Chris Simcox, editor and publisher of
the Tombstone, Arizona, Tumbleweed and founder of Civil
Homeland Defense, a group that attempts to aid the
Border Patrol nab illegal aliens, said the confrontation
occurred the morning of Saturday, Jan. 24. Simcox,
accompanied by a photographer and a video journalist,
says the trio ran into a "squad" of armed Mexicans in
olive drab uniforms in two military-type vehicles.
Simcox said his group conversed with
the group.
"We could see the men run to what was
apparently the leader of the squad where they conversed
for a few seconds," he recounts. "A moment later 10 of
the men jumped into one of the troop transport vehicles
and drove down the hill in our direction. They stopped
directly in front of us on the dirt road that parallels
the border fence on the Mexican side."
He said four men with rifles, M-16s
and FALs, jumped from the truck and approached them on
the fence.
3 armed men run up hill
after being caught illegally entering U.S. on Jan.
24 (Tombstone Tumbleweed) |
"The cameras were rolling – on both
sides," he said. "As the men approached, one of them was
taking photographs of us. The leader approached, I said,
'Hola, como estas; buenos dias.' He asked immediately if
we were immigration. I told him no. He then told us in
Spanish it was prohibited for us to film them. We told
him we were media and we had the right to film. He
became a bit agitated at that point and asked for more
specifics about who we were and why we were here. I
asked him the same question. He told us they were out
here protecting the border – just doing their job. We
asked if they were military, they did not respond. The
leader seemed perplexed about who we were and again
asked what business we had in the area. We again replied
we were journalists covering the illegal immigration
story. The leader again said we should not be in this
area."
Simcox said none of the uniforms the
men were wearing had patches, names or insignias of any
kind that would identify them as official members of
Mexican police or military forces.
Simcox's group, the Civil Homeland
Defense, describes itself as a large "neighborhood
watch" organization, alerting the Border Patrol to its
observations.
