Officials: 1 man killed, 1 injured in border attack southwest of Tucson

By Megan Neighbor Arizona Daily Star
March 1, 2010 3:09 pm

A new type of vigilante assault occurred in Southern Arizona’s borderlands this morning, according to law enforcement reports.

A group of illegal border crossers was so fed up with being robbed a second time while walking into the country that they beat up two of the robbers, killing one, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department reported. The crossers were being questioned by investigators today.

The authorities found out about the incident when an injured man wandered along Arizona 286, about 16 miles north of the border near Sasabe, said Border Patrol agent David Jimarez. He was stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents about 4:30 a.m.

The injured man said he was among a group of illegal border crossers who had been assaulted by two people-smugglers, Dawn Barkman, spokeswoman for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said. He led the agents about 10 miles west to the body of another man whom he said was killed in the incident.

Officers searched the area and found a group of 10 border crossers. The men claimed they were the victims in the robbery and identified the original injured man and the dead man as the real robbers.

They told investigators they had been robbed earlier during their cross-border trek. When confronted a second time, the group decided to “take things into their own hands,â€