Dangerous armed encounters commonplace

By Tim Steller
The Arizona Daily Star

DOUGLAS - It was the sort of incident that normally no one would hear about.

Alice Grantham saw headlights flash through her front windows as a car drove into her driveway, then backed out onto the road June 30. Next she heard car doors slamming and men talking outside her rural Double Adobe house on Frontier Road.

Grantham figured that activity at 9:30 p.m. can mean only one thing: Someone is picking up a group of illegal entrants. So the 69-year-old went outside, .357 Magnum in hand, to try to disperse the crowd.

``I would never shoot at anyone. I just opened the door and shot down into the ground,'' Grantham said. She had done the same thing before without gaining the attention of law enforcement officers.

This time, they would have to have been deaf not to notice.

The people in the cars out front weren't illegal entrants, but Cochise County deputies looking for a criminal suspect. They cited Grantham for disorderly conduct.

Guns have been a conspicuous part of rural Cochise County residents' confrontations with illegal entrants.

Roger Barnett, who lives east of Douglas, rounded up 27 illegal entrants crossing his ranch April 4 and called the Border Patrol. He and his brothers were armed, and some wore badges, but they did not threaten the illegal entrants.

U.S. Attorney José de Jesus Rivera announced he was launching an investigation into Barnett's actions, but no legal action has arisen from the inquiry.

On May 31, Palominas resident Jeff Wittaker fired shots into the air as a group of illegal entrants crossed his property. The Sheriff's Department made a report, but the Cochise County Attorney's Office declined to prosecute.

Other rural residents of Cochise County tell stories similar to Wittaker's that never made headlines.

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said he thinks most armed encounters are reported, but Grantham, of Double Adobe, says she knows she's not alone.