Rocks Thrown at Border Patrol Chopper

[Jeffrey]

YUMA, Ariz.

Illegal immigrants threw rocks at a Border Patrol helicopter, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing when one of the rocks damaged the rotor, the agency said.

Neither the pilot nor the Border Patrol observer was injured.

The A-Star helicopter was two miles west of the U.S. Port of Entry in Andrade, Calif., on Tuesday when a group of immigrants began throwing rocks at the aircraft.

One baseball-sized rock gashed the rotor, forcing the pilot to land nearby, said Michael Gramley, spokesman for the Border Patrol sector based in Yuma, Ariz.

Gramley said he did not know how high the helicopter was hovering when it was struck, but he said it was being repaired and is expected back in service soon.

After the incident, 17 people were apprehended for illegally crossing the border, and two of them were being investigated for smuggling. Ten immigrants evaded capture. The investigation into the rock-throwing was continuing.

breitbart.com/news/2005/08/25/D8C71P6O0.html

 

[Marie]

Jeffrey:

YUMA, Ariz.

Illegal immigrants threw rocks at a Border Patrol helicopter, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing when one of the rocks damaged the rotor, the agency said.

Neither the pilot nor the Border Patrol observer was injured.

The A-Star helicopter was two miles west of the U.S. Port of Entry in Andrade, Calif., on Tuesday when a group of immigrants began throwing rocks at the aircraft.

One baseball-sized rock gashed the rotor, forcing the pilot to land nearby, said Michael Gramley, spokesman for the Border Patrol sector based in Yuma, Ariz.

Gramley said he did not know how high the helicopter was hovering when it was struck, but he said it was being repaired and is expected back in service soon.

After the incident, 17 people were apprehended for illegally crossing the border, and two of them were being investigated for smuggling. Ten immigrants evaded capture. The investigation into the rock-throwing was continuing.

breitbart.com/news/2005/08/25/D8C71P6O0.html

Good article Jeff. It’s not an easy job for sure.

 

[Jeffrey]

You’re right… that’d be a rough job… i’d see a definite need to control ones frustration.

They’re attacking choppers? Lucky they didn’t have guns. I still say build the wall.

Marie:

Good article Jeff. It’s not an easy job for sure.

 

[geezerbob]

There is obviously something wrong with that news report. We know that all illegal immigrants are simple, honest, hard working, law abiding people who just want a better life. Someone else must have been hiding and done that dastardly deed. Or so some would have us believe.

 

[vern_humphrey]

geezerbob:

There is obviously something wrong with that news report. We know that all illegal immigrants are simple, honest, hard working, law abiding people who just want a better life. Someone else must have been hiding and done that dastardly deed. Or so some would have us believe.

And some of them carry illegal drugs.

And someday one of them will carry more than that.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Isn’t that part of the free speech guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to all those illegally in this country.

 

[tcay584]

Baseball sized rock? He must have one heck of an arm to throw a rock that big that far!

That guy’ll probably be playing pitcher next year for some major league team.

 

[Tonks40]

tcay584:

That guy’ll probably be playing pitcher next year for some major league team.

Hopefully, with all the paperwork necessary to be in the US legally!!

I have lived on the American-Mexican border all my life, and it’s amazing to me the great lengths people south of the border go to in order to get into this country illegally. Our living wages here do not even cover the amount of money needed in order just to have a decent life - illegals have driven our wages so low! I do have great respect for the ones who make sure that they can live and work here legally (I work in an office full of them!) - but I don’t respect the ones who come over, take advantage of our social welfare system (the state does withhold assistance based on residency status) and drive costs through the roof! The illegal immigration problems affects all aspects of life here on the border!

 

[Arba_Sicula]

geezerbob:

We know that all illegal immigrants are simple, honest, hard working, law abiding people who just want a better life.

You’re almost right, but can’t generalize and say “all.” Most is probably closest to the truth. There are always some low lives in every group. Even the Catholic priesthood had some bums.

 

[geezerbob]

Arba Sicula:

You’re almost right, but can’t generalize and say “all.” Most is probably closest to the truth. There are always some low lives in every group. Even the Catholic priesthood had some bums.

If they were law abiding, they wouldn’t be trying to enter the country illegally.

 

[Arba_Sicula]

geezerbob:

If they were law abiding, they wouldn’t be trying to enter the country illegally.

You can say the same about a man forced to steal food to feed his family. He’s probably someone basically law abiding, but is being forced by circumstances to do something illegal. One can at least sympathize with the plight of such people.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Jeffrey:

You’re right… that’d be a rough job… i’d see a definite need to control ones frustration.

They’re attacking choppers? Lucky they didn’t have guns. I still say build the wall.

Hek, I say build another ocean-to-ocean canal and fill it with aligators.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Arba Sicula:

You can say the same about a man forced to steal food to feed his family. He’s probably someone basically law abiding, but is being forced by circumstances to do something illegal. One can at least sympathize with the plight of such people.

Moral choices by definition have choices built into them.

You are suggesting that poverty ‘determines’ or ‘forces’ people to act immorally. That is a logic impossibility.

One can sympathize with the plight of the poor. One can even fulfill one’s Catholic obligation to feed the poor. But these decisions have no relation whatsoever to condoning illegal immigration. Apples and oranges.

 

[Arba_Sicula]

Ani Ibi:

You are suggesting that poverty ‘determines’ or ‘forces’ people to act immorally.

Not at all. That man was not forced to steal just because he was poor. He stole because he had no alternative (in his mind, at least) but to steal food.

One can sympathize with the plight of the poor. One can even fulfill one’s Catholic obligation to feed the poor.

Yes.

condoning illegal immigration.

One needn’t condone it, but one can sympathize with it.

Perhaps Bush’s Guest Worker Program will help the situation.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Arba Sicula:

Not at all. That man was not forced to steal just because he was poor. He stole because he had no alternative (in his mind, at least) but to steal food.

I do not believe a person can say that for sure without having gone hungry. It is about values.

Like I say it is a contradiction in terms to claim that a person can be forced to choose evil. There is always a choice. And that choice is “in his mind” otherwise it would not be a choice.

The trouble for some people is that they don’t like the choices given. They want things to be on their own terms. Only a dictator gets to have things on his or her own terms and then not always.

To claim that those living in poverty are incapable of choosing good over evil because they are living in poverty is to set out two distinct classes of people: one capable of making choices and one incapable of making choices. One human and one sub-human. This way of thinking is Naziism.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Ani Ibi:

I do not believe a person can say that for sure without having gone hungry. It is about values.

Like I say it is a contradiction in terms to claim that a person can be forced to choose evil. There is always a choice. And that choice is “in his mind” otherwise it would not be a choice.

The trouble for some people is that they don’t like the choices given. They want things to be on their own terms. Only a dictator gets to have things on his or her own terms and then not always.

I’ve been hungry.

What you’re doing here is pursuing the Fallacy of Limited Alternatives – as if the only alternatives were illegal immigration or starvation. And that’s not the case. People living in Mexico are not starving – they come here for economic opportunity, not calories.

 

[Arba_Sicula]

Ani Ibi:

To claim that those living in poverty are incapable of choosing good over evil because they are living in poverty is to set out two distinct classes of people: one capable of making choices and one incapable of making choices.

You are quite correct. We all are free to make choices.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

vern humphrey:

I’ve been hungry.

What you’re doing here is pursuing the Fallacy of Limited Alternatives – as if the only alternatives were illegal immigration or starvation. And that’s not the case.

Actually I was responding to someone who was claiming that people choose illegal immigration because of hunger: a counter to a ‘root cause’ foray. I do agree with you that factors other than hunger exist.
vern humphrey:

People living in Mexico are not starving – they come here for economic opportunity, not calories.

They come here for illegal economic opportunity.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Ani Ibi:

Actually I was responding to someone who was claiming that people choose illegal immigration because of hunger: a counter to a ‘root cause’ foray. I do agree with you that factors other than hunger exist.

Which is my point – other reasons exist for them to come, and other solutions to their problems also exist which do not involve illegally entering the United States.
Ani Ibi:

They come here for illegal economic opportunity.

They come here to participate in our vast labor black market – which we created by pricing American unskilled labor out of the market.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

vern humphrey:

Which is my point.

OK. It’s your point.