AZ: Residents in small town live with smuggling

Residents in small town live with smuggling
Posted: Apr 18, 2011 11:30 PM CDT Updated: Apr 18, 2011 11:32 PM CDT

Reporter: Sergio Avila

STANFIELD, Ariz.Pinal County deputies tell 9OYS six men they arrested first denied being involved in the shootout that left one person dead. They were found inside a rundown home in Stanfield.

They're believed to have been smuggling drugs with eight other people when they were attacked by three or four bandits.

Another man who was injured in the battle still sits in a hospital bed. Deputies tell KGUN9 News they have yet to determine his name and wether he's a smuggler or a bandit.

People in the small town of Stanfield tell us the story story wasn't news to them. They have seen things those types of things happening for years.

"There's a lot of it going on, I try to keep a low profile," Marilyn Deeter, a 15 year Stanfield resident, said.

Deeter says smugglers also keep low profiles although they're obviously around. Evidence of smuggling can be found all over the ground. Backpacks were discarded all over a small part of the desert along with clothes and bottles of water.

But it's not just drugs, Fred Eschbach runs into illegal immigrants is also pretty often.

"I could be working in my shop and have three or four guys all of a sudden come up behind me that obviously they don't speak English, they don't know where they are or where they're going but they want to use the phone, they want to use your bathroom, they want some water," Eschbach, a Stanfield resident, said.

Although news of these types of gun battles and arrests have recently been in the news more, Eschbach believes the frequency hasn't changed in the fifteen years she's lived here.

"We see things you know people running around. It's not more it just seems to be pretty steady," He said.

Deputies tell 9OYS there were 14 smugglers in all but only six were arrested. The three to four bandits also weren't caught and the drugs they were fighting for are also still missing.

http://www.kgun9.com/story/14470768/res ... ected=true