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Letter To The Editor
Note: As of the date of this posting on the AmericanPatrol.com site the item below was submitted to but had not been published in the publication to which it was addressed. The opinions expressed in editorials, letters, e-mail and guest columns posted on this site do not necessarily reflect the opinions of AmericanPatrol.com.
From: "Ranch Rescue Texas (Jack Foote)" <volunteer@ranchrescue.com>
Organization: Ranch Rescue
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 09:34:42 -0600
To: Tucson Citizen
Subject: Rebuttal to Editorial of 5 November 2002To the Editors of the Tucson Citizen
Dear Sirs:
My name is Jack Foote. I am the National Spokesman for Ranch Rescue. I am also the Texas Coordinator.
In response to the Tucson Citizen's editorial of 5 November 2002, titled "Keep private groups out of border affairs", Ranch Rescue offers the following in reply:
Your editorial states, "If individuals wish to patrol their own land, that is one thing. People have the right and the responsibility to protect their property. But armed paramilitary groups must not be patrolling the border - a situation that could easily spin out of control."
It is nice of ya'll to so graciously recognize that we Citizens have the right to protect our own property. It's downright neighborly of you to allow us to defend ourselves and our families. Gee, thanks so much.
As you say, as private Citizens we have the right to defend our homes and property against all criminals, regardless of where that private property might be geographically and regardless of the criminals' nation of origin. We also have the right to invite others to help us, which is the basis for everything that Ranch Rescue does. We conduct our efforts as the invited guests of our landowner hosts. We use whatever methods and approaches that actually work, including those developed by the military. We make no apologies for our repeated and consistent success.
Ranch Rescue has been in operation for over two years and we have conducted five separate field missions as invited guests on border county private property. All of our efforts have been conducted within the boundaries of the law. Not one criminal complaint has ever been filed against Ranch Rescue and not one of our members has ever been arrested or charged with a crime during any of our missions. These facts alone speak volumes for the absolute legality of what we have done in the past and what we will most definitely continue to do in the future.
Being concerned that the "situation could spin out of control" is to ignore reality. The situation has been utterly out of control for the past four years. If it were under control, Ranch Rescue would not exist.
I was present in Santa Cruz County, Arizona for Operation Hawk and I was part of the group of 13 volunteers on the San Antonio Ranch the night that we encountered two separate groups of drug smugglers, resulting in our turning over 279 pounds of illegal drugs to the Sheriff's Office of that county. We were on private property with the express written consent of the ranch manager, who by the way was fully cognizant of who we were when he invited us. Part of that written agreement includes a clause whereby the ranch manager designated Ranch Rescue as a Limited Agent for dealing with any criminal activity that we might encounter while on the property.
Under state law, such an agreement gives our volunteers the same legal rights as the landowner, including the right to challenge and evict trespassers from the property. It makes no difference under state law if the private property is directly adjacent to the border, it is still private property. We conducted our efforts to secure the private property and to document the criminal activity that was taking place there. We were not there to "patrol the border", but we were on private property that has been overrun by criminals simply because of its proximity to that border. That's where the problem is, that's where we were invited to go, so that's where we went. We plan to keep doing that as often as we possibly can.
Your editorial goes on to opine "But these are matters that should and must be handled by the proper authorities. " Well, if "the proper authorities" were actually willing to handle the problem, then Ranch Rescue would not exist. The "proper authorities" were conspicuous by their absence the night that our volunteers encountered the drug smugglers. Where were "the proper authorities" that night? They certainly weren't anywhere near where the problem was.
Your editorial goes on to say that, "A group of armed, under-trained civilians with little knowledge of investigative procedures, civil rights or federal laws must not act as a de facto police agency. "
Calling our volunteers "under-trained" is a serious misstatement of the facts. For the record, there was more combined military and law enforcement experience in our group of volunteers during Operation Hawk than there is today in the entire Sheriff's Office of Santa Cruz County . Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon, US Army Light Infantry, Canadian Light Infantry, a former US Border Patrol agent, an honor graduate of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, several metropolitan police officers, and a Sheriff's deputy were all present. All of us were there as private Citizens, volunteers who traveled there at our own risk and expense.
If we had "little knowledge of investigative procedures", then how is it that we were able to set up right where we would find 2 separate groups of drug smugglers within less than 24 hours of our being invited onto the property? That sounds like pretty darn good knowledge of investigative procedures to us. The "proper authorities" were apparently completely oblivious to what was to us quite apparent.
State law allows a landowner to evict a trespasser from the property. That is not acting as a "de facto police agency", that is the landowner exercising his rights under the law. Ranch Rescue acts as the landowner's agent, so we are also acting within the bounds of the law to challenge trespassers and order them to leave the property.
We and the border county landowners have been demanding that the state and federal governments establish a credible deterrent to the border crime wave for four years. If "the proper authorities" were going to do anything concrete, they would have done it by now. If they someday want to actually do so, let them, we and every other border county landowner will be happy to see them do so. But like my dear departed Grand-Dad used to say, "I'm from Missouri. Show me."
You also say that, "It is too easy in such a situation for someone on either side to be injured or killed." Absolutely right.
That situation, that prospect of serious injury or death, is being faced by our rural border county landowners every day. They are the ones that are being threatened, we are merely responding to that threat.
We are not going to hide from these criminals, we are going to confront them each and every time we encounter them. Our volunteers will respond to any threats with whatever proportional amount of force is allowable under state law. The best way for such situations to be avoided would be for the criminals to avoid private property. We are invited, they are not.
The criminals are the ones who will to be ordered to leave the private property immediately, not the landowners, and not Ranch Rescue. We do not go out looking for a fight, but if there are criminals who come to our host's property looking for a fight, we are well-equipped to give them one. We are not going to run away, we are not going to retreat, and we are not going to hide. We are going to stand.
For Ranch Rescue, this is not an immigration issue, it is a private property rights issue and a matter of protecting the lives of our rural border county families against a growing violent criminal threat. We will not sit idly by and watch our rural border county families being threatened.
Ranch Rescue is not going to stop or even slow down what we have been doing, we are going to expand and accelerate it. We are coming to the border counties and we are coming in ever-increasing numbers. We will bring more volunteers to each successive mission, and our overall membership has tripled since January of this year. Our expectations for the future are to again triple our membership in 2003.
We only conduct our operations on private property where we have been invited and we operate within the law. That means that if anyone other than our landowner host doesn't like what we are doing, they can either dial 911 or they can write their Congressman. Our border county landowner hosts have been doing both for the past four years and all that they have seen is the crime wave getting worse each year. That is about to change, but not because of our federal, state, or county governments.
It will change because the Citizens, organizing and working together cooperatively, will stand up to the crime wave. Our organization, Ranch Rescue, will assist them in any way that we can. And we will continue to bring them help from all over the USA and from other nations.
If our federal, state, and county governments will not keep these criminals off of private property, we will.
Jack Foote
National Spokesman and Texas Coordinator
Ranch Rescue -- http://www.ranchrescue.com
"It's nothing new for the INS to release criminals onto the streets and for them to commit murder. There's been hundreds murdered in the United States at the hands of illegal aliens."
-- Daryl Schermerhorn, Senior US Border Patrol Agent, in an interview on The O'Reilly Factor, 29 October 2002
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,67105,00.html
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