Border Rancher Shoots Two Men for Tresspassing; Turns out They Made a Wrong Turn

A West Texas rancher took two people to the hospital after shooting them on his property in Hudspeth County. He allegedly shot the two men Wednesday after they took a wrong turn onto his property. Norangel Velez was shot once and his father was shot three times by the rancher. Velez says the rancher gave little warning before he began firing.

After shooting the men the rancher drove them twenty miles to the fire department, where they were then transported to a hospital. Just last year, Hudspeth County Sherriff Arvin West warned locals to arm themselves because of the overflow of drug violence across the Texas/Mexico border.

Some people are angry with the rancher for shooting first and asking questions later, but was he in the wrong? I don’t think so. Americans living near the border are in dire circumstances. The federal government has basically left them to protect themselves. Tensions because of the lack of control at the border are high, so it doesn’t shock me that something like this happened.

It seems that the rancher really was just protecting himself and his property (and probably a family.) That’s evident by how he drove the two wounded men to get help afterwards. I think this was an honest mistake. Although Velez (an American citizen) has every right to be upset over he and his father’s injuries, the rancher had every right to protect his property from something that he perceived as a threat. It’s very possible that that pickup could have been filled with drug cartel, and in that case the story would have had a different, more violent ending that would NOT end with two people being driven to help.

The cold, hard truth is tensions are too high at the border to even make a wrong turn. Don’t blame ranchers for that, because it’s not their fault. If the federal government would take some action and protect their citizens, mistakes like this would be much less likely to occur.