Breaking News Arizona rancher likely killed by drug-cartel scout, attorney general Goddard says activists you now got the proof now what excuse will you have ?News
Type Size: A A APrintEmailRetweet Digg this.Arizona rancher likely killed by drug-cartel scout, attorney general Goddard says
by Dennis Wagner – Apr. 2, 2010 02:27 PM
The Arizona Republic .
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said Friday that the suspect who murdered a rancher near the border last week was most likely a quasi-military scout employed by Mexican drug syndicates to look out for law enforcement.
"I hope this is a wake-up call to people in the United States that there are very sophisticated cartel operations going on in both this country and in Mexico," Goddard said.
Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office, said homicide investigators have no information about a suspect or motive in the slaying of Robert Krentz, 58, a prominent cattleman who was gunned down on his ranch northeast of Douglas.
Sheriff’s officials said Krentz was shot while sitting in his quad, or all-terrain vehicle, shortly after he contacted his brother by radio about discovering suspected illegal immigrants on rangeland alongside the Chiricahua Mountains.
Based on footprint evidence, deputies concluded that a lone assailant arrived at the shooting scene from the north and fled 20 miles south to the Mexican border.
Goddard said his theory of the crime is based on those tracks, and on intelligence about how smuggling organizations operate. He said Mexican cartels frequently place highly trained scouts on hilltops that overlook trafficking routes.
"They arm them well," Goddard added. "They have solar-powered transmitters."
A U.S. Border Patrol spokesman for the Tucson Sector said Krentz would be the first U.S. citizen to die at the hands of an illegal immigrant in at least a decade.
Goddard said it is possible that the killer was looking for discarded marijuana when he came upon Robert Krentz. Sheriff’s investigators said the victim’s brother, Phil Krentz, reported a group of suspected illegal immigrants on the ranch one day before the murder. Border Patrol agents who responded found more than 200 pounds of marijuana that had been dumped in the area; they arrested eight undocumented immigrants nearby.
Goddard expressed doubt that the killing was planned. He said cartels typically accept drug interdictions as a cost of doing business, and avoid violent incidents that might stir up law enforcement.
"I have no evidence at all that it was retaliation," Goddard said." . . . Why he would take a shot at a rancher is something we just don’t understand. It doesn’t fit the business plan."
Krentz’s death spurred a political furor from the high deserts of southeast Arizona to the nation’s capitol. Ranchers and others in the area had warned for years that a lack of border security was placing American citizens in jeopardy. Cochise County and southwest New Mexico have been especially hard hit by an influx of smugglers and illegal immigrants as enforcement tightened along other sections of the border.
After Saturday’s killing, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson sent National Guard troops to his state’s southern border. In Arizona, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords have called for a similar deployment of the troops, along with beefed up Border Patrol enforcement. Giffords said at least 104 additional agents had been assigned to the area as of Wednesday.
"We are mobilizing resources immediately, but more needs to be done," she added.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/04/02/20100402arizona-rancher-likely-killed-by-drug-cartel-scout02-ON.html
