Index
Doyle Holdridge grew up in West Texas and attended San Angelo State University before joining the Texas Department of Public Safety as a Trooper, Narcotics Officer, and a Texas Ranger. Doyle was subsequently promoted to Major in charge of the Criminal Division at the Webb County Sheriff's Office, and he worked the Texas-Mexico Border area from El Paso to Brownsville for nearly four decades. Some of his experiences working this area are highlighted in his book.
Here are some excerpts of media reports that mention Doyle Holdridge.
Drug Violence Spills Over The Border From Mexico
Aug 27, 2007LAREDO, Texas – The scrawny young American at the defense table was only 17. But authorities say he was already a seasoned assassin for some of Mexico's drug lords.
Mexican drug lords locked in a bloody fight for control of a pipeline that runs from Mexico through middle America have brazenly stationed hit squads and reconnaissance teams in Laredo.
In the past two years, rival cartels have killed at least seven people in Laredo. Nearly all the victims were in the drug trade.
"That river does not stop these people," said Webb County sheriff's Maj. Doyle Holdridge, who has been working drug cases for three decades along the Rio Grande, which separates Laredo from Nuevo Laredo. The cities have a combined population of half a million.
Over the past few years, the Gulf Cartel and its rival Sinaloa Cartel have carried out a terrifying bloodbath in Nuevo Laredo.
Arizona Border Posses Tied to White Extremists, ADL Asserts
By Nacha Cattan
Published May 16, 2003, issue of May 16, 2003.In secret missions with military code names like Operation Thunderbird and Operation Falcon, ordinary Americans in the Southwest are donning camouflage uniforms, grabbing rifles, motion sensors and global positioning systems and tramping — or swooping in Skyhawks — through the Arizona desert in search of illegal migrants.
According to the ADL report, anti-immigrant activity in general has intensified since the September 11 terrorist attacks, which racists and antisemites are exploiting to promote their own agenda. "Given these sentiments, it is no surprise that the effort of right wing extremist groups to take the law into their own hands and administer their own form of ‘justice’ coincides with a wave of border violence in Arizona," the report says.
The report lists a string of 20 murders discovered since March 2002, suggesting that they are part of the atmosphere of lawlessness. The report, however, does not attribute the killings directly to the patrol groups.
Leaders of two patrol units reached by the Forward, Spencer of American Border Patrol and Chris Simcox of Civil Homeland Defense, insisted their members have never harmed migrants. They merely track them on public property and hand the information over to border police, they said. They acknowledged that their members have detained illegal immigrants, but only on private land, over which they say the federal government has no jurisdiction.
"I don’t carry a weapon," Spencer told the Forward. His group does, however, use surveillance aircraft during missions, he said. "We spot people in high spots with binoculars and radios. It’s usually a man-and-wife team. Then we call in [to the U.S. Border Patrol] and say we’ve got 15 people. We have a camera and all-terrain vehicles. We take pictures and send them back."
Law-enforcement officials told a different story. According to the ADL report, members of Ranch Rescue allegedly detained a pair of Salvadorans along the Texas-Mexico border and beat one with a pistol. The ADL quotes the arresting Texas Ranger, Doyle Holdridge, as saying one complainant "has a knot on the back of his head about half the size of your fist."
Holdridge continued: "If you’re a police officer, out there in the darkness, and someone rises up out of the brush in full camo[uflage] with an assault rifle, what are you going to think? It’s a disaster waiting to happen."
