ARIZONA VIGILANTES: Highway shootings staged to embarrass visiting Mexican President
by
Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de AztlanPhoenix, Arizona - November 5, 2003 - (ACN) In Arizona, things are not always the way they seem nor the way events are reported by the police or the press. This is certainly true with the shootings along Interstate 10 yesterday that left 4 Mexican immigrants dead and 5 others injured. Arizona, after all, is still the "wild wild west" and home of the most vile and violent anti-Mexican vigilantes west of the Mississippi. The well organized Arizona vigilantes are now operating with impunity and in most cases under the umbrella of certain racist and sympathetic law enforcement officials.
It is not coincidental that the shooting rampage along the highway just outside Phoenix involving Mexican immigrants occurred at precisely the time when President Vicente Fox of Mexico was landing at the Phoenix Airport for an important meeting with Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to discuss immigration issues. The Arizona vigilantes had been preparing for some time to conduct protests and actions against the Mexican president during his visit to Phoenix. One primary aim of the vigilantes has been to bring negative publicity by the US press to the issue of Mexican immigration and the carnage on Interstate 10 certainly accomplished it. It also made it extremely awkward for President Vicente Fox to articulate positive proposals on the immigration issue.
The horrific shooting incident on the highway just west of Phoenix was executed with military precision. A Ford pickup truck and a Ford Explorer carrying a total of 24 Mexican immigrants were approached from behind by a Dodge Caravan with four men armed with military style assault rifles. The unknown assailants drove up alongside the immigrant two vehicle caravan and opened fire. The driver and three men traveling in the pickup truck were killed and three were injured. Two people in the Ford Explorer including a woman were wounded by the gunfire. Eleven other Mexican immigrants who had been in the pickup truck ran into the desert and were later found unharmed.
As usual, Arizona police authorities were quick to blame the Mexican "coyotes" or immigrant smugglers for the shootings. This is not the first time that the killing of Mexican immigrants have been blamed on the so called "coyotes". Among the most recent cases blamed on the "coyotes" are:
* November 1: An undocumented Mexican worker was found dead about three miles east of Vail, Arizona. The 21-year-old man had been shoved off an I-10 bridge to his death. The authorities blamed "coyotes".
* In separate incidents from March 2002 to August 2003, nine Mexican immigrants were found murdered in the White Tank Mountains outside Phoenix. The police blamed the "coyotes".
* In October 2002, two Mexican immigrants were shot to death near Red Rock, Arizona as they stood with other immigrants by a cattle pond. The next day, the police searched a 15-square-mile area and found no sign of the nine other immigrants. The police, again, blamed the so called "coyotes' for the two murders.
Why was Pinal County Sheriff Roger Vanderpool so quick to blame yesterday's highway shootings also on the "coyotes" knowing full well that there are well organized and armed anti-Mexican vigilante groups operating in his county? Is Sheriff Roger Vanderpool ignorant of the Mexican "hunting" operations that were planned at a Sierra Vista, Arizona conference on May of 2000 and that was attended by a host of white supremacist groups and racist anti-Mexican militias? Is it possible that Sheriff Roger Vanderpool is a sympathizer of the vigilantes or worst in cahoots with them? Though Sheriff Roger Vanderpool is reporting that they apprehended four Mexican "coyotes" responsible for the highway shooting spree, who really are these men? Are they mere patsies or are they paid agents of anti-Mexican immigration groups?
Soon after the Sierra Vista conference, where a proposal to place military mines along the Arizona/Mexico border was made, scores of Mexican immigrants have turned up dead in remote regions of the Arizona desert. With this type of vigilante mentality, it is not unreasonable to believe that yesterday's murderous operation along Interstate 10 was the work of the vile vigilantes design to turn American public opinion against Mexican immigration . It is extremely likely that the operation was carried out directly by the vigilantes with the cooperation of certain racist law enforcement officials or they paid some thugs to carry it out.
Related La Voz de Aztlan articles:
Anti-Mexican Vigilante Glenn Spencer Arrested
Mexican-American Groups to "Confront" Border Vigilantes
Anti-Mexican "Tombstone Vigilante" Arrested
SAN DIEGO: Vigilante thugs sentenced in beating of elderly Mexican workers
Hunting of Mexicans along US/Mexico Border Escalates - Two Dead
Arizona Vigilantes Threaten Peace at the Border
Vigilantism at the US/Mexico Border May Spread Northward
