Disturbing News

[Master Oil Racing Team]

One of our employees brought me an untitled, unsigned typewritten document today that had a little more info about a gate guard that was killed a couple of weeks ago. It occurred down "Old Mines Road", a gravel road paralleling the Rio Grande for many, many miles. I'm not sure how far it goes beyond Del Rio which is about 70 up the gravel portion, but it is primarily an oilfield and livestock road.

The document tells the ranch it happened on and the rancher has confirmed the incident, but is not speaking beyond the fact that it happened. There are a number of gates leading into this ranch and today we learned it was a company we do not work for, however, we work all around their leases, and pass by that gate every week.

A female gate guard was killed. A tool pusher (the man in charge of a specific drilling contractor's rig) got out to open the gate when the gate guard didn't respond. He was also killed and his pickup truck taken. The rest is also new to us. Since that incident happened, one of the production crews had spotted several men dressed in black clothing carrying unidentified weapons in the area. Additional Border Patrol agents have been brought in.

This document was handed to our man by a hot shot driver who covers that area on almost a daily basis. He had more to add that he found out on the rigs. There is a number to call before anyone goes out in that area at night. We don't have the number yet. It may be coming from the drilling contractor, which is one of the largest in the world. We work on their rigs often. Anyway, one of their tool pushers had to get up in the middle of the night to go to a remote location on the ranch to check upon a centrifugal pump supplying the rig with fresh water for drilling. He didn't call and while he was checking the fuel and oil, he was surprised by a man dressed in black with a helmet and uzi hanging from a rope. The tool pusher hadn't made the call and a silent helicopter followed him to location where some armed dudes rappeled down to find out what he was doing. Don't know who these special forces were. If there was any incident on the news....I never heard it. It had been a couple of weeks since it happened and it slipped my mind until today. The news is being supressed, but at least we have someone trying to find out who these killers are. The oilfield is making copies and sending untraceable warnings around to everyone who operates in that area not to get out to open any gates. Seems the vast majority of work the service companies have to do is at night. Gates are where the attackers will lie in wait while the personnel are most vulnerable. Tommorrow morning I'm going to have a safety meeting and set up new procedures for work in the area, and what we need to know when we get called out.

[Jerry Combs]

Scary news!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Okay....I jumped the gun. I just got off the phone with my Son-in-Law who is on the same ranch right now. It's 8:30 pm and the tool pusher went to Laredo so he will be hanging out for awhile.

The murders did happen. The location is correct. The question I originally had was BS....the tool pusher at the pump site would have heard the helicopter. I was told...."no, it was a double blade...and they are silent." Instead of calling up my Son-in-Law, I went for the black helicopter theory. My Son-in-Law says that someone has an overactive imagination. I guess that includes me.. However...this much more he added. Before he married my daughter, he worked in the same area as a compressor mechanic. They did a lot of work in the wee hours of the morning. For liability reasons all leases prohibit weapons. The ranch foremen always said "you're not supposed to have a weapon...but you better have one on you....especially after dark". That's why he always teamed up with another hand (one off payroll) watching one's back while the other was working.

My Son-in-Law was an avionics marine on an H-53 helicopter and in the first wave that went into Afghanistan after 911. He said that a lot of the marines had talked about the stealth helicopters and even studied how quiet they could be. He told me, they can be stealthy enough where you could not see them because of their size and slimness, but you could always hear them. The sound comes off the tips of their blades. If they are moving, they could be over you and past before you heard them.

Always before we have been cautious and sometimes carried shotguns because of a new breed of agressive illegal aliens. I've had a couple of friends beat up, and one stabbed several times. With the way things are now, you never know. My Son-in-Law ....sorry---update coming up.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

My Son-in-Law called me as I was in the middle of what's going on down here on the Texas southern border and had to abruptly log out. Seems a pretty good news blackout going on. We're talking about an area 40-50 miles up the Rio Grande from Laredo. I was planning on mentioning a special forces team of Border Patrolmen that go out into the bush 4 days at a time with automatic weapons and rations, just sneaking around the area that is wide open to border crossings. But my Son-in-Law called to say that the tool pusher had to go to a different rig to meet him there because the other pusher had to leave to go to Laredo. But this is what he was told.

He said "Remember that gate guard and tool pusher we heard got killed a couple of weeks ago?" I said yea. He said, "I had heard two other people were killed and I thought it was the same two. It wasn't.....there have been eleven attacks in the last eight weeks. They don't know if it's the same people or not. They think two or three are involved. And three days ago...a gate guard was raped." The pusher he was talking to told him that he was not saying it, but he should not come out there without a gun. One guy a week or so ago passed through the gate guard to go into a ranch on the southern side of Old Mines Road, which we have all been on 200 times, and he had only one gate to open. He was jumped and beaten until they thought he was dead and took his truck.

We have been working on the north side of the ranch where a lot of the atrocities took place, but the company we work for have a well to drill only a mile or so north of Old Mines Road which is at the southernmost boundary of the ranch. The company and drilling contractor had a meeting today and decided that everyone will have to come through a gate on the northern end of the lease. That will mean we will have to drive 30 or 40 miles through the ranch to get to the lease. At 25mph, that's like driving from here to Houston. For almost a year in 2007 and 08 I had to run tools on the northern end of that ranch every 10 days or so. You bring your food and drinks in and don't leave until you are done. The thought of all the logistics of another 20 miles of bringing in the pipe, cement, casing crews etc. can change a job from 24 to 30 hours to in excess of 48 hours.

At this point nobody has any idea about who's behind the killings and beatings. It's not money or vehicles. Since a lot of the border crossings are being fenced in or heavily monitored, it's all about access. So the question is...is it the drug lords or terrorists...or maybe both behind what's happening. My Son-in-Law will not be getting back from there until about 2:00 am so I postponed the meeting until noon.

[Gene East]

My Son-in-Law called me as I was in the middle of what's going on down here on the Texas southern border and had to abruptly log out. Seems a pretty good news blackout going on. We're talking about an area 40-50 miles up the Rio Grande from Laredo. I was planning on mentioning a special forces team of Border Patrolmen that go out into the bush 4 days at a time with automatic weapons and rations, just sneaking around the area that is wide open to border crossings. But my Son-in-Law called to say that the tool pusher had to go to a different rig to meet him there because the other pusher had to leave to go to Laredo. But this is what he was told.

He said "Remember that gate guard and tool pusher we heard got killed a couple of weeks ago?" I said yea. He said, "I had heard two other people were killed and I thought it was the same two. It wasn't.....there have been eleven attacks in the last eight weeks. They don't know if it's the same people or not. They think two or three are involved. And three days ago...a gate guard was raped." The pusher he was talking to told him that he was not saying it, but he should not come out there without a gun. One guy a week or so ago passed through the gate guard to go into a ranch on the southern side of Old Mines Road, which we have all been on 200 times, and he had only one gate to open. He was jumped and beaten until they thought he was dead and took his truck.

We have been working on the north side of the ranch where a lot of the atrocities took place, but the company we work for have a well to drill only a mile or so north of Old Mines Road which is at the southernmost boundary of the ranch. The company and drilling contractor had a meeting today and decided that everyone will have to come through a gate on the northern end of the lease. That will mean we will have to drive 30 or 40 miles through the ranch to get to the lease. At 25mph, that's like driving from here to Houston. For almost a year in 2007 and 08 I had to run tools on the northern end of that ranch every 10 days or so. You bring your food and drinks in and don't leave until you are done. The thought of all the logistics of another 20 miles of bringing in the pipe, cement, casing crews etc. can change a job from 24 to 30 hours to in excess of 48 hours.

At this point nobody has any idea about who's behind the killings and beatings. It's not money or vehicles. Since a lot of the border crossings are being fenced in or heavily monitored, it's all about access. So the question is...is it the drug lords or terrorists...or maybe both behind what's happening. My Son-in-Law will not be getting back from there until about 2:00 am so I postponed the meeting until noon.

Wayne,

Please know your friends are concerned and we are praying for your safety and for the safety of your employees.

We know you are armed, we know you are skilled in the use of firearms.

We want you to know we support you and your right to defend yourself.

We urge you to be extremely cautious.

God bless and protect you my friend!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

One of our customers has a brother that is foreman of the ranch in question. He said the gate guard and employee of the drilling contractor were killed, but not on his ranch. No one is saying exactly which one, but it is near the ranch he works on. A former governor of Texas owns a very large spread just west and also on the opposite side of the road all the way to the Rio Grande. We've been on that ranch hundreds of times and there are never any gate guards. The people that own and live on those ranches are reluctant to talk and I don't blame them. It's not just the liability issue. The drug and people smugglers know who they are, where they live, and let the people on the ranch know that. It is a terrible thing to own property on the border and live under the threat of retaliation.

We have always swept the gates with our headlights and check the brush before we get out of our pickups at night, but at our meeting we decided to get high intensity spotlights we can direct into the area we want to check out. We never have done this before because the land owners are very suspicious about spotlighting. The hunting industry is extremely lucrative with semen for the best bucks going for $10,000 a pop and a kill can fetch 5 to 10 grand. We could be kicked off a ranch if found spotlighting or with weapons. However, in that area, the rules still stand, but the landowners are not saying anything. The whole situation with landowners right now regarding the bad guys and good guys is like the 3 monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Joe is checking out the best spotlights for us, and is also got some top law enforcement people to give us defensive tips. While we all carry cards with numbers of various Border Patrol agents, we are going next week to a regional command office and get whatever master list we can for the various checkpoints. There are some new ones being built and more being expanded. We will carry this list with us as well as have copies at our answering service. When we approach a gate at night we will call the anwsering service and give them directions as to where we are with instructions that if we don't call back within 5 minutes to notify the closest checkpoint. That would probably not prevent any violence or attack, but it might lead to apprehension and maybe much needed attention. One of the guys that was attacked inside a ranch was beaten up and his clothes stolen. He was left to walk naked for help after they took his pickup. A roughneck I know was stabbed about 20 times with a dull knife and he survived because his stomach muscles were so tough the knife only went into his abdomen, but not his stomach. What he was really mad about was that they burnt his pickup after it ran out of gas on the way to Mexico and he lost his oilfield decal collection he had been working on for 10 years. As far as I know, none of the killings or attacks have ever been solved.

There are several reasons for the sudden spike in attacks. Number one is that this is the time of year illegals from down south return to their home countries. They come home in mass for Christmas. Then in January, they will be heading back north. There are more people now looking for work up here since the shut down of Circuit City and other companies like that which have cut back, the near collapse of the auto industry, and other businesses that had employeed tens of thousands of Mexicans at wages better than many Mexican owned company's paid. A lot of workers go for employment in the smuggling trade. Swine flu, corruption, and still lingering problems from hurricanes a couple of years ago have really hurt the tourism industry. The value of the dollar has hurt too because these countries have always made out better because their currency was way overinflated and they could make a good return converting dollars into pesos and banking it. Now we are turning into a third rate country too. Our economy has seriously affected the economy of the countries south of us, and many people are desperate. And on top of all that, some border checkpoints are beginning to check for money and weapons going into Mexico. That will cause the violent criminals to shift to places not so easy to cross, but where they will not be checked. In the meantime, we are going to have to change our ways of working in those areas, and it may be that we will have to only go out there in the daytime.

We feel we can do enough defensive stuff that it will be a deterrent to the bad guys. However, the gate guards are the most vulnerable. I really feel for them. Anyone can sneak up on a trailer isolated from the nearest help by many miles. Some of these gate guards are young women with babies. It is surprising how many are from the Midwest. They have their own motor homes and travel all over during the spring, summer and fall, then come down here for an all expenses paid winter and make good money. I have gotten to know many of them over the years. Those are the people who really need prayers the most.

[ProHydroRacer]

What is the Texas Rangers doing to stop all this crap?

[jrome]

Just to answer your question about what the Texas Rangers are doing about this crap:


You may want to go to the link below to actually watch the public annoucement that the Texas Rangers were being assigned to help protect the borders.


http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/13590/

This is the article that is attached with the video:

Texas Sends Ranger Recon Teams Into Border Region

Good afternoon and thank you for being here today. Looking around at the people standing up here with me, I have to say I feel pretty safe. If you were going to assemble a team to get something done, to protect something precious, the folks up here are where to start.

With a Texas Ranger, the Texas Military Forces, DPS troopers, and local law enforcement, you have a team that is skilled, experienced and ready to handle just about anything that comes their way.

Today, I am here to announce our plans to enhance efforts to protect our citizens by introducing what we’re calling Ranger Recon Teams. Deployed to high-traffic, high-crime areas along the border, they will give us boots on the ground at the hot spots, no matter where they exist.

This is the latest in a series of aggressive actions we’ve taken to fill in the gap left by the federal government’s ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border.

I genuinely appreciate the efforts of Border Patrol agents here in Texas. They’re a hard-working group of professionals who play a key role in our joint efforts, but Washington continues to shortchange them on the resources they need to do their job. As a result, we have dedicated our own resources to the challenge.

I appreciate our legislators like those here with us today for responding to my requests, and devoting more than $110 million in each of the last two legislative sessions, to beef up our security efforts along the border.

Our philosophy is based on putting boots on the ground, and equipping those vigilant personnel with the technology, training and funding they need, to help stem the flow of contraband across our border.

We also just recently awarded $2 million to the Border Sheriff’s Coalition to continue the Virtual Border Watch program. I want to thank Don Reay of the Border Sheriff’s Coalition and his folks for their ongoing support of this program.

By combining technology with the efforts of Texans concerned about Border Security, we have had a deterrent effect on criminal activities. This effort has also given Texans a greater sense of ownership of the border security challenge.

These initiatives have had a positive impact, as we’ve seen crime in the targeted areas drop more than 60%...and Texans are safer. However, as we have taken a more aggressive approach to policing the border, the bad guys on the other side have reacted by changing tactics. Up and down our border, smugglers constantly probe for blind spots and weak points, studying our routines and adapting on the fly.

As a result, landowners all along our border are finding their farms and ranches overrun by smuggling operations, often by armed individuals with no respect for property, the law or human life. By introducing Ranger Recon Teams that can stay on the move, we can stay one jump ahead of the cartels and beat them at their own game.

They are a Texas-style solution to a problem that would also be helped by the arrival of the 1,000 National Guard forces that I’ve been requesting since January. In the absence of a clear answer on those troops from Washington, we’ll keep doing what Texas does: pursuing our own solutions.

Our vigilance will not waver as the situation across the border continues to worsen, the drug cartels continue to battle the government and each other for dominance, and we begin to see incidents of spill-over violence in our communities.

We will protect our citizens, no matter what the cost. These teams are an essential part of that effort.

Thank you all for being here today. Once again, I’d like to thank all the brave men and women of Texas law enforcement and our Texas Military Forces for your sacrifices to keep us safe.

YOUTUBE LINK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=987DSCGgF7k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1YNZEfzPvs

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Thanks Joe. I just got back from transferring my Son-in-Law's load to that area in my pickup after he had a front end failure on the way to the job. I didn't know exactly how to respond to Bill's question, but you covered it well. The Texas Rangers stay on top of things, and Joe knows a lot more about it than I ever will. I will say on my part though that the federal judges that Bill Clinton and even some that George Bush appointed favor the illegal drug dealers more than law enforcement, and that's a battle you and I will have to fight so the Texas Rangers can bring the perps to justice.