Border Shooting, Soldier Suicide, & More Counties Declare Invasion
Hello once again friends,
Someone probably said something once about how slowly the wheels of justice can sometimes turn. Impatience with this has become noticeable online in the discussion of the shooting death of an illegal alien in Hudspeth County.
Matters pertaining to the investigation actually seem to be moving in a relatively normal fashion, but one finds people expressing concern online that a docket appearance hasn’t yet been set for two of the suspects, 60 year old twins Mark and Mike Sheppard.
The Sheppard twins paid a combined $500-thousand dollar bail this week and were duly released on manslaughter charges. They’ve since been re-arrested, facing additional charges of assault with a deadly weapon.
Perhaps we’ve all become so accustomed to the 24 hour justice machines that exist in places like Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, that we’ve all forgotten there’s a slower pace out in the deserts of West Texas.
Prosecutors in El Paso say they haven’t formally received the case yet from the investigators in Hudspeth County. Hudspeth County is a tiny, sparsely populated region that may actually make Kinney County look urban and cosmopolitan in some ways.
This kind of a seeming delay is actually nothing that should be raising any eyebrows. Factor in the possibility that Texas Rangers and others involved in the case are aware of the scrutiny they will be under, and it starts to make sense that things are moving in a deliberate fashion.
Since the shooting, family members of the deceased, named Jesus Sepulveda, have arrived in Juarez— the border city across the river from El Paso. Sepulveda was originally from a small ranching town in Durango, and was on his way to Austin to try and find work.
Uriel Garcia, from The Texas Tribune, has a somber and sad look at what Sepulveda’s family are going through.
EL PASO — On Sept. 14, after a day of picking melons in a small ranching town in Durango, Mexico, with his father, Jesús Iván Sepúlveda Martínez packed a small duffel bag with some clothes and a blanket. Sepúlveda Martínez approached his common-law wife and their 6-month-old daughter and told them goodbye.
Sepúlveda Martínez, who sometimes went by “Chuy” or “El Chore,” then got into a gray Ford Focus and his father, Napoleón Sepúlveda Moreno, drove him to a bus station an hour north of their town. After an 11-hour ride to the border, the 22-year-old stayed with an aunt in Ciudad Juárez, then crossed the border illegally with a group of other Mexican migrants.
Sepúlveda Martínez planned to join his 34-year-old brother in Austin and work painting houses for a couple of years — he figured he could earn enough in that time to come back to Durango and build a house for his wife and daughter so they could move out of his parents’ home.
“He seemed happy and I kept telling him to take care of himself and not to separate from the group he was going with,” Sepúlveda Moreno said.
Sepúlveda Martínez and the other 12 people in his group had traveled about 100 miles east of El Paso when they stopped to drink out of a reservoir near Sierra Blanca on Sept. 27. That’s when police say he was fatally shot by 60-year-old Michael Sheppard, the warden of a local immigration detention center. A woman in the group suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and remains hospitalized.
“I’m shattered and I’m disappointed by the men who took my son’s life,” Sepúlveda Moreno said. “I hope those evil men get the strongest punishment they deserve.
—Reporter Uriel Garcia, The Texas Tribune
Other new details leap out at us from Garcia’s reporting. It now seems that officials with LaSalle Corrections Corp. are acknowledging that Mark Sheppard was indeed fired because of his apparent connection to this event.
And, from the arrest affidavit— word that one of the brothers asked the other “Did you get him?” and then changed it to “Did you get it?” after the shooting. The brothers have said they were looking for wildlife to shoot— first birds, then ducks, then javalina— and denied that they were taking aim at a group of people.
Garcia’s reporting at the above link includes those details. Here’s a link to the Big Bend Sentinel for more of the background. Readers can also of course, refer to our last two installments here at the Dispatch.
Sepulveda’s girlfriend back home says he was always an upbeat, happy guy.
“What I liked about him was that he was always in a good mood, I never saw him get mad and he treated me with respect,” she said.
—Uriel Garcia, again, in the Texas Tribune
Meanwhile, many are also talking about the probable suicide this week of a Texas Air Force National Guard member. It hasn’t been formally ruled a suicide yet— Texas Rangers are still investigating.
It happened in Eagle Pass. Authorities say the serviceman’s partner on duty was the one who found him— dead after a single shot from his service weapon.
Reporter David Winkie teamed up with James Barragan from the Texas Tribune for this one, which we’re linking to at Air Force Times, though it’s also available at the Tribune’s website.
Longtime readers may recall, Winkie has been all over just about every story relating to the military deployment for Operation Lone Star— including the accidental shooting of a serviceman in Kinney County in February, while swim training at the Fort Clark swimming pool.
This latest death in Eagle Pass is the tenth death so far of a Texas Soldier connected to Operation Lone Star.
In Kinney County another deadly smuggling-related rollover. But it happened without any sort of a high-speed chase.
Civilians found the wreckage soon after the accident, as detailed in the following news release, sent to the Kinney County Post.
Investigators say the smuggler responsible for a car load of illegal aliens allowed one of the aliens to drive, and was sleeping when the driver lost control in a deadly rollover in Kinney County over the weekend.
3 were killed, and 3 injured in the crash, which happened on the road between Eagle Pass and Brackettville. The owner of the vehicle survived the crash. He tells investigators that he'd gotten tired and allowed one of the others to drive. It's not clear just how fast they were going when they lost control.
It's entirely possible that the driver was also falling asleep. He was one of those killed. Civilians on the highway happened upon the crash and called 911. A helicopter had to come for one of the people injured. Also, a pair of goats were injured in the pasture the wreckage ended up in. Deputies had to put the animals down because of the severity of their injuries.
It was a busy weekend for Kinney County Sheriff's Deputies, DPS Troopers, and the Galveston Crew-- taking custody of about 13 different vehicles, all seized for smuggling. One can chart the increase in smuggling and law enforcement activity by the numbers available from Sheriff Brad Coe on any given day.
Early on in the crisis, one could anticipate numbers of aliens encountered and possibly also their countries of origin. "Best we can do right now is give you the number of cars and the number of bodies," said the Sheriff, Monday morning.
In Washington D.C., and in New York City, it is perhaps telling that even figures like Beto O'Rourke and New York Mayor Eric Adams are starting to voice criticism of the Biden White House and the way the crisis is being handled or even possibly ignored.
Monday afternoon, Mayor Adams was quoted as saying "I don't believe the silence." Gubernatorial Candidate O'Rourke also Monday was quoted by FOX News as saying the White House could certainly do more.
—News Release sent to the Kinney County Post this week
The number of counties that have declared a state of invasion is up to 33, with still more expected to follow. Reporter Bethany Blankley has the details over at the Center Square.
To date, 33 Texas counties have declared an invasion in their county, in the state of Texas, or have expressed support for Texas declaring an invasion at the southern border. More are in the process of making similar declarations, according to sources who’ve spoken to The Center Square.
One county judge has taken a stand for what he says is a dire situation that his small county located roughly 104 miles north of Laredo, Texas, is facing.
McMullen County Judge James Teal signed a declaration of disaster on July 11 in which he declared the existence of an invasion in both his county and in Texas.
In the month of May alone, “McMullen County law enforcement documented over 4,000 illegal aliens who avoided apprehension by Border Patrol and whose whereabouts are currently unkown,” Teal said.
McMullen County is the fourth-least populated county in Texas with roughly 600 residents.
—Bethany Blankley, Reporting for The Center Square
That is absolutely bonkers. 600 residents, with more than 4,000 aliens passing through. Remember folks— these are not the relatively harmless migrants turning themselves in and asking for asylum in Eagle Pass or Laredo, or the RGV. These are folks actively trying to avoid law enforcement. And while most are harmless, plenty of them are convicted criminals and potentially dangerous individuals who know they would be turned away by Immigration.
Blankley’s reporting also includes the number of known terrorists that have been encountered on the border so far this fiscal year: 78.
Here’s the confirmed list of Counties that so far are on board with the declaration of invasion:
Atascosa, Burnet, Chambers, Clay, Ector, Edwards, Ellis, Goliad, Hamilton, Hardin, Hood, Hunt, Jack, Jasper, Johnson, Kinney, Lavaca, Liberty, Live Oak, Madison, McMullen, Montague, Orange, Parker, Presidio, Terrell, Throckmorton, Tyler, Van Zandt, Wharton, Wichita, Wilson, and Wise.
—Blankley, again, in The Center Square
And on that note— the sun is coming up, and we still need to proofread and add photos and captions. So that’ll have to do it for now. Have a great morning.
If you happen to be swinging through Kinney County any time soon, we have it on the highest authority that you can find some tasty eats at the newly opened Agape Cafe, inside of what used to be the Crazy Chicken Cafe on the corner of Highway 90 and Ann Street, right across the street from Subway and Stripes.
Agape creates a real dilemma for anyone that happens to feel their restaurant dollar is already spoken for by one of the other fine establishments in the county.
If you go, save room for the Watergate salad for dessert.
Until the next time, keep those heads up and toes tapping. A happy heart makes everything easier.
As always, this newsletter is produced as independently as possible from our work at the Sheriff’s Office, and should not be mistaken for any kind of official communication by Kinney County.
Ugh. Of course, a typo. Edited to replace the word 'Story' with "Star." Corrected phrase should read "Operation Lone Star," instead of "Operation Lone Story."