Hudspeth County Shooting Update
And, Gubernatorial Debates: So tame, even a caveman can do it.
Hello again friends,
A broader picture of the border shooting in Hudspeth County is emerging and it’s an ugly one.
Reporter Travis Bubenik works for Texas Public Radio in Marfa. He has a very thorough piece here. Conservative readers can crack plenty of jokes about TPR & NPR & bias— all of them well earned, but we’ve had a few passing contacts with Bubenik via email and twitter, and he comes across as a solid dude.
Effort and talent are also evident in his piece— as well as the benefit of living and working out in West Texas. That is to say— he knew the right people to call and talk to, and they knew him.
Looking at his reporting— there are details present that indicate he not only got ahold of the affidavit, he probably was able to speak with multiple local sources on background.
What jumps out of Bubenik’s reporting is the local detail that the water tank the aliens were at when they were shot is a locally-known landmark, called “Filemile Tank.” Also immediately obvious, is that the Texas Rangers’ investigation was rather more thorough than indicated initially.
Bubenik references at least two, perhaps three or more law-enforcement interviews with the suspects, Mike and Mark Sheppard— and it’s a sure bet that investigators had Border Patrol photos of the truck the men were driving the whole time and could place them in the area.
Investigators say the Sheppard brothers were driving on a rural road near Interstate 10 in Hudspeth County when they passed the group of migrants who had stopped for a drink of water at a reservoir known as “Filemile Tank.”
According to the affidavit, Mike Sheppard was driving the truck when he passed the migrants, backed up, got out of the truck, leaned on the hood and then fired two shots, killing one of them and wounding another who was later transported to a hospital.
In the affidavit, an investigator says the migrants reported that one of the men yelled “something in Spanish to the effect of, ‘Come out you sons of bitches, little asses!’” and then revved the truck’s engine before the shooting started.
Multiple agencies are investigating the shooting, including the Texas Department of Public Safety and the FBI.
In a statement, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency received a call for assistance just after 9 p.m. Tuesday from the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Office to “help them locate a female gunshot victim after they received a 911 call.”
Reached by phone, Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West referred questions about the incident to the Texas Rangers, but said the two brothers would be transported from the El Paso County Jail to face charges in Hudspeth County.
Mike Sheppard was “reluctant to speak” with investigators and left his home when approached about the shooting, while his brother changed his story when interviewed, the affidavit said.
Mark Sheppard initially told investigators he was never in the area where the shooting happened, according to the affidavit, but he later “changed his story and admitted” both the brothers were in the area that evening.
According to the affidavit, Mark Sheppard said the brothers had driven to the reservoir “looking for ducks, then changed it to birds and then to Javelina’s.” Later, the affidavit said, the two men attended a local water board meeting and “heard on the radio” that a migrant had been found at a local dump suffering from a gunshot wound, though Michael Sheppard told his brother he believed that was too far from where the two were shooting. The brother also claimed to investigators that the two had not yelled anything during the incident, the affidavit said.
“We asked Mark Sheppard what he did when he found out that one of the illegal immigrants had been discovered deceased at the location where he and his brother were shooting, and he said he did not do anything,” the affidavit said.
—Reporter Travis Bubenik, Marfa Public Radio
Obviously, it shouldn’t need to be said that these men should be considered innocent until proven guilty— but if true, the affidavits and circumstances of the case paint a very ugly picture of events.
Bubenik also runs down a nugget of information about that other shooting in the area this week— near the town of Fort Hancock. We mentioned it in our last news letter. According to him, the FBI said the two shootings are not related. DPS has not yet made their own ruling.
You can also find the Texas Tribune’s coverage here, it is also quite thorough and has some additional details while going in depth into past complaints against the for-profit prison one of the suspects used to be the Warden of.
Activists closely following border events frequently decry the amount of hi-tech surveillance Border Patrol has in place, monitoring illegal alien and drug smuggling traffic. There is a fair argument to be made about how much is too much. But, in this case, it would seem that having the technology in place is leading to a speedy resolution to what would have possibly been an unsolved border mystery otherwise.
And— it should be food for thought for anyone thinking to take the law into their own hands or act in an extra-judicial fashion during this crisis. In other words— private citizens reaching for weapons will be best served if they do so only when presented with no other choice.
And, outsiders thinking to “strike a blow for freedom,” or “border security,” or some other wrongly conceived urge would be well advised to keep it in their pants. Odds are high that local deputies don’t even know how many cameras and other devices are documenting peoples’ passing through a given area.
So far there’s been no clear information about the condition of the woman that was injured, but at last report she is hospitalized but seems likely to survive.
Governor Greg Abbott and his Democrat challenger Robert “Beto” Francis O’Rourke debated last night.
Odds are good that anyone truly interested in watching the thing has already watched it. Odds are also good that you’ve probably also already seen some analysis.
But just in case, here’s our patented caveman style summation:
“Beto: Abbott bad for border. Abbott bad for guns. Abbot bad for grid! Abbott very bad.”
“Abbott: Beto bad. Beto bad for border! Abbott good for border! Beto bad for make money. Beto bad for keep Texas #1. Beto like Biden. Beto-Biden! Beto-Biden flippy-flopper guns. Beto-Biden bad, make more bad for everyone.”
—Last Night’s Gubernatorial Debate, simplified for a Caveman
And that is honestly about as deep as things got, though some have leapt onto comments by Governor Abbott that seem suggestive of somehow cutting property taxes. Color us doubtful here at the Dispatch.
In any event, the debate had a mutually-agreed to format that limited candidate responses and statements, but also ensured things moved along briskly. Don’t know if briskness is a virtue, considering that this was the one and only debate that’ll probably happen between the two.
The Austin-American-Statesman has a decent breakdown of the debate as well as video, if our caveman style summation above has piqued your interest. The reporter wraps it up with some analysis that suggests the thing was something of a win for the incumbent… maybe?
Despite fast pace, no major gaffes or viral moments
With both candidates limited to 60 seconds to answer a question and only 15 or 30 seconds to respond to follow-ups or rebuttals, the debate was incredibly fast paced, with both candidates striving to land punches.
But with both candidates exhibiting passion and restraint, the night concluded without any major gaffes or viral moments. Prior to the debate, political analysts had suggested that escaping without any significant mistakes would be a win for Abbott, while scoring a heavy blow against the governor would be the primary goal for O’Rourke.
—Reporter Nikki Griswold, The Austin American Statesman
Honestly— both men should’ve had to sit down separately with a younger Larry King sort of interviewer, someone relatively non-political and non-threatening, and be forced to lay out their positions and what they want to do for Texas in a conversation for about an hour-and-a-half, unedited, instead of this sort of a rapid-fire neutered kind of a faux debate.
It’ll never happen— too scary— too much chance for an unforced error, etc. But sitting down for an interview and knowing it won’t be edited in any way is a bit like boxing or high school wrestling.
There’s nowhere to run to and there’s nowhere to hide, and it seems like voters would be able to get a clearer picture of who is in front them, absent so many of the common distractions and tricks that we’ve all come to expect in a campaign season.
Texas Monthly’s Forrest Wilder makes a pretty good observation that there’s an argument to be made that historically, quite a few gubernatorial candidates over the last few years don’t really want the debates to matter. It may be the case here, as Wilder notes— scheduling a debate for Friday evening right smack dab in the middle of High School Football season seems like a choice meant to minimize the audience.
Oh— one other thing jumps out: The specter of Donald Trump didn’t seem to be be in the room. Appropriate— Trump isn’t running for Governor of Texas. But what can be made of the fact that O’Rourke didn’t try to tie Governor Abbott to Trump, the way Abbott tried to tie him to Joe Biden?
Several possible explanations occur— it may be that the thought never crossed O’Rourke’s mind— or his advisors.
It may also be that they decided doing so would only help Abbott in solid red areas of the state, and do little for them in solidly blue areas of the state, whereas the Abbott team may’ve felt a need to shore up the Governor’s appeal to likely Trump voters by highlighting any perceived connections between O’Rourke and President Biden.
Who knows? Election day is slightly more than a month away— November 8th.
And on that note— have a great weekend. Despite all of the weird news coming out of Washington D.C., Ukraine, Russia, et al., it remains a fine time to be breathing oxygen and consuming tasty food. It’s certainly better than the alternative. Even if one’s horizons don’t extend much further than breathing and eating, it’s hard to imagine a significantly better time for it.
Even with rising fuel costs and logistical snafus lurking in the supply chain, in a broadly historical sense, American consumers remain profoundly spoiled for choice and cost in any garden variety supermarket.
So exercise that grocery-store privilege, friends. Try cooking something different. Something you haven’t tried before. Buy the ingredients as fresh as you can. Buy some wine too, maybe. Your spouse or s/o may actually freak out, and start wondering if you’ve been replaced somehow: “Who is this amazing stranger with this compelling sense of gustatory adventure that looks like my Mr. or Mrs.?”
You’re welcome!
Whatever you do, don’t start mumbling something about reading something online in a newsletter. That’s not at all suave.
Here at the Dispatch, we recommend this hearty and simple sample of French cuisine, “Coq au vin.” And, don’t feel like you have to be married to the food network recipe we’ve linked to.
It basically boils down to chicken, bacon, and vegetables, simmered in wine. It’s tasty over rice— it’s tasty in a bowl. You can debone, or leave the bones. It’s very difficult to make this inedible.
You can go through the motions with red wine. You can go through the motions with white. You can also be a heathen and substitute other vegetables if you really want to take a walk on the wild side. You don’t even have to cut them the way the recipe seems to demand you do. Julienne, chop, bits, spears, chunks— whatever. It’s all going to be delicious. Promise.
The dish has its roots in French peasant cooking, and was originally seen as a way to breath deliciousness into a tough old rooster that had outlived its utility on the farm and found its way into the cookpot. The peasant roots of the dish should give anyone confidence in ad-libbing on some of the ingredients. It’s nothing precious. It’s peasant food. Delicious, tasty, peasant food.
Classical recipes call for hours of tenderizing. But most modern versions of the dish can be cooked quite quickly, using fresh tender chicken.
We’ll be back again soon. As always, this newsletter and any errors, misdeeds, or opinions within are entirely our own and should not be considered any kind of a statement on behalf of the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office which presently employs us.