USBP
refuses to pay for ranch fence damages incurred during
pursuit;
PAIC Vidal: try to get it from insurance company of
the stolen car
By María Eugenia Guerra
The Department of Justice has denied the $1,500 claim
of ranchers Manuel (Güero) Benavides and Guillermo
(Memo) Benavides Z. for damages to a boundary fence
caused by a July 1, 2002 vehicular chase by the United
States Border Patrol of another vehicle onto the Benavides'
Hill Ranch in northern Webb County.
According to a report filed by Webb County Deputy
Luciano Castro, Jr., the late afternoon Border Patrol
chase moved off Hwy. 83 and into the pastures of the
Benavides' ranch when the object of the chase in a
stolen 2001 Oldsmobile Bravada drove through the Benavides
fence. Though the Border Patrol fiercely denies that
its vehicles entered the property in pursuit vehicles,
the Benavides brothers and their foreman Beto Saldivar
have concluded otherwise.
"At least three or four of their vehicles entered
the pasture, and without permission," said Saldivar.
"It was easy to read from the tracks that they
were from several of their vehicles, which have pretty
much the same tread and which I have also seen on
other parts of the ranch they have entered. The boot
marks in the same vicinity as the tire tracks, well,
they were the boots that the Border Patrol wears.
The tracks of the wrecker truck and the boots of the
wrecker driver, they were different from the Border
Patrol's," Saldivar said.
By the time a wrecker picked up the Bravada, which
ended up in a ramadero 300 yards into the pasture,
damages to the Benavides boundary fence necessitated
repairs to a 300 foot section of fence, which is the
object of the claim of the Benavides brothers.
"The Border Patrol 'propped' my fence back up,"
Güero Benavides said. "Their fence repair
skills leave much to be desired. If they are putting
as much effort into doing their jobs as they did into
putting my fence back up, it's easy to understand
why this agency is in such a mess. We repaired the
fence ourselves immediately, and of course we had
to repair it from brace to brace so that the repair
would have strength. Had any of those 60 heifers in
the pasture wandered out onto the highway, we could
have had some serious problems with public safety,"
he said. "The fence had to go up right away.
Those vehicles made a mess of the fence and of the
pasture. Couldn't they have used the same hole in
the fence to enter and leave the property?" he
continued.
Benavides filed a claim on July 25, 2002, for $1,500,
presenting with it two itemized signed estimates for
a new section of King Ranch wire fence, both from
area fence builders. He was notified by registered
letter on August 31, 2002 that his claim was rejected
The letter, which was issued by Keith D. Roemeling,
director of the INS's Dallas office, stated:This
office is in receipt of your Claim for Damage, Injury
or Death (Standard Form 95) under the Federal Tort
Claims Act.
We have carefully reviewed your claim as well as the
applicable law and regulations. Pursuant to this review,
your claim is administratively denied.
This determination represents final administrative
consideration on this claim. If the decision is unsatisfactory,
you may file suit in the appropriate United States
District Court not later than six months after the
date of the mailing of this notice."Federal
agents chasing another vehicle were responsible for
the damages to our fence," Güero said. "They
should pay us for it. We have always tried to allow
the Border Patrol access to our ranch. We let them
have courtesy locks on 17 gates to enter our ranches
and use our roads," he said, adding, "We
have notified them to remove their locks and to enter
our ranch property through utility easements and only
in the event of 'hot pursuits' rather than on speculative
shoe tracks."
"You assume that this would work as it does in
the private sector," said Memo. "In the
rest of the world, you damage something that doesn't
belong to you. You pay for it. You make good on it,"
he said, adding, "Apparently the federal government
doesn't see it that way."
"That's selective procedural enforcement, theirs,"
Güero said just after a telephone conversation
with USBP Patrol Agent In Charge Lauro Vidal, who
agreed with the denial of the claim and told him that
he should take up the claim with the insurance company
of the Bravada.
"The car driven by a car thief? We didn't invite
the Bravada to come onto the ranch. The chase by Border
Patrol agents going about Border Patrol business forced
it through the fence and into the pasture. They should
pay for the damage."
"Agent Vidal also took issue with the veracity
of our claim that Border Patrol vehicles had entered
our property. He's calling me a liar and he's calling
our foreman Roberto Saldivar a liar," Güero
said.
In response to an open records request made by LareDOS
for reports of the incident written by USBP agents
at the scene, Agent Alfonso Moreno said, "There
are no reports where we took out 800 feet of fence
at the Benavides ranch. We had a vehicle on which
we initiated a stop and once our agents got out of
their cars, the Bravada took off into the brush and
through the fence. They might have taken out a couple
of fence posts. Our reports show our agents were on
foot and that it was not a chase."
"If the wisdom of the USBP and the federal government
dictate that we end up in a federal courtroom to satisfactorily
settle our fence claim, my guess is that it will cost
them many times the $1,500 they owe us," Güero
said.
