Posted on 08/07/2003 8:27:02 PM PDT by AZ GRAMMY
Second arrest made in immigrant incident
BY LOUIE VILLALOBOS, Staff Writer Aug 7, 2003
Email this page Printer friendly page Subscribe to The Sun
Yuma County sheriff's deputies have arrested a second man in connection with the alleged unlawful detention of six illegal immigrants on July 31 in Gadsden.
Alexander David Dumas, 26, was arrested Tuesday evening after driving to Yuma from his home in Big Bear Lake, Calif., for an interview, said sheriff's spokesman Lt. Eben Bratcher.
Dumas was charged with six counts of aggravated assault and five counts of unlawful imprisonment following the early morning July 31 incident where deputies said he and Matthew Paul Hoffman, arrested on the same charges on Monday, detained a group of six illegal immigrants that had just entered the United States through the Colorado River.
A third man, Martin Hoffman Jr., was with the two suspects but won't be charged because he was not armed and did not take part in the handcuffing of the illegal immigrants, Bratcher said.
Bratcher said the department will continue to investigate the case and warned citizens against taking the law into their own hands.
He said anyone who sees a group of suspected illegal immigrants should call the Border Patrol, and not take it upon themselves to apprehend the group by using guns and handcuffs. Asking a group to stay put while making a phone call is permitted and would constitute a citizen's arrest, he said.
"When you have someone holding someone against their will with the use or the threat of the use of force, you've crossed the line between a citizen's arrest and unlawful detention," he said. "There was no justification for the use of force."
Deputies said the two men handcuffed five members of the group, which included three children and two women, and held them at gunpoint until U.S. Border Patrol agents arrived.
Agents have said they were dispatched to the scene when a surveillance camera operator noticed the incident unfolding. The agents called the sheriff's department, who then identified and interviewed all three men before letting them go, officials said.
Bratcher said the men are not believed to be part of a larger group, such as the citizen patrol groups that operate on private property along the Tucson border and use various forms of technology to alert Border Patrol agents to the presence of illegal immigrants in the area.
Also being charged with five counts of endangerment is a 16-year-old Mexican national who Bratcher said was paid $600 to bring the illegal immigrants into the United States. Bratcher also said the illegal immigrants were planning to meet with a taxi cab in Gadsden and were to be taken to a unidentified Yuma hotel, according to interviews done of the illegal immigrants by detectives.
William Robbins, Border Patrol spokesman, said the six illegal immigrants were in the agency's custody as of Wednesday morning but couldn't be interviewed.
Hugo Oliva, Mexican consul in Yuma, said the group was in good condition following the incident and that his office is encouraged by the sheriff's department's efforts regarding this case.
"This is a very disturbing thing to happen here," Oliva said. "We can't have people with guns do the job of law enforcement agencies."
http://yumasun.com/artman/publish/a...tory_6619.shtml
I still have to come back to my same question. There are a lot of citizens who live along the border who are of Hispanic orgin. They have the same Constitutional Rights as any other citizen. So, what if a group of armed vigilantes came upon your wife and children and demanded their papers. And if you wife decided that she did not have to answer to these people, as they have no legal authority whatsoever to make this demand, and they decided to point their weapons at her and your children then cuff them... What would your response be then?
1) Why Honey, you and the kids had no business being in an area where armed vigilantes are questioning people. Remember, you're brown skinned.
2) Gee Honey, you and the kids should have simply shown the men in civilian clothing and no badges your papers and they would have let you go about your business.
3) Hey Hun, if the government was doing it's job you and the kids wouldn't have been scared to death; get over it.
Apparently a lot of posters on this thread are going to answer one of the above or something similar. Not me. Any band of jack booted thug civilians with no legal authority do this to my family and they are going to face serious consequences.
That's the problem with this kind of organization. In their zeal to locate and detain illegals they could violate the rights of American citizens...or worse.
Risk declares the American Dream is OVER. Risk our native population is contracting. If it wasn't for the immigration we would have fewer Americans today than we had last year. American families are getting smaller and smaller.
"As far as I'm concerned" you don't know what the hell you are talking about. You'll find this bit of trivia all over the web. Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% - Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38% I don't know if this factoid is true but This link shows that in 1960 rural land extended to 98.86% of America. Today it is 97.38%. We have lots of room to grow.
That quote sits on a plaque in front of a gift from France to this country. When you look at France, you can see what will happen to America if we keep leaving the doors open.
We'll eat frogs, adopt silly accents, and laugh at Jerry Lewis movies?
It has been said that a warrior's status in the afterlife is directly dependent upon the number of casualties he inflicts in his final battle before they get him. If the scenario you describe ever happened to me or anyone in my family, I can assure you that I would be running Valhalla 5 minutes after I arrived, and would be bringing enough slave labor with me besides to pick clean every peach tree in Midgard.
I'll put you down as a "yes" for "'Taking The Law Into My Own Hands' for 300, Alex" then.
And why do you think that might be?
Anyway, I do not think the American dream is over. I think it's just getting started. But I just happen to think that it ought to be for people who already live here, or who will be born to people who understand the American dream.
Our forebears didn't come here for a handout, unlike most immigrants and temporary workers here today. Do you know any here in the Bay area? Have you asked them how they feel about America? How much they love our country and want to be a part of it? Find out for yourself and maybe you'll see things from a different perspective.
Find out why so many of the H1B visa holders detest American foreign policy. Find out why so many green card holders think that President Bush is stupid. Find out why unskilled Latino workers don't think they ever need to learn English. Find out how many are Islamic or follow some other bizarre cult-like religion and have no intention of giving up their backward, ethnocentric belief systems.
These foreigners today are not like the ones who came here via Ellis island to make a new life. Many want to take something away for themselves and give nothing in return. Until I know how to discern the difference between the two kinds of people who want to come here, I'm not changing my mind. Can you tell the difference yourself?
If you want a simple test of how bad it is just walk into a social security office or a welfare office. If you are an American citizen you will stand out like Pamela Anderson with her top off.
I walked into the SS office and there were a lot of old people there. I am not surprised "American citizen" means white blonde to you. "OH NO WERE GONNA BE A WHITE MINORITY!!! IT'S AN INFECTION." You are really pathetic.
What are we going to do about it, other than vent on FR. It's not a Republican site by the way. When it was founded, JR was a conservative democrat. Not anymore, Klintoon took care of that.
Many of us have made assumptions that the story that inspired this thread does not necessarily support. We don't know how far from the border "Dumb" and "Dumber" were when they detained the illegals. We don't know if they witnessed firsthand said illegals crossing the border. We don't know if they requested said illegals to stop and sit awhile to wait for La Migra to pick them up before they cuffed them and held them at gunpoint. Many of us on both sides don't communicate our opinions clearly enough, myself included, especially since it's a very emotionally loaded issue.
I don't want to be stopped and detained by some bozo just because he doesn't like the way I look, and I don't think anyone else would either. That's my biggest complaint with the 'Homeland Security' BS. It harrasses US citizens without solving the problem of foreigners being here that want to do us harm. "Dumb" and "Dumber" have their hearts in the right place, they just didn't go about a solution very intelligently. The Border Patrol and the INS are doing a miserable job, and if they don't improve something has to be done. That something has to be well thought out and planned, with legal contingencies to back it up. If someone sees illegals cross the border firsthand, they can and should effect a citizens arrest, detain them, and hand them over to be deported.
This is a huge problem, with many examples. We need to channel our venting into constructive actions that improve the situation. I'm open to suggestions.
Good post. As I said earlier, get rid of the freebies we Californians are forced to fund. That takes care of the freeloaders. The "willing to work" will continue to come to available labor. Nannies, gardners and maids of questionable citizenship are all the rage in these parts...it's not just Big Business.
Housing prices are skyrocketing, the future is only dark if your outlook is.
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.