What's Wrong With Laredo? Part I

Tell Chuck Norris to stand down. Invasion USA never happened.

I contacted both the Laredo Police Department and the Webb County Sheriff yesterday and debunked claims that Los Zetas gunmen from the Gulf Cartel has crossed the border from Mexico and took over two ranches in Texas. The Laredo Morning News also refuted the claim. Pro 8 News, the NBC affiliate, didn't think enough of the absurdity to even comment on it... they found the installation of a new traffic light more newsworthy.

Absurdly, the same trio of sites that cried wolf are still sticking by their story, utter lack of credible evidence aside.

Cypress News publisher John G. Winder is sticking with the story, not because any additional evidence has been produced, but because the two sources for his version of the story, blog Digger's Realm and Examiner.com's San Diego (CA) County Political Buzz Examiner blogger Kimberly Dvorak are standing by their militiamen and anonymous police sources.

The original Cypress Times story? A re-publication of the original Digger's Realm story.

The Digger's Realm story? Two anonymous Laredo police sources and a San Diego California Minuteman named Jeff Schwilk who claims he got his information from... an anonymous Laredo PD officer.

San Diego County Poltical Buzz Examiner Kimberly Dvorak? She claims her information also comes from two anonymous Laredo PD sources.

Are we noticing a pattern here? Every bit of of this claim, which has now scattered far and wide across the Internet, can be traced back to two anonymous police department sources of a police department that does not even have jurisdiction where the alleged invasion is taking place.

I invite Digger and Kimberly Dvorak to provide me with the names and contact information of their anonymous police sources. Perhaps the officers will provide me with the answers to two simple questions that neither blogger has apparently thought to establish yet.

• What are the physical addresses of the two ranches Los Zetas are said to have taken over?
• What are the names of the ranchers that have been displaced from their ranches by Los Zetas?

It seems rather odd that the stories promoting this claim say that people were forced out, but that neither has thought to name, locate, or try to interview the best possible eyewitnesses. That is what you would expect from competent journalists. We're not seeing it here.

Instead, we're offered a conspiracy theory where law enforcement at every level, the media, and the citizens of Webb County are conspiring to cover up an invasion by a handful of drug dealers.

Laredo Truthers? I think we've found some.