Plaintiffs: Fatima Del Socorro Leiva Medina and Edwin Alfredo Mancia Gonzales
Defendants: Ranch Rescue Texas, Joseph Sutton, Torre John Foote (a/k/a Jack Foote), Henry Mark Conner, Jr., and Casey James Nethercott
Co-Counsel:
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
(http://www.maldef.org/)
De Anda Law Firm
Judge & Brim, P.C.
Date(s) of Disposition:
none.
Amended Complaint
: Fourth amended complaint 3-4-04
Ending illegal intimidation against immigrants
Ranch Rescue is a group of vigilantes dedicated to patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border region in an effort to deter and repel border crossers and trespassers. They conduct paramilitary operations and equip themselves with high-powered assault rifles, handguns, night-vision devices, two-way radios, observation posts, flares, machetes, all-terrain vehicles, and trained attack dogs.
Rancher Joseph Sutton recruited Ranch Rescue to secure his property from trespassers and border crossers. In February 2003, Ranch Rescue set up its base camp on Sutton Ranch and began to carry out a paramilitary campaign it called "Operation Falcon."
On March 18, 2003, a group of Salvadoran immigrants were traveling on foot through Sutton Ranch when Foote, Nethercott, Conner and other Ranch Rescue associates clothed in camouflaged uniforms accosted them. They were forcefully captured and held at gunpoint by their assailants for a long period of time, during which Nethercott hit one of them on the back of his head with a handgun. They were interrogated, threatened with death and otherwise terrorized by Sutton before finally being released.
Leiva v. Ranch Rescue has the important goal of stopping violent paramilitary activity along the US-Mexico border. If vigilante groups like Ranch Rescue and the ranchers who conspire with them are forced to pay money damages for their unlawful actions, they will think twice before taking the law into their own hands and attacking peaceful, unarmed migrants in the future.
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