Bloodshed at the border: not headline

TownHall.com ^ | 8/16/02 | Michelle Malkin

[Black Agnes]

Another article that might interest you.

[dennisw]

 

http://www.azstarnet.com/star/thu/20815rangershot.html

More details emerging in ranger's death

Mexico says his killer was fleeing botched attackBy Ignacio Ibarra
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Ranger Kris Eggle was killed Friday in a
border shootout.

The man who shot and killed a National Park Service ranger near Lukeville and then died in a hail of gunfire from Mexican authorities was fleeing a botched execution over an unpaid marijuana debt, the Sonoran Attorney General's Office said in a statement Wednesday.

The attack in Mexico included a commando-style hit squad composed of a Tijuana soldier, two ex-soldiers from Sonora and two men identified only by their nicknames, according to the office of the attorney general in Hermosillo, Miguel Angel Cortes Ibarra.

According to the statement, 19-year-old Mexican military deserter Jesús Martín Yescas Zazueta, one of the members of the hit squad, told investigators the violent, military-style raid was conducted on a ranch house at an ejido, or small farm, southwest of Sonoyta last Thursday.

He told investigators he was promised $15,000 to participate in the attack and was paid $5,000 in advance.

The target of the execution was not there when the hit team arrived, authorities have said. The hit squad then kidnapped, beat and killed four men, according to the statement. Their bodies were found Friday.

Mexican law enforcement authorities have issued arrest warrants for two former soldiers identified as Rogelio Velasquez Jocobi and Carlos Perez Sanchez. Before leaving the service two years ago, the men were based at a military garrison in southern Sonora, said Sonora's Deputy Attorney General Carlos Castillo Ortega.

Investigators are also looking for two other men known only by the nicknames "El Gringo" and "El Teofilo."

Meanwhile, the Mexican man U.S. authorities say killed National Park Service Ranger Kris Eggle was believed to be Panfilo Murillo Aguila, alias "El Zarco," a known narcotics trafficker operating in the Sonoyta area.

Castillo Ortega said it is not clear what, if any, role Murillo Aguila played in the botched execution. There have been conflicting reports about whether he hired the killers or was their target.

The fatal shooting of Eggle, a ranger at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, occurred when Mexican authorities chased Murillo Aguila across the border Friday afternoon. After shooting Eggle, Murillo Aguila was then shot to death by Mexican authorities firing from south of the border.

According to the Hermosillo attorney general's statement:

Yescas Zazueta told Mexican investigators that he deserted his post at the Mexican army garrison in Tijuana at the invitation of Velasquez Jocobi and Perez Sanchez two days before the shootout that killed Eggle.

The two told Yescas Zazueta the hit had been ordered because a man, nicknamed "El Ray," had accepted and then failed to pay for a load of marijuana.

The five-man hit squad, composed of Yescas Zazueta, Velasquez Jocobi, Perez Sanchez and two other men, wore military garb and were armed with handguns and AK-47 rifles. They made a violent assault at the ranch southwest of Sonoyta, capturing four men armed with handguns. But "El Ray" was nowhere to be found.

Yescas Zazueta said the four men were loaded into a Jeep Cherokee, "and there they bound their eyes and tied their hands and feet and then they drove them to the outskirts of the city where they were taken from the vehicle, beaten and later shot by his accomplices."

Meanwhile in Tucson, Dionicio Ramirez-Lopez, who was arrested by U.S. officials three miles east of Lukeville where Eggle was killed, appeared at a detention hearing in federal court Wednesday.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Jason Hannan waived a preliminary hearing on charges of illegally importing ammunition into the United States.

Authorities have said Ramirez-Lopez was the man who fled across the border with Murillo Aguila.

Law enforcement officials have indicated Ramirez-Lopez did not shoot Eggle, but under federal law prosecutors can seek murder charges if a person dies during the commission of a crime.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Chapman said Ramirez-Lopez played a role in the firefight that resulted in Eggle's death.

It was not known what, if any, role Ramirez-Lopez had in the incident at the Sonoyta ranch. He was ordered held without bond for future proceedings by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco.

[Gritty]

This article practically cries out for a Free-Fire Zone to be instituted along certain areas of the Mexican Border! Nobody should get hurt unless they are illegally in the Zone. If they are there illegally, too bad!

[Wurlitzer]

"This article practically cries out for a Free-Fire Zone to be instituted along certain areas of the Mexican Border! "

Does Texas have a militia? AR? NM? CA?...

[Brownie74]

I don't think this has been posted before. If so hit the abuse button and pull it.

Ranger's memorial: 'He made every minute count'

Pallbearers roll Eggle's coffin out of Ajo Calvary Baptist Church at the conclusion of the 28-year-old park ranger's

Maricopa County Sheriff's Officer Calvin Guy plays "Taps" at the end of National Park Service Ranger Kris Eggle's memorial service. Eggle was shot Friday while responding.

Representatives of local and national law enforcement agencies attended Monday's memorial service for Kris Eggle.

Friends and family console one another after the service for Eggle, who was called a "quintessential American boy-turned-ranger."

Friends celebrate life of Kris Eggle, slain in line of duty By Tim Steller
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Friends described Kris Eggle as an energetic man with a voracious appetite, for living right as well as for food, that drove him until his death Friday at the hands of a cross-border gunman.

In his workaday routine as a National Park Service ranger at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Eggle targeted colleague Jon Young with the same question every day, Young said at a memorial service here Monday.

"He would physically stop moving - which, for those of you who know him, is quite a feat - and ask, 'Is there anything I can do to help you?' "

Co-worker Susan Rutman wipes away tears as Eggle's hearse leaves the church.

When Eggle was feeling particularly frisky, Young said, he would rephrase the question as a command: "Tell me what I can do for you."

"The content of that question was always the same and the asking was always sincere," Young said.

Hundreds of National Park Service rangers, U.S. Border Patrol agents and officers from other agencies packed Ajo Calvary Baptist Church on Monday afternoon to pay their last respects to Eggle. He was 28.

As the memorial service was going on, the surviving participant in Friday's deadly episode made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Tucson.

For now, Dionicio Ramirez Lopez stands accused only of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border with ammunition.

When he was arrested after a cross-border chase Friday, Ramirez Lopez had five .38-caliber bullets, according to a criminal complaint filed against him.

Federal prosecutors plan to file other charges against the 20-year-old soon, said U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton. Ramirez Lopez has a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday at 10:15 a.m. before U.S. Magistrate Bernardo Velasco.

Officials do not suspect Ramirez Lopez of being the shooter who killed Eggle. It was his companion, identified by Mexican officials as Panfilo Murillo Aguila, who shot and killed Eggle about two miles east of the Lukeville port of entry, the complaint said.

Minutes later Mexican officers standing on their side of the border unleashed a barrage of gunfire at the gunman who had shot Eggle, killing him, witnesses and U.S. officials said. Officers at the scene unsuccessfully tried to save both men.

In Eggle, they lost what co-worker Susan Rutman called "a quintessential American boy-turned-ranger."

Eggle grew up in Michigan on a farm his family has owned for 130 years, National Park Service spokesman Rick Jones said. He graduated valedictorian of Cadillac High School in 1991 and went on to the University of Michigan, where he ran cross country.

He began training for the National Park Service in 1995, when he took a student conservation association position tracking wild boars and bears in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in Tennessee, Jones said. He came to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in 2000 and graduated from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in June.

Friends were not surprised to find out Eggle was first in his class at the training center, but he also earned the "director's award," an honor that is not given each session, but only when a student performs exceptionally well, National Park Service Director Fran Mainella said.

Said Eggle's father, Robert: "Kris was where he wanted to be, and he did what he wanted to do."

It happens that his sister, Jennifer Eggle, wanted to do the same thing. She is a ranger at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

Both Eggle and his friend Caleb Kesler were raised in Michigan, but they met standing next to each other at the Baptist church both attended in Ajo.

"When we first met here at church, he heard me singing, and we were harmonizing together," Kesler said.

The two performed a song together at church, "I Can Only Imagine" by MercyMe and were preparing another, Kesler said. Kesler and his wife visited the Eggle family farm last month, and Kesler called it "his heaven on Earth, his favorite place to be."

But Eggle lived fully wherever he was, co-workers said.

"He was extremely good at living," said Dale Thompson, chief ranger at Organ Pipe. "He made every minute count."

One co-worker described riding with Eggle during a 100-mph chase of drug traffickers, when Eggle suddenly broke into "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" from the musical "Oklahoma!"

Eggle was known for giving co-workers and friends chocolate chip cookies he baked, a memory that became painful to fellow ranger Grant Stolhand after Eggle's death Friday.

"Going back to Kris' house, I expected to see him with that pan of cookies sitting there for me," he said.

Read a memo circulated to National Park Service employees about Kris Eggle at www.nps.gov....

* Reporter Joseph Barrios contributed to this report.
* Contact reporter Tim Steller at 434-4086 or steller@azstarnet.com.

[ohioWfan]

This is a tragedy, and a large part of the reason the general public remains ill-informed about what's really going on at the border.

The media is obsessed with celebrity, and beats stories to death involving anyone who is or ever was one......... who cares about Jason Priestly or Robert Blake?! Who cares?

[Gritty]

Does Texas have a militia? AR? NM? CA?...

If they do, it is about time to activate it and issue live ammo.

[FITZ]

A must read. Anyone who thinks it's no big deal for our law enforcement to be killed by illegals definitely should read this.

[janetgreen]

This makes me sick. Not a word from Bush about this!! I wonder where McLame stands on this outrage? I'm sending this to both of them. It seems that our "leaders" will do anything to kiss Mexico's rear end.

[FITZ]

President Fox at least pretended very publically to care very much about the executed cop killer ---has he bothered to send condolences over this?

[Travis McGee]

It is time to militarize the border and designate the worst areas as no-go, free fire zones.

That should have been done on 9-12 as part of our efforts to keep terrorists out of the USA.

The fact is, Bush and his buddies are addicted to dirt cheap illegal alien labor, just as the 'rats are addicted to more illegal alien welfare slave voters.

[Travis McGee]

ping

[Joe Hadenuf]

The fedgov does not want to discuss the invasion of millions and the carnage they create.

The people that put their political celebrities and political parties before country do not want to hear about it, as their celebrity party leaders are much more important than our country itself.

It does not look good discussing such a massive, titanic problem, since the government has no intention of stopping this invasion.

As this man lay dying, thousands more continue to pour into our nation, while business enjoys their cheap labor, labor that wont complain, labor that is displacing American workers, while our so-called leaders stand treasonously silent, as big business winks.....

This will one day end, with the distruction of this country and it's sovereignty and borders. As this is happening as we speak.

The big news now is a baseball strike... President Bush is concerned.....

[Joe Hadenuf]

This makes me sick. Not a word from Bush about this!!

There is the potential for a basball strike. President Bush is much more concerned with that.

[lotus]

It's not like the days when the family was based around a farm.....son you stay here with Mom and farm while me and bub go fight a war...

What's the militia to do.... go to their bosses and say they need a couple of years off to go gaurd our borders AND by the way keep sending my paycheck to my wife and kids so they can pay the rent and buy food...

[Nea Wood]

Sounds like Kris was a great guy. What a rotten, lousy, stinking tragedy. There aren't enough cuss words in the world to express how I feel right now.

[crosdaddy]

this is all just part of President Bush's secret plan, just ask the Bush Bots,they'll tell you.we don't have the intellect to understand what the President is doing.

[Gritty]

What's the militia to do.... go to their bosses and say they need a couple of years off to go gaurd our borders AND by the way keep sending my paycheck to my wife and kids so they can pay the rent and buy food...

Well, according to all the whiney gun-grabbers - who have unilaterally declared the 2nd Amendment is all about arming the National Guard - maybe the Governors ought to take them at their word for once and deploy the National Guard (aka 2nd Amendment Militia) to these dangerous borders. After all, they are State borders as well as Federal ones.

The Governors could take Guard volunteers, at first, and perhaps levy a 1% sales tax to pay for it (no genuine citizen of any of these states would object to that!). No doubt there would be a lot of volunteers. The Governors could also no doubt put political pressure on the Feds to call up certain units for duty and mobilize entire units.

How to pay for it on the Federal level? Take the money out of the worthless Transportation Security Agency's bloated budget and let Stormin' Normin' Mineta hire a few less drones, while simultaneously arming airline pilots - which would solve much of the problem there.

See? A solution is not so tough if one wants to face the problem!

[PoorMuttly]

Perhaps we should build National Guard camps on that border, so maybe they could do something like...Guard our Nation.

[BADROTOFINGER]

Nonsense. She lays the blame right where it belongs: in the lap of the news media. Priestly's broken toes don't deserve mention on national news unless nothing else has happened the whole week. Ignoring the killing of a Park Ranger on the border is inexcusable.

Precisely. I totally agree that the news media is to blame. So why mention Priestly at all? I am sure that some other important media story was ignored when Dale Earnhardt died, when JLo and Puff Daddy broke up, when Rosie came out as a lesbian (duh), but none of those could be considered excuses for the media not only not reporting real news, but actually covering it up as it appears in this case. The issue here is the media covering up news that is politically incorrect, but I think it is easier to make the point that the media is celebrity obsessed instead of PC obsessed. I just think that she missed the point on why this story wasnt reported is all...JFK