AZ border militia to offer armed patrols in Cochise County

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By Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 5:36 pm

A longstanding local border-militia group is trying to form a paramilitary squad with permission to confront smugglers or other suspected wrongdoers.

Cochise County Militia founder Bill Davis put out the word Monday that the group is planning to form a “private military company.” Although that category normally refers to contractors such as the company formerly known as Blackwater, the militia’s paramilitary squad would not work for money, Davis said.

Rather, they would volunteer their efforts to local landowners

His call came amid a resurgence in passions over border issues. When southeast Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was killed March 27, legislation was already in consideration that would broaden police officers’ powers to check people’s immigration status.

Investigators and ranchers tracked someone about 20 miles south from the homicide scene into Mexico, firing suspicions — as yet unconfirmed — that the murderer was a smuggler from Mexico.

Now Davis and his colleagues are planning to offer “commercial military services” to border-area property holders. The volunteer militia’s paramilitary squad would work at the landowner’s request “providing security & trespasser interdiction” and would not shy from a confrontation, he wrote in an e-mail.

“We comply with any law possible and then some. But we’re not about to step aside anymore and let them through. We’re going to turn them around and send them back scared,” Davis said.

The squad would consist largely of U.S. military combat veterans, already a significant contingent of the group Davis formed in 2001, he said.

“They all have confirmed kills, from Vietnam or later on. They’re not wannabes who go out and buy a set of camos and go out in the woods with a rifle,” Davis said.

The potential for problems worried immigrant-rights activist Jennifer Allen, who noted that Border Patrol agents go through significant training and have a long chain of supervisors but still sometimes get in trouble for their on-duty acts. A volunteer paramilitary squad wouldn’t have that level of training or oversight, she said.

“People would run the risk on the lighter end of being illegally detained. On a more extreme end, what’s to stop and prevent these individuals from using violence and force unnecessarily?”

Davis, who temporarily stepped aside from the group in November last year, said in all the years of the militia’s existence, no member has ever fired a shot or been in trouble for their activities. But they’ve grown tired of the ineffectiveness of calling authorities, who often respond too late, he said.

“It disillusions my guys,” he said. “They’re out there breaking their ass, sleeping with the snakes. They want more of a backup.”
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