Vigilante update

A lone Army reservist accused of holding seven Mexican nationals at gunpoint this week at a desolate Arizona rest stop has renewed concerns about vigilante justice and violence along the Arizona-Mexico border.

The arrest of Sgt. Patrick Haab, 24, comes as various civilian groups embark on self-described border-patrol missions to target undocumented workers and help stop the flow of illegal immigration along the busiest illegal crossing on the Southwest border.

Haab, an Iraq war veteran, was apparently acting on his own when sheriff’s deputies say he saw seven men pile into a sport utility vehicle on Interstate 8 and ordered them to lie on the ground or be shot. But Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said his actions were dangerous and illegal, underscoring the risks posed by citizens patrolling the border and taking the law into their own hands.

“Even law enforcement has to have probable cause before taking people out of their cars and telling them to lie on the ground. . . . He threatened to kill them,” Arpaio said. “He did not have the right to do what he did. How did he know they were illegal aliens?”

The Arizona Republic

3 thoughts on “Vigilante update”

  1. From what I hear, certain people south of the border are already up in arms (literally) about the “vigilante justice” that has been taking place on the U.S. side for quite a while now. In fact, I first heard about it a couple of months ago. If this keeps up, an outbreak of international violence is immenent.

    Of course, they do have oil in Mexico….

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