← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Recluse
Thread ID: 10940 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-11-05
2003-11-05 13:30 | User Profile
Gunfight on I-10 results in 4 deaths
By Michael Marizco and L. Anne Newell ARIZONA DAILY STAR
CASA GRANDE - A rolling gunbattle erupted on Interstate 10 between Tucson and Phoenix Tuesday morning as one group of people-smugglers apparently tried to hijack the human cargo officials said was stolen from them by another group of smugglers earlier in the morning.
The violence left four of the group dead and at least four others injured; caused accidents for three uninvolved vehicles, hurting three people including a local fire official; and caused miles of traffic delays while authorities closed down a long stretch of highway for about nine hours to investigate.
Officials involved said the incident appears to be the latest - and most deadly - case of violence here among people smugglers in recent years. It began just as Mexican President Vicente Fox's plane landed in Phoenix for a visit designed to strengthen border relations.
Late Tuesday, 24 people were being held on immigration violations, including the four men believed to have fired the deadly shots, and authorities say some will face more charges when the investigation determines exactly what led to the incident and which of the people involved were responsible.
"We're still trying to figure out who the coyotes (smugglers) were," said Pinal County Sheriff Roger Vanderpool, whose agen-cy is heading the investigation, aided by a large contingent of federal and state authorities.
Vanderpool characterized the incident as the result of the ongoing friction from the border, a problem he said is as prevalent now as drug traffickers were just a few years ago.
"These folks are getting real bold and brazen to drive down this I-10" and open fire, he said. "We need the federal government's
The incident began at 8:25 a.m., as four men pulled a gray Dodge Caravan alongside a westbound Ford Explorer carrying six people and a Ford pickup truck carrying 18 people near milepost 180 - just west of Casa Grande and about 80 miles from Tucson - and opened fire, said Vanderpool and Officer Frank Valenzuela, a state Department of Public Safety spokesman.
The Caravan's occupants - apparently trying to recover illegal border crossers taken from them in an earlier incident south of there about which little information was available - then ran the pickup off the road while the Explorer sped away, they said.
The incident caused a tractor trailer to hit the back of a passenger car and a vehicle from the Northwest Fire/Rescue District, seriously injuring the agency's fire operations chief, Randy Karrer, an agency spokeswoman said. Karrer, who's been with the district nearly 20 years, was airlifted back to Tucson and was in serious but stable condition, spokeswoman Katy Heiden said. He's expected to survive.
The Caravan then followed the Explorer for some time but gave up as law enforcement vehicles closed in when the vehicles neared Phoenix. Vanderpool said the driver exited on Riggs Road, unaware a U.S. Border Patrol agent was right there.
He said the agent stopped the van and the occupants were a rrested after a brief chase.
Meanwhile, law enforcement vehicles tracked down the Explorer, with DPS officers stopping it at I-10 and Elliot Road, on the south side of the metropolitan Phoenix area and about 25 miles from the shooting. A wounded woman was found inside with five other people, Vanderpool and Valenzuela said.
No names or ages were released for the deceased, although officials said all were male.
DPS officers were the first to arrive and said three of the dead were found in the pickup: the driver, a back-seat passenger and a person in the bed. The fourth man was still alive and officers tried to help him, Valenzuela said, but the man died soon afterward.
The officers also found two other injured people who'd gotten out of the truck and were at the side of the road, he said. There was another injured person among 11 people who'd run into the desert and were found after a search, officials said, but they couldn't provide any further information about the identities of the injured.
Vanderpool said three automatic weapons were found in the Caravan and authorities are comparing the guns to the bullet casings for a match. It's more to go on than they've had in most other acts of violence among smugglers, incidents that have been escalating in Southern Arizona in recent years. The incidents include:
Nov. 1: An illegal entrant was found dead about three miles east of Vail, and his brother said the two had struggled with smugglers before the 21-year-old man was shoved off an I-10 bridge to his death.
In late September, two men were arrested on charges of kidnapping and torturing illegal entrants in Three Points, ostensibly in an effort to extort money from relatives. Officials accused Barry Vanbrocklin, 26, and Hector Soria, 19, of kidnapping three entrants and torturing two by knocking out their teeth, prying up their toenails and threatening castration.
In separate incidents from March 2002 to August 2003, smugglers left nine murdered entrants in the White Tank Mountains outside Phoenix. Some victims were smugglers themselves and some were illegal entrants who didn't have enough money to buy their lives.
In October 2002, two entrants were shot to death near Red Rock as they stood with a other entrants by a cattle pond. The next day, officials searched a 15-square-mile area and found no sign of the nine people who'd reportedly survived. Investigators concluded they were taken by the smugglers.
[url]http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/31105I-10SHOOTOUT.html[/url]
2003-11-05 21:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE]* Nov. 1: An illegal entrant was found dead about three miles east of Vail, and his brother said the two had struggled with smugglers before the 21-year-old man was shoved off an I-10 bridge to his death.
In late September, two men were arrested on charges of kidnapping and torturing illegal entrants in Three Points, ostensibly in an effort to extort money from relatives. Officials accused Barry Vanbrocklin, 26, and Hector Soria, 19, of kidnapping three entrants and torturing two by knocking out their teeth, prying up their toenails and threatening castration.
In separate incidents from March 2002 to August 2003, smugglers left nine murdered entrants in the White Tank Mountains outside Phoenix. Some victims were smugglers themselves and some were illegal entrants who didn't have enough money to buy their lives.
In October 2002, two entrants were shot to death near Red Rock as they stood with a other entrants by a cattle pond. The next day, officials searched a 15-square-mile area and found no sign of the nine people who'd reportedly survived. Investigators concluded they were taken by the smugglers. [/QUOTE]
In light of the above isn't it interesting that the one case where US Citizens apprehend a handful of criminals sneaking across the border, but made the mistake of being on federal, not private, land and are subsequently arrested for "terrorist threats, kidnapping, unlawful detention" and a host of other crimes that is what gets all the press.
Yet the thousands of bleeding heart, open borders, anti-US scum who defame anyone who believes in the sovereignty of this nation as nationalist, xenophobe, and racist have zip to say about the freaking wetbacks murdering each other for profit.
Nope the problem is obviously people who don't like being taxed to support 13 Million criminals.
2003-11-05 22:26 | User Profile
Cucaracha = :dung: