Posted on 09/18/2004 7:16:47 PM PDT by JackelopeBreeder
DOUGLAS - Around 1 a.m. Thursday, Bill Dore received a call from a friend asking him to watch over his ranch and his two dogs.
When Dore went to the ranch complex of three buildings, he was refused entrance because the compound was under the control of the FBI.
Dore received the call from Casey James Nethercott, who at the time of phone talk was in FBI custody at the Cochise County Jail in Bisbee.
Nethercott, 37, told him that Kalen Robert Riddle, who is called "Tiny" - though he weighs more than 350 pounds - had been shot.
"He told me he thought Tiny was dead," Dore said.
As of Friday night, Riddle was listed in critical condition at the University Medical Center in Tucson where he was flown after being shot by an FBI agent around 11 p.m. Wednesday.
Dore shocked by FBI measures
Federal agents were in the process of serving an arrest warrant on Nethercott for an alleged assault against U.S. Border Patrol agents on Aug. 31.
According to an FBI press release, Nethercott and Riddle took actions considered dangerous as the warrant was being served in the Douglas Safeway parking lot. The FBI statement said those actions led to the shooting of Riddle, who was called Nethercott's bodyguard. Nethercott reportedly fled on foot but was quickly apprehended.
During a Friday telephone interview, Dore, who was at Nethercott's residence, said he was shocked the FBI took such harsh measures. He said neither man is a danger to others, and the only thing they wanted to do was to protect the border from an invasion of illegal immigrants coming into the United States.
Riddle allegedly neo-Nazi
Bill Straus, the Arizona regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, has a different view on one of the men - Riddle - who he said is a neo-Nazi and is the main recruiter for a group calling itself the Arizona Guard, a militia-type organization established to do armed patrolling of the Arizona border with Mexico "from a compound in Douglas."
Dore said Riddle is not a Nazi sympathizer, although the 22-year-old man who is reported in a coma in the Tucson medical facility, subscribed to some of Hitler's views.
The only Nazi-like view Riddle supported was that a nation must have secured borders to protect its sovereignty, Dore said.
"He did not support genocide," he remarked.
Straus said he has seen a photo of Riddle on a Web site wearing a Nazi uniform complete with swastika armbands and carrying a rifle, all part of his recruiting effort for the Arizona Guard. The swastika was the symbol of Hitler's Nazi party.
That picture has been removed from the Arizona Guard's Web site, Straus added. "But I've seen it."
Dore said he never saw such a photograph of Riddle dressed in a Nazi uniform. Riddle has a collection of World War II German memorabilia, mostly medals, he said, noting many people collect such items.
In a Wednesday press release, Straus noted anti-immigration organizations such as Arizona Guard and Ranch Rescue attract white supremacists and extremist support.
"That in turn poses a threat to people living and traveling along our border, including law enforcement. It is a hate-filled and hate-fueled environment and who better to spread the message of hat than neo-Nazi and white supremacists," Straus said.
Nethercott supported Riddle in his recruiting efforts, the Arizona regional director of the ADL states. The league was formed in 1913 and is considered the leading organization fighting anti-Semitism, with the organization taking stands on other non-Jewish issues involving hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
Dore cannot bring himself to accept that Nethercott or Riddle are either neo-Nazis or white supremacists.
What is important to Dore, who lives about five miles from the Nethercott ranch, is one of his friends is in federal custody and the other is in a hospital fighting for his life.
Spencer says not many involved
Glenn Spencer, head of the American Border Patrol, is another man who wants the border controlled and illegal activities stopped.
He, too, has been brushed with allegations he is a racist, something that has not been proven, he said.
When he moved his operation from California to Sierra Vista four years ago, Spencer admitted he gave inflammatory speeches, something he has no problem doing again. He said the speeches were to increase awareness of the border problems facing Arizonans.
Spencer said his nonprofit organization is more involved in showing how technology can be used to control the border and spot illegal immigrants and drug smugglers can be found and apprehended.
To a degree the American Border Patrol, which is not associated with the U.S. Border Patrol, has pioneered the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles and up-to-date sensor technology along the border. The Department of Homeland Security is testing pilotless planes long after the nonprofit group proved their worth, he said.
Having survived to some degree the cries that his organization is a front for improper border control policies - sometimes he has been labeled a vigilante, racist or white supremacist - Spencer said there is a continuing frustration about how the federal government does not control its international boundaries, mainly with Mexico.
To him, Nethercott and Riddle are part of a small group that lack much influence along the border.
"I'm surprised more people haven't done this," Spencer said about people becoming members of armed patrols along the border.
The few followers of the Arizona Guard and Ranch Rescue are not a threat to law enforcement in the area, he said.
No flood of radicals
Nethercott initially was a supporter of Ranch Rescue, a group from Texas that came into Arizona to protect ranchers and others who live along the border.
But Nethercott broke with Ranch Rescue, kicking its leader, Jack Foote, and others off his property.
According to sources, that led to the establishment of Arizona Guard, led by Nethercott and his chief lieutenant, Riddle.
Spencer said he does not advocate how Arizona Guard and Ranch Rescue operate. But, he said, for people to think Cochise County is becoming vigilante central is wrong.
"There hasn't been a flood of radicals here," Spencer said.
Area resident's are discontent by inept federal government's policies that leave them unprotected from the massive flow of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers, he said.
"Our government is not protecting us," Spencer exclaimed.
Dore agrees the U.S. government has been lax in its constitutional duties, the main one is to protect the nation's borders from invasion.
To him, what is happening along the border is an invasion of America's sovereignty. And to him, Nethercott and Riddle are only doing what is allowed by the Constitution.
Protecting two dogs main concern
Dore's immediate concern though it to make sure Nethercott's property and his two dogs, Varos and Fossi, are protected.
Nethercott was concerned the FBI would harm the two dogs, especially Varos, a 130-pound animal trained to attack, Dore said.
One of the first things the FBI wanted done was to have the dogs removed from the property, but they would not allow him on the compound to do that, Dore exclaimed.
Instead the Cochise County Animal Control Officer Raul Saavedra was called, and he had no problem with the dogs, Dore said.
As for the future of the animals, the FBI didn't care if the dogs were put down or put in a shelter, he remarked.
Fortunately, Saavedra is a professional animal control officer and took good care of Varos and Fossi until he returned them Friday, Dore said.
"The FBI was also afraid the place was booby trapped," Dore declared with a soft laugh.
The FBI was using a search warrant to look for weapons.
Nethercott has criminal record
Nethercott has a criminal record that includes assault with a firearm in California and pistol-whipping an illegal immigrant in Texas. He served time for the California and is appealing the Texas conviction.
As for Riddle, Dore said he likes to swagger by overdressing with "knives and pistols."
The complaint filed by the U.S. Border Patrol that on Aug. 31 three agents were assaulted by Nethercott and Riddle. Dore said he doesn't believe it happened.
What he was told by Nethercott was the agents followed him up to the entrance of the ranch and Riddle came out and there was a verbal confrontation with the agents demanding Riddle, who was armed, to lay on the ground, which the man did. The FBI did not say what led the U.S Border Patrol agents to follow Nethercott.
However, according to the complaint, Nethercott said as far as he was concerned he could engage in a shoot-out then and there. Riddle eventually laid on the ground.
Dore said Cochise County sheriff deputies helped diffuse the situation, and he credits Sheriff Larry Dever and Chief Deputy Rod Rothrock for their help on many occasions when federal agents, and Nethercott and Riddle, had confrontations.
As for part of federal complaint, it stated on Aug. 31 other Arizona Guard members hid in the bushes and behind vehicles on the ranch. Dore said that to his knowledge, the only ones who were there was Nethercott and Riddle.
As for the FBI account of what happened Wednesday night in the grocery store parking lot, he said he can't believe either man tried to draw weapons on FBI agents.
"That's not them," he said.
More likely it is some sort of twisted propaganda thing to discredit and stifle any sort of normal public outcry at our failed border security. The general idea is to equate, in the sheeple's minds, that any sort of objection to porosity at the border means "nazi". Rinse, lather, repeat. It's a pretty effective technique, though pretty scurvy.
Now take a nap.
Last courtesy bump you get from me.
Oh come on CWO. I was just funnin. You've rang my bell, but I still love yea.
Just don't say I'm your friend now...you never know who's reading.
LOL.
This sounds alot like Richard Jewell. The MSM and FBI had an actual hero guilty. They even consficated his Mother's tupperware.
Stories like this makes me wonder what the real story is.
Did they FBI ever get the real bomber in the Jewell/Olympic incident? If so, was he actually convicted? My memory is going southbound.
In the Census 2000, 80% of Puerto Ricans declared themselves 'white' and their island's population is getting whiter every day.
Mexico's doing the same thing.
Didn't we just bomb the hell out of Bosnia for engaging in 'ethnic cleansing'?
Why are we allowing Mexico, Central and South America and Puerto Rico to get away with it?
Why don't the 'white' Spaniards consider 'diversity' to be a strength?
If you're black, they won't let you drink out of the water fountains or eat in their cafeterias in Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FROM DOMINICAN REPUBLIC CULTURE CLASH
The homeless say they have it better than a black person in Puerto Rico.
That's probably just as true in Mexico.
Not to my knowledge. However, maybe the bombers family will turn him in 20 years from now like the una bombers family did.
I never heard from him again.
George W. Bush would win the Miss Puerto Rico Contest before a black girl, born in Puerto Rico of black parents from the Dominican Republic, would.
LOL!
I can't find any Arizona Guard website and the only mention of Kalen Riddle on any search engine is about this incident. A bit odd for a supposedly well-known Nazi.
Neat trick -- a simple misspelling renders them invisible to search engines.
I still can't find a damn thing connecting Tiny Riddle to any neo-nazi/skinhead/white supremcist groups.
Really. As far as the great World Wide Web is concerned, Kalen Robert Riddle was born only moments before someone turned his spleen into something resembling burrito stuffing.
Sounds to me like someone is trying to bring America to it's knees.
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