Thread: AZ-Border Rancher Found Shot To Death After Aiding Ill Alien

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

Finally this is just being reported on FOX right now!! took them long enough!

Is this story being reported on any other news station? Where's CNN, MSNBC ?

From another article:
"Krentz, a devout Catholic, would 'help anyone' in need, she said."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/30/ra ... colleague/

Few have played a more active role promoting illegal immigration to the United States than the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and their church's "Universal Rights of Migrants" campaign supported by the United Nations. Their Vice-President is the Bishop of Tucson, Arizona, where the murder took place. Perhaps the death of this good and respected Catholic Arizona rancher will lead the USCCB to reconsider their position of illegal immigration if enough pressure is brought to bear. Below is a listing of the all officers, followed with specific infomation for the Bishop of Tucson. For others, go to http://www.usccb.org/ and find them by location under "dioceses" at the top.

Officers

President, Cardinal Francis George, OMI, of Chicago

Vice President, Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson

Treasurer, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville

Secretary, Bishop George V. Murry, SJ of Youngstown


General Secretariat

General Secretary: Msgr. David Malloy

Associate General Secretaries:

Bruce E. Egnew
Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins
Nancy Wisdo

Contact Us

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is located in Washington, D.C.
3211 Fourth Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20017
(202) 541-3000

http://www.usccb.org/whoweare.shtml#contact


Most Rev. Gerald F. Kicanas, D.D.
Bishop of Tucson
520-792-3410; Fax: 520-838-2590
111 S. Church Ave.
P.O. Box 31
Tucson, AZ 85702
bishop@diocesetucson.org

Sonya Gutierrez
Executive Assistant
sonyag@diocesetucson.org

Sr. Charlotte Anne Swift, O.P.
Executive Assistant
srcas@diocesetucson.org

Rev. Albert Schifano
Vicar General
Moderator of the Curia
frals@diocesetucson.org

Rev. Raul Trevizo
Vicar General
stjohnsoffice@netzero.com

http://blogs.chron.com/immigration/arch ... z_ran.html

read what some people are saying on the blog at the houston chronicle

Apr 2, 6:36 PM EDT

Ariz. AG: Rancher's slaying the work of cartels

By JONATHAN J. COOPER and AMANDA LEE MYERS
Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX (AP) -- Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said Friday he believes the slaying of a southern Arizona rancher was the work of a scout working for a drug cartel, but the agency investigating the shooting said there is no evidence supporting that.

Robert Krentz was found shot to death March 27 on his ranch near Douglas. Goddard said evidence at the scene appears consistent with the known behavior of drug runners working for cartels based in Mexico.

"It seems very possible and probable that this was one of their agents," Goddard said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Goddard's theory was news to the Cochise County sheriff's office, which is investigating the killing.

"I have no idea where they're getting that from," sheriff's spokeswoman Carol Capas said. "That's not an indication that we have at this point."

Capas said investigators don't yet know a motive or have any suspect information, including the shooter's nationality or gender. There was no evidence at the scene pointing to drug smuggling, she said.

She said the attorney general's office is not involved in the investigation, although sheriff's deputies are working with other state and federal agencies on it.

Goddard said his theory is "supposition" and "based on conjecture." He said he came to the conclusion because the killer worked alone in a remote area known to be a hotbed for drug trafficking, and because authorities seized a large load of marijuana in the area the day before Krentz was killed.

"These guys are in constant radio contact with their bosses," Goddard said of the scouts, who often spend months stationed in the remote Arizona desert. "They could easily have been told to come down and check it out, and after that it's anybody's guess what happened."

Goddard, a Democrat who is running for governor, disputed a media report Friday that he had said it appeared a professional hit man working for a cartel killed Krentz. He said there is no evidence indicating that a trained killer was involved.

He said cartels often place scouts in remote areas to monitor and coordinate the flow of drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border, but he said the scouts aren't necessarily trained killers.

Authorities say Krentz was on his all-terrain vehicle checking water lines and fencing when he was shot. The wounded rancher managed to speed away on the ATV before he lost consciousness and died.

Krentz's 35,000-acre ranch is about 35 miles northeast of Douglas, which borders Agua Prieta, Mexico. Sheriff's deputies found foot tracks and followed them about 20 miles south to the border.

Krentz, 58, was a prominent third-generation rancher and a father of three. He and his wife were well-known among cattle ranchers in Arizona and New Mexico for their active involvement in the Arizona Cattlemen's Association, said Dan Bell, an acquaintance who has a 25,000-acre ranch near Nogales.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... TE=DEFAULT

© 2010 The Associated Press.

Rancher Robert Krentz didn't deserve to die on his own land in the USA
MY OPINION: Plenty of blame
By Lionel Waxman, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, April 02, 2010

Robert Krentz was a good man. People who knew him say he was a humanitarian and a Good Samaritan. He didn’t deserve to die in the dirt - on his own land - at what law enforcement investigators believe was the gunpoint of an illegal border crosser. His family didn’t deserve to lose him. The nearby Cochise County communities of Douglas and Portal didn’t deserve to lose him. But all did some time on March 27. And why?

There’s plenty of blame to go around.

Let’s allocate some of that blame. Maybe it will become obvious what we have to do to make sure we don’t lose more good people in this fashion. Print this storyEmail this storyPost a Comment

Most of the blame falls on the Mexican drug cartels. They are willing to do anything for money. The Mexican government has been unsuccessful in curbing their reign of terror. It is almost as though the cartels are fighting it out to prove one or more of them is the government.

Next, blame goes to the United States government. Notwithstanding many requests, federal officials have failed and refused to militarize the border which desperately needs military control. When Janet Napolitano was governor of Arizona, she seemed to understand the problem, not that she ever did anything about it. Now that she is in Washington, she serves only her beltway masters. No Army troops for the border. Not even National Guard troops are allowed.

One way the feds ensure that Arizona will not put National Guard troops on the border is by calling them up for deployment to Afghanistan. And that’s where members of the Arizona National Guard are headed this month to Afghanistan when they are needed in Douglas.

But President Obama has bigger plans for the border. Heap blame on him. He wants illegals to flood across the border because he has plans to grant them amnesty so they can vote. They will vote Democratic, and that’s more important to him than the lives of a few Americans living on the border.

To be fair, we ought to assign some small amount of blame to the farmers and ranchers who refuse to get out while the gettin’s good. They are living in a war zone. That’s not a good idea.

What can we do about it? There isn’t much we can do about the Mexican government or even the Mexican drug cartels. But there is something we can do about the U.S. government. We have to make it clear to the bozos in Washington that we will no longer tolerate being deprived of the services of our National Guard. If the feds want to fight a war in Afghanistan, that is what the regular Army is for. We must demand that the Arizona National Guard be released for service in Arizona. And we must demand they be adequately armed to meet the challenge.

And we must make certain the Washington politicians understand that we will not permit illegal aliens to vote. We’ll do this by denying them entry.

This is the only way we will ever get our state back. Otherwise, we’ll wake up one day and find ourselves living in Aztlán with bandits running wild in the streets.

And if we don’t do that, then the bulk of the blame must fall on ourselves. This is still the United States of America. This is our country. We make the rules. We must enforce them.

Contact Lionel Waxman at territorial@waxmanmedia or visit his website: www.newflashpoint.com.


http://www.azbiz.com/articles/2010/04/0 ... 880419.txt

Ranchers speak out on lack of action
Posted: Apr 02, 2010 12:24 PM CDT
Updated: Apr 02, 2010 12:24 PM CDT
Video Gallery
Ranchers want more border security now
2:18
Reporter: Joel Waldman
Web producer: Danya Kline

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Ranchers across southern Arizona are rallying around their friend and neighbor Rob Krentz after his brutal murder. Krentz was shot to death on his ranch last Saturday.

Some are downright angry, blaming politicians for not backing them at the border. " Look at our government. It can't keep people from walking in, it's beyond belief," exclaimed rancher Art Thomasson.

That lack of protection ended in spilled blood that has now prompted Congresswoman Giffords to take decisive action.

Giffords said, " I wrote to the President and Janet Napolitano, requests to immediately deploy the guard to the border."

Giffords also wants more Border Patrol, and a forward operating base much closer to the actual border line. Ranchers are hoping that it happens, but they're filled with doubt after years of getting ignored.

" There is nothing new. The people out of Washington seem scared of it, scared of this border," says Thomasson.

But that same fear has not overwhelmed the cowboys we talked to.

One said he carries a firearm, and that even though he doesn't want to use it, he will if he has to.

Another one told us that he knows people who have been yanked off of horses. He asserted that if can help it, he won't let that happen to him.

Ranchers are demanding security first, DC politics can wait.

Without a remedy and without an answer, this land is forever changed by the murder of rancher Robert Krentz.


http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=12248228

Tom Sirmons: The killing of an Arizona rancher dramatizes a growing border crisis

Tom Sirmons, a freelance writer and former Los Angeles resident, lives in Florida.

Updated: 04/05/2010 10:15:17 AM PDT

THE last anyone heard from Arizona cattle rancher Robert Krentz was when he called in to say he'd encountered an illegal immigrant on his land.

That was the afternoon of March 27. That night, the bodies of Krentz and his dog were found near a watering hole on the 30,000-acre ranch that has been in the Krentz family for more than a century. Both were dead of gunshot wounds. Local police figure the cross-border intruder who shot them fled back into Mexico.

I'm not a big fan of anecdotal evidence. It's too easy to manufacture a crisis by telling a few stories of people severely affected by this or that. But the killing of Robert Krentz is drawing new attention to the alarming state of affairs on the U.S. border with Mexico.

The stretch to which the Krentz ranch is adjacent is especially active. The beleaguered Border Patrol estimates that several million illegal immigrants cross over the 2,000-mile long southern border every year. Obviously, they're not all staying. The interdiction effort is so overextended that huge numbers are able to cross back and forth on a regular basis. And the traffic in undocumented workers, ruinous as that has been for schools, hospitals and law enforcement throughout the Southwest, is the least of it.

The Mexican drug cartels smuggle thousands of tons of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine across the border every year, the majority of it through Arizona. They use private and commercial vehicles, human "mules,"

tunnels and light planes to penetrate U.S. territory. The drugs are distributed to around 20,000 street gangs in 2,500 cities across the United States, representing a million gangbangers, who grip their neighborhoods in a reign of terror. Billions of illicit dollars flow back across the border to the cartels, which are growing in power. A federal report concludes their production of heroin alone has doubled in the last 12 months.
The murder of Robert Krentz serves as a tragic focal point. Countless thousands die in gang-related killings, of drug overdoses, or commit suicide in despair over their addiction - all directly attributable to the government's failure to carry out one of its primary responsibilities, securing the border. What little patience I had with hearing about the "plight" of illegal immigrants is exhausted. And I'm far from alone.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer wants the Obama administration to send in the National Guard to help police her state's porous border. If the feds continue to renege on their obligation, Brewer says she'll mobilize the Arizona Guard herself. But she's angry that the state might have to pay for a service that rightfully falls under the purview of Homeland Security. The administration is not stepping up, Brewer says.

If millions of pounds of illegal drugs flowing in from Mexico annually doesn't alarm you, what if it were tons of anthrax or high explosives? Don't think for a moment that terrorists somehow have missed the fact that the U.S.-Mexico border is an imaginary line in more ways than one. The time is coming, and doubtless is not far off, when they strike on our soil again. No one should be surprised on that dark day when we learn that the instrument of terror entered the United States across our southern border.

For every conceivable reason, the federal government must act quickly to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. Half-hearted stabs at building walls and using high-tech monitoring systems won't cut it. Neither will the Democrats' unwillingness to offend a reliable constituency - an unwillingness which, at its most cynical, equates future Democrat hegemony with amnesty programs and laws, such as those on the books in many Southern California cities forbidding police even to inquire about immigration status. It is the lowest form of political patronage.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just returned from Mexico City, where she led a delegation aimed at coordinating efforts to quell cross-border drug trafficking and violence. Yeah, well, talk is cheap. This is an administration that proposes to spend trillions of dollars on an unworkable, unwanted scheme to socialize health care. Diverting a mere fraction of that money to border security would go a long way toward relieving overcrowded hospital emergency rooms in southwestern states, many of which have had to shut down because of the demands placed on them by indigent illegals.

Providing for the common defense is one of the fundamental duties of government as envisioned in the U.S. Constitution. Doesn't adequate policing of our borders seem pretty basic to that mandate?

http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_14815309

Obama team likely to be cautious about military on border
Krentz family, friends still wait for troops
StoryCommentsBrady McCombs and Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Sunday, April 11, 2010 12:00 am



JAMES GREGG

National Guardsmen stand watch along the Mexican border just east of Nogales. There are 140 Arizona guardsmen currently in a support role to the Border Patrol at the international line. .

A day after laying rancher Robert Krentz to rest at funeral services in Douglas, his family and others are still waiting for troops to be deployed to the border.

The Krentz family called for the active-duty military to be deployed, and many of their neighbors have demanded that troops not only come but be given authority to track lawbreakers, arrest them and - if threatened - shoot.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer wants to deploy 250 additional National Guard soldiers but doesn't want to use state funds to pay for them. The federal government hasn't answered a formal request from her and other border governors.

But even if troops are sent, it's unclear whether they would perform the active, law-enforcing role supporters envision. The National Guard can be assigned to law-enforcement duties, as it was during President Obama's inauguration and after Hurricane Katrina, but the Guard has been assigned only support duties in past border missions.

"The Obama administration would likely be quite cautious in whatever role they assign to troops placed at the border, and for good reason - to try to minimize the possible unwanted impacts of such a large demonstration of force," said David Shirk, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. and director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

The 140 Arizona National Guard troops now assigned to support the Border Patrol in Arizona help with surveillance, analysis and drug-education efforts.

In the Operation Jump Start border mission that ran from 2006 to 2008 across the U.S.-Mexico border, the National Guard helped the Border Patrol by building roads and fences, operating radios and sitting in observatory posts near the border to report activity. Guardsmen were not allowed to apprehend or engage.

That's not what Portal-area resident Tom Hays and others want.

"If you send the National Guard, you've got to let them do their job," said Hays. "If not, it's like having nobody at all."

Posse Comitatus Act

Despite what many think, the federal Posse Comitatus Act does not prohibit the National Guard from taking an active law-enforcement role on American soil, said Rick Breitenfeldt of the National Guard Bureau.

"We can do pretty much anything that we are asked by the Department of Defense or the president of the United States," Breitenfeldt said.

At Obama's inauguration, 10,000 National Guard troops were deputized by Washington, D.C., police so they could take law-enforcement action if necessary.

During Operation Jump Start, the National Guard was given Title 32 status, which allows a more active role. But since it was asked only to support the Border Patrol and report illegal entries, it stayed within that role, Breitenfeldt said.

When a group of armed men approached a post east of Sasabe on Jan. 3, 2007, four Tennessee guardsmen vacated the post and moved back. The retreat set off a firestorm of criticism and led to a hearing of a state House committee where a National Guard major had to defend the guardsmen's actions.

SUPPORT ROLE OK

The risks of an active military presence on the border became clear in 1997, when U.S. Marines working on an anti-drug task force shot an 18-year-old U.S. citizen near the border town of Redford, Texas. Esequiel Hernandez Jr. was herding goats when he fired his antique .22 caliber rifle and the camouflaged Marines, feeling threatened, killed him.

This time around, Border Patrol agents would welcome the National Guard in a support role, but asking guardsmen to track and apprehend illegal border crossers could be problematic, said Brandon Judd, executive vice president of the Arizona chapter of the Border Patrol agents union, Local 2544.

Border Patrol agents receive extensive training to ensure they don't violate the rights of people they encounter, he said.

"Without the proper training, you open yourself up to liability," Judd said.

Calls for the military, which date to the Mexican Revolution, have become politically motivated, knee-jerk overreactions to incidents, said Wayne Cornelius, director emeritus of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at University of California-San Diego. It would be best to leave border work to the Border Patrol, he said.

"They are the trained professionals in immigration law enforcement, including tracking and apprehending people-smugglers," Cornelius wrote in an e-mail. "We should leave it to the professionals."

Since Krentz's March 27 killing, Homeland Security officials have moved more Border Patrol agents into the area.

FOR AND AGAINST

For many residents shaken by the killing of the well-known and highly regarded Krentz, the deployment of troops is necessary.

"The Mexican outlaws have total control, and it's going to get worse," said rancher Ed Ashurst, a neighbor of Krentz's. "There are going to be more dead people until they put the Army on the line."

Others, though, don't want troops back, at least in the form they've been there before.

"Everybody wants them to put troops on the line," said rancher Wendy Glenn, a neighbor and friend of Krentz's. "There would be more people putting out tracks, and vehicles tearing up open space wherever they go."

Instead, Glenn said, she wishes Border Patrol agents would be better equipped with radios that can communicate with one another across sector lines and with more mobile radar stations. Others want more cell-phone towers to speed up emergency response times.

Another Krentz neighbor, Bill McDonald, said the National Guard would help in the short run but the problems associated with smuggling require a more sustainable response.

"Once you pull them out, what happens?" said McDonald, a fifth-generation rancher. "There has to be a way better strategy than slapping the guard in there when things get tough."

UP TO WASHINGTON

A federal decision to send the National Guard would have to come from the White House or the Department of Defense. The White House says it's committed to securing the nation's borders but wouldn't say if it plans to send troops.

Border state governors have been requesting the National Guard since spring 2009, but the Obama administration has been reluctant to pull the trigger because of concerns about militarization and the strain troops are already under with oversees conflicts, said Shirk of the Trans-Border Institute.

Cost is an issue, too. The federal government spent $1.2 billion to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border under Operation Jump Start.

Brewer said the state would be able to sustain the Guard only for a short period, which is why she wants the federal government to step up and pay. Securing the border is a federal responsibility, she said.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson sent an additional 35 guardsmen to the border in reaction to the Krentz killing, but it's unclear how long they'll be there.

One thing is clear: the killing of Krentz and subsequent calls for troops have amped up the pressure on the Obama administration, Shirk said.

"It's an election year, and they certainly don't want to be seen as soft on national security," Shirk said. "They are more likely to send troops this year than last year because there is a greater sense of urgency."

Searching for a killer

The Cochise County Sheriff's Office is investigating the March 27 shooting death of rancher Robert Krentz. It's getting some help:

• The U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona is going back through its active cases from the area where the killing occurred and interviewing suspects in hopes of unearthing useful information, said Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney in Arizona.

• Burke met with his counterpart in Mexico this week to set the groundwork for extradition if authorities find the shooter across the border.

• Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dedicated several agents full time to assist Cochise County, and has additional agents on standby if needed.

• Homeland Security has put up a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and federal prosecution of the shooter.

• The Arizona Cattlemen's Association is offering a $15,000 reward.

Brady McCombs

Contact reporter Brady McCombs at bmccombs@azstarnet.com.

Posted in Border, Brady-mccombs--and-tim-steller on Sunday, April 11, 2010 12:00 am Updated: 11:59 pm. | Tags:


http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/ ... 83477.html

URGENT FLORIDA ALERT!!!ACTION NEEDED NOW!

http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1041093.html#1041093

Why ranchers fear for their safety, and what lawmakers want to do about it.
Thu, 04/15/2010 - 00:46









By Shar Porier

BISBEE — Arizona legislators were clued in to the terrifying effect that illegal drug and human smuggling has had on ranchers.

Tuesday, Arizona Cattle Growers Association members and ranchers from across the state painted a picture of crime gone wild on the lands they depend on for their livelihood. In memory of slain rancher Robert Krentz, they named their proposal ROB (Restore Our Border).

Association spokesperson Patrick Bray said Wednesday the meeting with the Senate Appropriations Committee went well and the speakers who told their experiences were well-received.

State Sen. Russell Pearce was one who listened to the stories of families afraid to go out after dark, of cattle found slaughtered and partially eaten, of beloved pets and ranch dogs shot, of thousands of dollars in destroyed fences; and numerous home burglaries and invasions.

“I was personally taken aback by the stories of our ranchers who live in fear every day of their lives. All across this state the stories are similar,â€