Squaring up for a drugs war on streets of Laredo

[genieroze]

Squaring up for a drugs war on streets of Laredo
I feel sorry for innocent people on both sides of the border. All this over weed?

By Francis Harris in Laredo
(Filed: 28/04/2006)

On the far side of the Rio Grande, a Mexican drug runner raised his AK47 at US lawmen.

The man and five companions were goading the Americans, 100 yards across the border.
Deputies Abel Hinojosa and Morcos Pampa beside the Rio Grande
Deputies Hinojosa and Pampa beside the Rio Grande

"Hey! We're ready to play now," screamed the gunman, who was probably trying to recover the marijuana abandoned on the American side after a chase earlier that day.

The threat didn't work. The Texan sheriff's deputy, Abel Hinojosa, stayed where he was, with the drug gang in his sights and his finger tightening on the trigger of his rifle.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=GB5YUISY142GBQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2006/04/28/wus28.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/28/ixworld.html

[Warpy]

1. NM tends to be a pretty tolerant state

and many of the ranchers on the border have put water and food along the trails so that people who are trying to cross won't die in the desert. None of them is ever prepared for the distance they'll have to walk and the number of days it will take.

Ranchers are reporting that the practice is getting dangerous, that if they're seen anywhere near the trails, people will wave guns, curse, and generally threaten them. This is thought to be due to the war on drugs and these are narcotics traffickers, not peasants looking for minimum wage jobs.

I'm not a bit surprised by this article. I'm just surprised it hasn't been reported more in the mainstream media. Things are getting tougher at the border.

[genieroze]

2. I was surprised, I never knew about this. I'm concerned about

people stuck in the middle of this crap.

[AndyTiedye]

3. They Regard Pot as a Bigger Threat than Terrorism

Threat to whom? one might ask.

When the Feds come here, it's not to look for terrorists,
it's to bust sick people and those who care for them.

Do you know why there weren't any planes to incept the 9/11 flights?
Because Asscroft had diverted those planes to look for pot smugglers!

[genieroze]

4. I should know better, nothing this misadministration does should

surprise me.

[benEzra]

5. 10 to 1 that was a real military AK-47, not a U.S. civilian lookalike...

the drug smugglers have occasionally had RPG drive-by's in Nuevo Laredo, as I recall...and there was an incident a while back in which the drug smugglers had a jeep or humvee with a mounted .50 caliber machinegun. Looks like some people in the Mexican military logistics arm are susceptible to being bought off...