2-14-06
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3506415

Bounties put on deputies
Texas sheriff also describes threats made against families
Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer

Sheriff's deputies in Texas' Hudspeth County have had bounties placed on their heads, and their families have been verbally threatened by men suspected of belonging to one of Mexico's most dangerous drug cartels.

The deputies, some of whom testified last week before a House subcommittee in Washington, D.C., said they will not back down despite the threats by smugglers over enforcement actions along the border.

"We've placed guards at the schools for the children of the deputies just for precaution," said Sheriff Arvin West, of Hudspeth County.

"These men didn't just threaten our deputies but their wives and children. There is no doubt in my mind that the cartels have bought off Mexican military and government officials. Now they're trying to scare us ... it's not going to happen," he said.

The suspected drug runners are believed to be connected to cartels in Juarez, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, West said. Informants who have spoken to him from the Mexican side of the border said deputies have bounties on them as high as $100,000, West said.

"Unfortunately, how do we verify that?" he added. "All we can do is protect one another. I don't know what more we can do except hope our government is listening and does something about it."

Three weeks ago, Department of Public Safety troopers and Hudspeth deputies took photographs and videotaped an armed standoff with men, dressed in Mexican military uniforms, assisting civilian-dressed drug smugglers across the Rio Grande.

"They certainly aren't happy with the truth coming out," West said. "But we're going to stay here, and they're not going to intimidate us from doing our jobs."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has allocated additional manpower to the sparsely populated county since the last recorded incursion by smugglers on Jan. 23 near Sierra Blanca, West added. Sierra Blanca, the county seat of Hudspeth County, is about 50 miles east of El Paso.

One deputy, who spoke under condition of anonymity, said his wife was approached by men who told her to keep her husband away from the Rio Grande or "they would pay a high price." The Rio Grande, which is now only 200 yards wide and only 3 to 5 feet deep, is easily crossed by drug smugglers bringing narcotics into the United States.

At the home of another deputy the stakes got much higher, West said.

Suspected drug runners not only warned the deputy's wife but informed her that they knew when, where and at what time her young children attended school.

"They practically read off her children's school schedule," West said. "This has now become personal. We've had to deploy our resources throughout the county. It just strains our resources a little more, but the kids come first. But there are also people here in town who are just in as much danger as the deputies."

The Juarez Cartel is considered one of the most notorious drug trafficking organizations along the border. The organization is connected to owners of several airline companies, which enables their leaders to fly 727s from Colombia into Juarez, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Increasingly, murders in Juarez have been associated with the cartel, said Hardrick Crawford, a former special agent in charge of the El Paso FBI field office, who headed investigations into drug smuggling along the Texas border.

"I truly understand how the deputies feel," said Crawford, whose family was also targeted by drug dealers during his investigations into drug trafficking in Miami during the 1980s.

"Intimidation is very effective for the cartels," he said. "First they try bribery and then blackmail. When that doesn't work, it's intimidation and then murder. And believe me, these type of men have no problem with murder."

The FBI El Paso field office has been notified of the threats to deputies' families. Agents were sent to Hudspeth County last Thursday, said Andrea Simmons, FBI special agent in El Paso.

"A special agent had several meetings in Hudspeth County," Simmons said. "At this point we do not have an active investigation, but that doesn't eliminate the fact that it could become an active investigation."

Simmons said the FBI has the authority to investigate under Interstate Transportation in Aid of Racketeering statute. The statute grants the bureau the ability to investigate crimes if the suspected persons crossed an international border to commit a crime.

"In this case the threat to the deputies would be the crime," Simmons said. "Any threat or murder, including violence made after crossing an international border or across state lines falls under that statute."

Many of the deputies live only a few miles from the border. But most feel reassured with the help they are getting from the Texas state troopers and Border Patrol agents who work along the Rio Grande, West said.

"All we can do is hope and pray nothing happens," West said. "I hope they listen to us and put more manpower down here and stick to their guns. If this was happening in downtown Chicago or Washington, D.C., I don't think the federal government would hesitate to protect the city -- I don't know why they've just ignored us."


Sara A. Carter can be reached by e-mail at sara.carteror by phone at (909) 483-8552.