Another border attack — again, not coincidence
I have a few questions… both about the story, and about the reporting.
By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
TUCSON, Ariz. (Feb. 08) – Gunmen stopped a pickup truck full of illegal immigrants, shot several and took the rest captive Thursday in an attack that left at least three men dead and two people wounded, authorities said.
The men shot three people, one fatally, along a known smuggling corridor near Tucson, then forced the six or seven other immigrants in the group to leave with them, Pima County sheriff’s officials said.
The bodies of two of those immigrants were found a few miles north in the cab of the pickup truck that had been carrying the group. The other four or five immigrants had not been found by midday Thursday.
Investigators did not immediately know a motive for the attack, but gangs of bandits are known to roam border areas preying on illegal immigrants as they cross into the country. Feuding among smuggling organizations also is not uncommon, sometimes involving demands for ransoms from the immigrants relatives to gain their freedom.
Kastigar said the immigrants were heading north when four men armed with assault rifles in another vehicle forced the truck to stop. During a confrontation, one man was killed, another was shot in the hand – losing several fingers – and a woman was shot in the neck, Kastigar said.
Sheriff’s Sgt. James Ogden said the two wounded immigrants were taken to a hospital with “very, very serious injuries.”
Two more men who were not injured were taken into custody as witnesses and were questioned by investigators, Ogden said.
Kastigar said the confrontation followed another incident about 12 hours earlier more than 70 miles south, near the border at Sasabe, in which 18 illegal immigrants were robbed at gunpoint by four heavily armed men wearing ski masks.
This is actually the THIRD attack in the area. ON February 1, there was the disturbing report of four men opening fire on a group of “illegal aliens” — which initially suggested an inter-gang war, but later reports suggest could be a anti-immigrant death squad operating in the desert. (The attackers didn’t speak Spanish, and were dressed in paramilitary outfits. In the first of today’s attack, they were in “pasamontañes”…and speaking Spanish, according to El Voz (Phoenix), but there’s no indication the two are related, or, for that matter, that these three are. But… something sure is going on).
Don’t the AP editors follow up on their own reports? The Texas Civil Liberties Review sensibly suggests following up English-language reports with those in the Spanish-language press. I’ll look around later this evening, and see if I can come up with anything… if so, I’ll update.
The Mex Files 
yikes… next theink you know they’ll attack with saucers!! ( a little humor here)