Posted on January 14, 2011

Mexican Gunman Fires Across Border Toward U.S. Highway Workers

Adriana Gómez Licón, El Paso Times, January 14, 2011

At least one Mexican gunman fired a high-powered rifle across the border at four U.S. road workers Thursday in an isolated ghost town east of Fort Hancock, Hudspeth County sheriff’s officials said.

The bullets did not injure the four men.

Mike Doyle, chief deputy of the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Office, said a rancher spotted a white pickup fleeing the area on the Mexican side at 10:30 a.m.–the time the shots were fired.

The bullets stuck private land along the unpaved Indian Hot Springs Road, which is about half a mile from the border fence. Hudspeth County borrowed the land to store gravel and rocks used for road construction. The workers were filling a hole left last year by rainstorm damage.

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Doyle said the gunman might have shot at the road workers to distract them or get them to flee.

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“You can walk up and stick your gun through,” West [Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West] said. The river where it separates Fort Quitman from Mexico is only a few feet wide.

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