http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=6033455

Long before Guard incident, Arizona's border was dangerous

SASABE, Ariz. -- A recent incident in which National Guard troops withdrew from a border observation post when approached by armed men only underscored what authorities and residents have known for years: That violence and danger have been common along the 377-mile Arizona border since long before politicians from across the country began to focus on it.

The Border Patrol has regularly pointed that out, and Agent Sean King said agents gird themselves for it when they head out on patrol every day and night.

Heavily armed smugglers bringing in drugs, rock-throwing immigrants and bandits who prey on the border crossers themselves are all part of the mix. Smuggling vehicles traveling at high speeds also pose a risk to border residents and motorists.

"We're definitely expecting the worst and prepared for it," King said. "No agent should go out without wearing a (bulletproof) vest and without a long arm, either a shotgun or rifle, because what we're going up against is a smuggler with an AK-47. We need to match their firepower."

Guardsman Steve Hammann of Buffalo said the soldiers who are on the border _ as part of the Bush administration's plan to back up the Border Patrol _ know they're constantly being watched by smugglers' scouts.

"They see us, we see them," he said. "They know we're here."

Assaults on agents, from rockings to shootings to attempts to run them down, climbed from 146 in the 2004 fiscal year to 213 in the 2006 fiscal year, in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which covers 261 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border.

Ten agents in the Tucson sector were shot at in fiscal 2006, though none were hit. The year before, two agents were shot in their legs near Nogales after jumping a group of drug "mules," or backpackers.

In Arizona's other Border Patrol sector, assaults on agents, including shootings, went from 119 in the 2005 fiscal year to 148 in the last fiscal year.

This year is also off to a violent start.

The Jan. 3 National Guard incident, in which four Tennessee Guardsmen withdrew from their border observation post after being approached by six to eight armed men, has drawn the most widespread attention.

But since then, a Border Patrol agent fatally shot a Mexican migrant who allegedly attacked him with a rock near the border community of Naco.

Then two Mexican men were killed and two injured 20 miles north of the border as they were smuggling marijuana, assaulted by men wearing camouflage and armed with assault rifles.

Most recently, unknown assailants threw rocks at a Guard border observation post, breaking two windows on a Guard vehicle. No one was injured.

Law enforcement officers and migrants aren't the only ones touched by the danger.

Crossings by illegal immigrants and drug smugglers remain a way of life for people living and working near the border.

On the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation, which shares 75 miles of border with Mexico, officials agreed to allow the federal government to put up vehicle barriers because of the dangers posed by smuggler vehicles that barrel through tribal villages.

Tribal Chairwoman Vivian Juan-Saunders said people have said they need additional security.

"Over the course of the last 10 years or more, we've seen an increase in violence against our members, homes broken into, food stolen, members being harassed late at night. Wood is put across the road, they have to stop and they're surrounded by individuals desperate for transportation," Juan-Saunders said.

But some residents like Alice Knagge, who has lived in Sasabe for more than 75 years, said that things have been safer because of the presence of the Border Patrol agents and National Guard troops. "It's really not as bad as they say," said Knagge.

Most migrants heading through are going north for jobs, she said.

"A few of the bad people transport drugs, but they won't bother you if you don't bother them," Knagge said. "If I was out there as a civilian and tried to interfere, they would hurt me."