Sheriff To Texas Border Town: 'Arm Yourselves'

Along the border, fears are growing that the escalating drug violence in Mexico will spill into the United States. Last month, a well-known rancher was murdered in southeastern Arizona. Authorities suspect an illegal immigrant did it. The murder prompted governors in New Mexico and Texas to send forces to the border. This week, the Mexican government sent dozens of police and soldiers to the Juarez Valley to restore order. For many on both sides of the border, the fear is very real. Last week, residents held a town-hall meeting in Fort Hancock, Texas — a sleepy agricultural town on the border, about an hour southeast of El Paso, that looks like the bleak set of No Country for Old Men. A couple hundred people crowded into the grade-school gym to hear a chilling message from Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West. "You farmers, I'm telling you right now, arm yourselves," he said. "As they say the old story is, it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by six. Damn it, I don't want to see six people carrying you."