The second news item in the Daily Star catching my eye this morning reports an incident being billed as
"a fight between human-smugglers" on a farm north of Tucson: [emphases mine]
David Norris Jr., 46, of Eloy, about 50 miles northwest of Tucson, was driving a vehicle containing 12 illegal entrants in a farm field near Sunshine and Ellis roads when four heavily armed men in a white full-size van began firing on them, Michael Minter, a Pinal County Sheriff's Department spokesman, said Wednesday.
None of the shooters has been arrested, Minter said. They were wearing green camouflage pants and shirts and wearing military-style berets — three black and one red. The shooters spoke limited Spanish.
This is curious to me for reasons revolving around the apparent non-Latino identities of the gunmen and the dead driver. Human smugglers around here, at least the ones that make the papers, are usually Mexican coyotes who get caught by the Border Patrol on the highway. An anglo guy from Eloy driving a truckload of illegals in a farm field sounds more like an under-the-table employer than a smuggler to me, but I could be wrong. And four white guys in military getups with big guns sound more like self-styled yahoo Minutemen than a rival smuggling ring to me, but I could be wrong. They managed to kill Norris and wound a 12-year-old kid. I'm not sure who decided this was little more than gang warfare. I hope the Star does a little digging here.
This is curious to me for reasons revolving around the apparent non-Latino identities of the gunmen and the dead driver. Human smugglers around here, at least the ones that make the papers, are usually Mexican coyotes who get caught by the Border Patrol on the highway. An anglo guy from Eloy driving a truckload of illegals in a farm field sounds more like an under-the-table employer than a smuggler to me, but I could be wrong. And four white guys in military getups with big guns sound more like self-styled yahoo Minutemen than a rival smuggling ring to me, but I could be wrong. They managed to kill Norris and wound a 12-year-old kid. I'm not sure who decided this was little more than gang warfare. I hope the Star does a little digging here.
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