Rangerous.
The ParcPerson is simply lying in his teeth. He so does to justify not allowing mechanized vehicles into the precious ‘wilderness’ - a tortoise might be disturbed!
All I can say is : Sorry to hear that.
“We don’t own that.”
We could if we wanted to.
“In that remote area of Pinal County, about 20 miles southwest of Casa Grande “Drug cartels are in control,” Babeu said.
“We don’t own that.””
What the hell is that all about? Sounds like a militia would clean that up in short order.
ping
What I’d like to know is...
Who shot the smugglers? Doesn’t say in the article but by the sound of it, law enforcement wasn’t involved. Hmmmm.
Ping!
Other smugglers shot the smugglers. Cartel war over smuggling routes and territory and all that.
ah... okay, thought it might be someone getting in some extra curricular activity...
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