The death of an Arizona rancher; Updated: Cattle growers’ association offers reward; new details of the murder; suspect foot tracks into Mexico
Scroll for updates, reax…new details from the crime scene…
Rob Krentz was a Cochise County, AZ cattle farmer who had battled the bloody consequences of illegal immigration for years. Over the weekend, his dead body was found on his ranch. The longtime rancher had been gunned down. Police are investigating the homicide.
The Arizona Star reports:
A longtime rancher was killed on his Douglas-area property over the weekend, and neighbors worried that his homicide was connected to increasing border-related crime in the area.
The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office offered little information into the late-Saturday shooting death of 58-year-old Robert Krentz, whose family began the Krentz Ranch more than 100 years ago.
Krentz’s body was found on his land, which is about 35 miles northeast of Douglas, just before midnight Saturday, said Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office, aided by the U.S. Border Patrol, had no suspects Sunday and continued to follow leads, Capas said. She declined to comment on reports from neighbors and border activists that Krentz’s death was related to smuggling in the area.
Area residents said Krentz had no enemies, and they could think of no motive for his death other than the possibility it was related to what they called the growing level of crime in the area related to illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.
Tom Tancredo, a former U.S. representative from Colorado, was visiting ranchers near Douglas to discuss border issues when he heard of Krentz’s death.
Tancredo said he and Krentz were friends and that he was “a mild-mannered guy” who was known for providing illegal immigrants with food and water.
Digger’s Realm has more. R.I.P.
***
The Tuscon Weekly adds:
The event has rocked the towns of Douglas and Portal, and the ranches in between, both of which have been under siege by cross-border smugglers for years.
As the Weekly has reported, the situation in the so-called Chiricahua Corridor has deteriorated lately, leaving residents fearful that an episode of this kind was inevitable. The grief is great for the Krentz family and their many friends throughout Southeast Arizona; Krentzes have been ranching in Cochise County for more than a century.
The Weekly has received word that a representative for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has placed calls to Cochise County, trying to set up a community meeting, either Monday or Tuesday at 11 a.m., possibly at the Apache School. The Giffords’ rep making the arrangements said it is possible she will ask the president to place military units in the besieged area
A source tells the Weekly the practical impact of Giffords’ actions might be small, but at least she is paying attention. The source said, “Kolbe laughed at us when we complained, and McCain worries about getting his patent leather shoes dirty when he’s down here.”
Related: The slaughter on the southern border – March 17, 2010
***
John McCain and his open-borders, Soros-funded advisor Juan Hernandez have no comment yet.
***
Reader Billie e-mails:
Michelle,
I want to thank you for posting the story about rancher Bob Krentz. You are the only credible source outside the local news that has mentioned it. As a ranching wife, my heart goes out to Bob’s family and especially his wife Susan. No one outside the ranching community knows how hard a life this is ( in terms of physical work never being done). To those of us who love it, the price is well worth the benefits. But not for Susan Krentz. I cannot imagine what she must feel, knowing they have been robbed before, vandalized and terrorized.
While Obama and his minions wax poetic about health care ( and the so called threats of not having it) there is a hardworking woman who has been pulling her own weight for decades that now faces her golden years without her beloved husband and without any security for the future of her children or herself on the ranch they love.
Ranching families work hard as teams to get everything done to care for their animals. They are usually short on help considering all that needs to be done. I hope that Susan’s loss of her husband, her partner in the business and the head of a multi generational legacy is not lost in the reporting. Her life is forever changed and helping her find a sense of peace and sanity is what we all need to think about.
Billie R.
Chico, CA
***
Update: Just received this statement from the Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association…
ACGA Alert
March 28, 2010
Phoenix, AZ – The thoughts and prayers of the Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association are with the family of Sue and Rob Krentz. Rob’s tragic death truly leaves a hole in the community and his family. Everyone in Arizona’s ranching community will be saddened to hear of this tragedy.
Rob Krentz was a caretaker – he cared for his family, he cared for the land and he cared for the animals he and his family raised on the Krentz Ranch. These traits have been passed down through the Krentz family from one generation to the next. This is a terrible tragedy and our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Sue and their children.
Rob and his dog were found shot early this morning after he left on his four-wheeler late yesterday to check fence on his ranch. While reports of this tragedy and investigation advance the ACGA is prepared to assist in gathering facts about the incident with the offer of a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of individuals involved in the tragic shooting of Rob Krentz.
***
Update: New details from the Arizona Republic about the crime…
A prominent southeast Arizona rancher sped away in his all-terrain vehicle after being shot, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office said Monday in releasing more details into Saturday’s slaying near the Mexico border.
The body of Robert Krentz, 58, was located before midnight Saturday on his 35,000 acre ranch about 35 miles northeast of Douglas after his brother reported that he had lost radio contact with Krentz earlier in the day.
Krentz apparently came upon one person when he was shot and his dog was wounded, detectives said.
While Krentz was still in his vehicle, mortally wounded, he managed to drive the ATV away from the scene at a high rate of speed before becoming unconscious, investigators said.
Foot tracks were identified and followed approximately 20 miles south to the Mexico border by sheriff’s deputies, U.S. Border Patrol trackers and Department of Corrections dog chase teams, authorities said.
So far, there have been no suspects identified and no arrests.
***
Homeland security? What homeland security?
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I fell over laughing about the bear trap comment! That would fix their sorry behinds for sure HAHA!
Get em scrapper!!!!
The illegals are regarded as “the new Americans” by this administration, to replace us old Americans……..
The only problem with the beartraps is, you’d have to clean up their remains in the morning.
use the hose.
FENCE NOW!
JANET NEEDS TO RESIGN!
Janet is targeting the “angry white man” while letting others off the hook. The current administration is just un-american.
Over 900 Amrican citizens are killed by these illegal bastards every year, anyone hear Juan McAmnesty talk about that. Hell no you don’t, it was time to bump that A hole 20 years ago, he has no shame.
Is that killed outright? Murders and such? Or does that factor in everything else? Drunk driving? Auto accidents, etc?
If they only murder 900 per year, that is ‘no big deal’ considering how much violence we mindlessly tolerate from our ‘fellow’ American citizens.
Consider: Roughly 30,000 Americans are murdered each year. If there are 15M illegals in the country, then even if only 60% of the people the illegals murder here are American citizens, then they should be murdering roughly 900 Americans per year to keep up with the rate ‘we’ are murdering our own, and that is without even considering most of the illegals are poor young men, the prime candidates to commit murders.
So even with that 900 number, and even if they are all murders, we are allowing our own poor young savages to be much more savage to us than the illegals are.
Don’t get me wrong. I am outraged at the invasion. I am outraged at the failure of our elected leaders to do something about it.
But in terms of the crimes by illegals I am far more outraged at the abysmal and inexcusable many decade failure of our rulers (which, make no mistake, is how they regard themselves … they do not see themselves as our public servants) to protect our own citizens from our own homegrown savages.
Look at it this way: if we stop the illegals from coming in, that would mean 900 people a year would go on living instead of dying because they wouldn’t be murdered by illegals. That’s a lot of people saved no matter how you slice it and dice it.
Steve King from Iowa commissioned a study and the number of American citizens killed by illegals every year is in the neighborhood of 25,000 through homicide, drunk driving, etc. A lot of that is drug and gang violence.
Why is this one different?? because this rancher was fighting back because of the damage to his ranch cost him millions of dollars every year and yet he would extend kindness to those who would get lost or be dehydrated. He had radioed to his brother that he had spotted an illegal who looked like he was in trouble so he was on his way to help. Last thing he ever said. He and the other ranchers in the area-hell all across the border region– are apprehending hundreds of illegals every week who are being lured over here because the “amnesty card” is being pulled again. We have been putting up with this crap for over 20 years and have been warning about what was going to happen. If 25,000 deaths a year at the hands of illegals isn’t enough to put the National Guard on the border then this one murder IS!!
AND because Janet Nappy just pulled $600,000 in funds for the virtual fence that was being utilized in that area –that was a joke– had moved BP agents to other sectors and told a crowd at ARizona State Univ on Friday night that the border was more secure than it has ever been!!!
There are several military bases on the border already or within 100 miles–all the Pres has to do is tell them to deploy to the border and take care of business. The military would like nothing better. I’ve heard more than one soldier say that they can be sent half way around the world to guard the borders of Afghanistan and Iraq but they can’t protect the borders of the USA–what is wrong with that picture??
By the way, McCain has a campaign stop scheduled with the people of Sierra Vista Wed afternoon–anyone want to take any bets that he cancels???
McCain should cancel his campaign and retire in shame…….he has encouraged this invasion.
But he won’t, he has no shame.
But we don’t need a wall, right?
Well there is CHANGE a commin We have HOPE that soon these foreign devils will be granted US citizenship. So at least our Ranchers will be gunned down by fellow citizens…..Wait a minute that doesn’t seem to make anything better?…Well we will just have to HOPE that some how Obama Amnesty will some how make this sort of thing…..better?
Operation Wetback!
It worked in the 50s…It’ll work now.
Where is homeland security? Off chasing after “christian milita” groups.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!!! The victimless crime. And all you noseholders voted for the king of amnesty proponents, mcamnesty. I hated him then and I hate him even more now.
The military would thing your idea sucks. It’s a waste of troops. You want to take the most potent fighting force in the world and spread them out as sentries.
Who said “A nation that does not secure it’s borders ceases to be a nation”, that is what is happening here now. DHS has become a joke, with an idiot at it’s head.
Same could be said of the nation.
to answer your question it is from all of the above. does it matter? Those innocent American citizens are dead at the hands of illegal aliens. One can’t justify the loss of life by categorizing them. In a moment of haste I failed to add deaths due to drunk driving, auto accidents and violent crimes. These people are still dead because we don’t enforce our boarder laws, they were/are being killed by law breakers…that is the bottom line.
I had that saved and couldn’t find it when I posted the over 900 figure, I was wrong and apologize. I try not to post figures without having references, I failed that time due to my haste and I was wrong. Don’t shoot me, I’m not a lefty, promise.
An interesting stat.
42,443 people were killed last year by 246 million vehicles. If 25,000 people died at the hands of 30 million illegals that means statistically an illegal alien is five times more likely to kill you than your car.
The border area is a war zone that Washington and the politicians deny. With desperate illegals and drug gang smugglers overrunning the border, it’s a wonder anyone would live there; not without concertina, claymores and lots of movement sensors, etc..
1. Re-interpret the 14th Amendment the way it was intended: Children born here to illegals ARE NOT citizens.
2. Deny welfare and education benefits to illegals.
3. Prosecute employers – severely – for hiring illegals.
4. Deport ALL illegals that are caught committing crimes.
5. Once the dust settles from the stampede south to the border, BUILD THE WALL.
Just a thought: why don’t we make McShame’s house and senator offices in Arizona a “safe zone” for illegals? He loves them, evidently, and this way, we can have these poor, deprived, sensitive, victims of undeserved racist remarks stop by and say “hey.”
After all, no violent south-of-the-border people would come over the unsecured imaginary line, now, would they!?
I think we are all being really short sighted here. I think we need to reverse our thinking about having open borders.
If the borders are closed how are we going to be able to sneak into Mexico to get any decent treatment after Obamacare kicks in?
Hope and Change……..
Good point. But, implicit in my steps above was the prerequisite that the Dims are elected to ‘small powerless minority’ status. In which case, the free-market reforms that replace Obamascare allow our healthcare industry to flourish.
On March 30th, 2010 at 9:55 am, Savage24 said:
A Google search did not reveal a source for that exact quote,
but here is something very similar:
Good post. Eliminate the magnets and allow attrition to rid us of illegal aliens. They won’t stay when there is no economic benefit to do so.
Source: Ronald Reagan.
Although he signed the 1986 Amnesty into law (the largest single Amnesty for illegals in history), later admitted the policy was a dismal failure.
I seem to remember that Michelle posted info about how an illegal ‘helped’ one of the Sept. 11th hijackers obtain a fraudulent ID–driver’s license?. So figure the deaths associated with that double jeopardy question.
Who really “gets it“?
Let’s see how often the Presidential candidates mentioned “sovereign” or “sovereignty” in their speeches at CPAC 2008:
Luis Alonzo Martinez-Flores – an illegal immigrant from Guatemala I believe. He helped several of the 9/11 terrorists get legitimate driver licenses by providing bogus background documentation and supporting info.
I tried a quick search of HotAir to find the great story she posted about it there, but was unable to find it. I think the story appeared in May or June of 2006.
On March 30th, 2010 at 12:08 pm, PhredE said:
I think it didn’t come back from a text search because it was not text… it was video (a Hot Air Vent)… but you were spot-on with your guess of May 2006…
ITook,
Thanks. That’s right, I forgot about that.
It’s a great story — very worthwhile and highly recommended to anyone even remotely interested in the subject matter.
Here’s a text write-up from Human Events on the same subject as well (delves into the technical details of the matter quite deeply):
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=4220
You misunderstand me. Actually, thinking back on it, I was on the verge of falling out from being so tired so I didn’t word it right. What I was trying to get at was, I thought that may have been a lowball number. I would have wagered that the number would have been much higher.
900 is still an infuriating number when you figure that these are people who should not even be here in the first place. But I am thinking people need to start being exposed to the real numbers behind illegal invasion and what it’s costing us in money and lives.
Any increase in the population, legal or illegal, will result in increased numbers of citizens dying from murder and accidents.
This death was different because the border was directly involved. It wasn’t just a murder that happened to be at the border, it was a murder in which being at the border clearly played a role in the murder. It is an invasion murder, not a murder that just happened to be committed by an invader.
All of those other murders and accidents so many of you are outraged about only become relevant to the invasion issue if they reflect a higher number of perpetrated murders and accidents per invader than we get from our own thuggish citizenry.
If they are killing fewer of us than we are killing of ourselves in terms of their population, then they are making our society safer.
That would be an argument for amnesty, or at least for leaving the illegals alone.
BTW, I don’t believe that 25k per year figure one bit. It is as absurd as those numbers that were coming out about Iraqi deaths a few years back.
The point of this comment is that the argument many of you are making is one of the kinds of arguments that cause serious leaders to discount the thinking of those of us who are outraged by the invasion.
If we can’t see percentages matter with regard to setting social policy, then we can be disregarded as clueless yahoo’s.
16 illegals sue Arizona rancher
Claim violation of rights as they crossed his land.
Anyone surprised ?
Indeed, WHAT Homeland Security? Janet Napolitano is still busy checking out homeland patriots, Tea Party members, instead of going after true criminals and terrorists!
Roland ~ killings by people who should not even be here do not take relevance ONLY when it exceeds a certain percentage over the mere ratio of murders/population. One US citizen/legal immigrant/legal visitor killed by an illegal should be given more weight because it would NOT have happened if the illegal entry did not happen!
If US citizens killed 900 Mexicans a year in Mexico, would it be news there?
That is incorrect. Murder is murder. Murder should never happen.
Yes, of course. Even if there were 20M Americans in Mexico, it would still be news. That would be the case even if the Americans were there legally, since Mexicans are generally bigoted (ignorance does that), and their leaders are generally demagogues.
Thank God and our ancestors that we aren’t Mexico.
BTW, to be clear, I am as outraged as anyone here about our leaders encouraging this invasion. Their behavior is treasonous.
Culprit was on foot and they couldn’t catch him? Who was he, Harrison Ford from “The Fugitive”?
This will cause all the ranchers along the border to shoot on site from now on. Could be the most effective deterrent to crossing the border.
Send McShamnesty home. J.D. Hayworth in the primary here in Arizona.
My prayers are going out to the entire Krentz family for this senseless and unnecessary murder. What kind of leadership is it when there is no enforcement of immigration laws? Why even have immigration laws if they are meaningless and ignored (again) by so-called elected officials? The blood of this rancher is added to the blood already on the hands of these worthless bureaucrats in Washington. Napolitano should be pleading for forgiveness.
Likely a “Coyote” on his way home.
In other news AG Holder refuses to apply death penalty to illegal aliens charged with murder.
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/checker.aspx?rsrcID=63534
The latest news is that the reason the murder got back into Mexico is because the murder occurred in the afternoon and Mr. Kretz body was not discovered until nearly midnight giving the murderer at least a 6 hour head start to begin with. Even with dogs and great trackers the BP has, in the dark the movement is slow and the murder’s foot steps were followed all the way to the border. Didnt particularly try to hide his tracks either. Now, officials are asking the Mexican Gov’t for assistance is finding this low life.
The point is that the borders need to be closed and secured and yes, the soldiers that I have spoken too would NOT consider protecting the border of the United States of America a “menial” job. They would be very proud to stand and protect their HOMELAND–regardless of rank!!
Fort Huachuca is right on the Mexico Arizona border and the illegals traverse the Fort every night and there is NOTHING the Army can do about it except call Border Patrol and give them directions on where the illegals were headed. Think they aren’t PO’d about being able to do nothing across their own land??? Think again…….
RIP Rob Krentz, my prayers for you and your family.
Time to send money to JD.
Even if McCain has a slightly better chance of winning the general.
The time to take the party back from RINOs is now.
McCain served his country honorably in Viet Nam, but it is past time for him to enjoy golf and tennis during his twilight years in Arizona.
Does anyone know if Mr. Krentz was armed?
Just wondering.
I know you can be ambushed and not get off a shot.
The pro-illegal immigration movement (social activists, politicians, and bureaucrats) is actively complicit in the murder of this innocent American. Disgusting. These people have neither shame nor honor. And they are failing one of the core government responsibilities: protecting us from foreign invasion. Borderline treason.
I don’t know which is worse–the murder of a man AND his dog by a foreign invader(s), or the willful news blackout/censorship. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I am unable to find this story on any of the national news networks, except for Fox. I hope I’m wrong, because this blatant censorship has bigger implications. Meanwhile, there is wall-to-wall coverage of the “angry” tea party protesters. Last time I checked, protesting our government is not illegal. Murder is.
greysheepdog
What a great interview explaining how the Soviet Union has been at war with the USA from within.People like Al Gore and Barry Soetoro should be forced to listen to his quote about how the Useful Idiots that helped them will taken out and shot. “They know too much”
I do not believe the polls because it is just propaganda to demoralize the Tea Party Patriot movement. I feel there are less than 20% that support the Useful Idiot in Chief.
Everyone should be forced to listen to this Interview with Yuri Bezmenov. We are currently witnessing the de-stabilization phase in their plan to implement Socialism in the USA
Kudos Great Link!