Thread: Poetic Injustice

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Poetic Injustice
By Jon E. Dougherty
24 August 2005
Once you hear about this illegal immigration story, I think you'll agree with me the inmates are definitely running the asylum.

This unbelievable tale begins March 20, 2003, when members of a group called Ranch Rescue were invited to set up a base camp on a ranch near Hebbronville, Texas, with the intent of helping the landowner, Joe Sutton, keep illegal aliens off his property. Thousands of illegals had been overrunning his land for years – destroying fences, endangering his livestock, and tearing up property. Getting little help from the Border Patrol and local law enforcement authorities, Sutton decided to take action on his own – something he had every right to do.

At the time I was researching my book, "Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border," and the national spokesman for Ranch Rescue, Jack Foote, invited me down to view the operation.

The day I arrived, Foote and Sutton informed me that group members Casey Nethercott and Hank Connor had been arrested by local and state authorities for allegedly pistol-whipping a pair of illegal aliens from Ecuador they had encountered the night before while patrolling the property.

Always a newsman first and working for WorldNetDaily at the time, I went to where the men were being held, the Jim Hogg County jail, to get the details so I could file a story. Joining me was Eric Boye (pronounced "boy-yay"), a French photojournalist who had been covering the operation and was an eyewitness to the capture of the Salvadorans. On our way down he had told me the Ranch Rescue volunteers never laid a hand on the Salvadorans and, in fact, treated them "with humanity." He said four Mexican nationals captured with the Salvadorans were also treated with respect.

When we got to the jail, neither Sheriff Erasmo Alarcon Jr. nor a testy Texas Ranger sergeant named Doyle Holdridge would let me interview either prisoner. They wouldn't tell me the accusers' names. All they did tell me is that Nethercott and Connor were being held on suspicion of aggravated assault – charges which didn't hold water from the outset. When Boye – who spoke only broken English – attempted to tell the lawmen his eyewitness account, they actually began to berate Boye and wound up all but accusing him of being part of the abuse.

In an interview following my jail visit, Foote told me the two foreign nationals, a man and a woman who were later identified as Edwin Alfredo Mancia Gonzales and Fatima Del Socorro Leiva Medina, were never beaten – with a pistols, rifles, a fist, nothing – and though his men were armed, the illegals were "treated with kid gloves." While his testimony could be construed as bias, it's important to note that Border Patrol agents aplenty will tell you captured illegal aliens routinely make up stories of abuse, because they know there are well-funded immigrant advocate groups in the U.S. who will help them get legal restitution.

As for the illegals, Foote and his crew gave them refreshments, ensured they were not in need of immediate medical care, and called the Border Patrol, which – ironically – manned a checkpoint just a few miles away. But after nearly an hour, when agents still hadn't shown up, Foote and his crew let all the migrants go. They were found walking along the highway by agents a short while later, however. Once in custody, the Salvadorans proceeded to tell authorities they'd been abused.

Another aside. Sheriff Alarcon, just days before all of this took place, published a letter in the local newspaper warning residents of reports he had been receiving for some years from ranchers and local residents, each of whom had spotted the unknown troops on occasion. Locals reported seeing men who were equipped with "professional backpacks" and walking together in a military cadence – the latest sightings of which had just occurred earlier that same month. "Obviously, they are trespassing, and obviously, they are carrying something," he wrote. "We hope it's narcotics and not something much worse."

In the end, the four Mexican illegals dropped all their charges, no doubt believing they had no case. But the two Salvadorans did not drop it. They continued to maintain the Ranch Rescue volunteers beat them, held them at gunpoint and threatened their lives.

Their perseverance paid off because eventually a court of law saw it their way. Though Nethercott was not found guilty of "pistol-whipping" and otherwise abusing the Salvadorans, he was still forced to cede his ranch to the couple in a settlement for "civil damages" which, in essence, amounted to compensating their bruised egos for being captured while trying to break into our country. As a legal coup de grace, Nethercott was also sentenced to a five-year prison term because he was a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

In addition, Joe Sutton settled his case for $100,000; a judge issued a judgment against Foote for $500,000.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal aid group along the lines of the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union, represented the illegal Salvadorans. An official with the group called Nethercott's punishment "poetic justice," because the aliens he tried to prevent from entering the country illegally wound up with his ranch.

Poetic injustice is more like it.

The moral of this story is loud and clear: If you're an illegal alien, you don't have to be beaten to win a lawsuit in America and take over a gringo's property. All you have to do is break into the country and get caught, then make up any story you think will be believed.

And when that ranch is suddenly overrun with 5000 "immigrants" I'll bet you anything that the Ecuadorian illegals will vote for Tancredo!!!