Panhandle Sheriffs Join Forces
To Create Terror, Crime Watch
By David Bowser
AMARILLO — Almost a dozen Texas Panhandle sheriffs are uniting to form a kind of Neighborhood Watch program in the Texas Panhandle similar to one that's proven successful in Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico.
Randall County Sheriff Joel Richardson says 10 county sheriffs are joining him in the program, along with West Texas A&M University, the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, and the Texas Wheat Producers Association.
"All of these people are coming together to start what we call the Agro Guard program," Richardson says. "The Agro Guard program is a community policing effort. It's much like the Neighborhood Watch program. It was started in Ford County, Kan., and took off from there to where most of the state of Kansas has adopted the program as well as New Mexico. As far as I know in Texas, this local Agro Guard program will be the first of any of the communities and counties in the state."
He describes the Agro Guard program as an effort to help protect the food chain.
Kenneth Chambers, a field inspector with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers, says that from what he's heard, the program has been successful in lowering crime in rural areas where it's been tried.
"As sheriffs, we recognize the importance of agriculture to our region," Richardson says.
Agriculture accounts for anywhere from $3.7 billion to $6 billion annually in the Panhandle, he says.
"As we think about terrorism targets," Richardson says, "we think about places like Pantex."
Pantex is the nation's tightly guarded nuclear bomb assembly and disassembly plant northeast of Amarillo.
"Pantex has more guards per square inch than anything else does around here," Richardson says. "The most important thing that we do in the Panhandle is the food that we produce to feed the world."
There are as many as five million cattle on feed in the region.
"Dairies are continuing to increase and become big business here," Richardson adds. "The hog producers are coming into the Panhandle."
Wheat and corn are grown in the region.
"It's a big agricultural area," Richardson notes.
He believes agriculture and the food chain is a potential terror target.
"We as the sheriffs of the Panhandle," Richardson says, "are committed to fight against terrorism. We don't think it's just a local issue. We think this is a vast issue."
An education program will mark the beginning of Agro Guard here in the Panhandle.
"What we've done is develop a program where we educate people to look for suspicious activity, people who are ranch hands, people who are feedlot cowboys, pen riders, people who transport agricultural products, people who handle chemicals that are used in the production of our agricultural assets here," Richardson says.
He says law enforcement officials in the area, led by the sheriffs' departments, plan to meet with the hands who are on the ground and in the midst of the daily operations.
"We'll meet with the pen riders, not just the feedlot owners, not just the feedlot operators, but the local farmers and ranchers, and help them recognize what suspicious activities to look for," Richardson says.
He hopes for cooperation, not only from area feedyards, but from their employees as well.
"In the past," Richardson says, "when we show up at a feedyard, half the hands scatter."
He says he wants a dialogue between law enforcement and agricultural producers and workers to help prevent terrorism.
"To report suspicious activities is probably the most important part of that," Richardson says.
He says he wants to include the transportation industry as well.
"People who leave their bull haulers parked near or around service stations or truck stops need to know to watch their trucks," Richardson says, "and report suspicious activity."
He says he also plans to talk with aerial sprayers and people who handle agricultural chemicals.
"I think once we do the education process here," Richardson says, "it will help us in our day-to-day activities and in fighting thefts that might occur from farms, from feedlots, from agricultural places. I think that will be an additional benefit."
Potter County Sheriff Mike Shumate agrees that in addition to potential terrorism, the program will also help control the theft of anhydrous ammonia and the proliferation of methamphetamine labs.
"That's the big problem," Shumate confides. "It's probably a bigger local problem than the terrorism issue."
He says vandalism is also a problem in the county in which much of Amarillo is located.
"The other issue we face is the equipment thefts," Shumate says. "That's always a big problem."
He says a lot of equipment is stolen from farms, ranches and construction sites and taken to Mexico to be sold.
"It's an ongoing issue," Shumate says.
He says it's of particular concern to places in Amarillo that rent equipment.
"Someone rents a piece of equipment, takes it to their property to use it, and it's stolen and taken to Mexico," Shumate says. "You never see it again. It's just another issue that we have to confront and, unfortunately, once it's over there, it's gone."
Shumate says having extra eyes watching should help.
"The more the public is involved in law enforcement, the more effective we are," he says. "We're limited in the number of people, the number of eyes, we have. If we can expand that with this program, we're much better off."
"The side benefit of this Agro Guard program," Richardson says, "is that we will begin to get information on our thefts. It'll help with just general law enforcement."
Gray County Sheriff Don Copeland, who has held a tight rein on meth labs around Pampa to the point of driving many of them off into neighboring counties, says he doesn't have any problems in his county, but he wants to prevent new ones from cropping up.
"We don't have any actual problems," Copeland says. "We just want to prevent any problems. We hope the farmers and ranchers and feedyards and everybody will get on board."
Dr. Robert DeOtto, associate professor of environmental engineering at West Texas A&M University in nearby Canyon, says the program was first tried near Dodge City, Kan., in Ford County and spread from there.
"It started in Kansas," DeOtto says, "but they got a National Institute of Justice grant for more than $200,000 to get this thing going."
They got money to get it cranked up, he says.
"That's part of why this is not copyrighted," DeOtto says of the Agro Guard program. "It was done with grant money that comes from the feds. They did a nice job."
It's a program DeOtto says can be adapted to different locations and different circumstances.
"New Mexico's done it," DeOtto says. "We're trying to get the Texas Department of Agriculture to at least pick up part of this."
"The kickoff in New Mexico started with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture putting money in to get the program going," DeOtto says.
New Mexico State University worked with a $250,000 grant from the state's Homeland Security Office. New Mexico, however, has since turned to getting sponsors to help with the program.
"That's a good thing to do," he says. "I can see that we might end up going that route, too, but we would like to get the Texas Department of Agriculture to pick up at least part of it."
Randall County has a pretty good tax base, DeOtto says.
"The sheriff has a decent budget," he says. "The same thing for Potter County. The same thing for Deaf Smith County. All of those guys can pick it up pretty easily."
Some of the more rural counties, however, may have more financial constraints.
"It's going to be a lot harder to get it up and going," DeOtto says, "but that doesn't mean that they don't need it."
He hopes the state will help stimulate the program with some funding.
Part of the program includes maintaining a database and sharing data, but that relies on existing state and federal databases.
"As far as I now, there is not a national database," DeOtto says. "The FBI has a part in this. It's not a direct part, but they have their agri-terrorism task force."
He says they tend to be a clearinghouse for a lot of the information coming into the system.
Richardson says that there is a category in the National Criminal Information Center database that deals with agriculture.
"That 911 call is going to go into the local 911 dispatch," DeOtto says. "The sheriff is going to get a call saying there's something going on and you need to look at it."
The feds, he says, will only come in when something like a foreign animal disease pops up.
"If it's foot and mouth disease," DeOtto says, "or one of the other foreign animal diseases, the presumption is going to be that it was intentionally introduced as an act of terrorism."
He says an investigation would proceed as if it were a terrorist activity until it is determined that it isn't.
DeOtto points to the foot and mouth outbreak in England a decade ago.
"They weren't supposed to import the garbage and feed it to the pigs, but they did," he says. "Then the pigs make lots and lots of FMD virus. They incubated it really, really well and spread it all over the place. I think the last time I heard it was a $20 billion impact on the U.K."
That sounds like a lot of money, he says, but it would be a drop in the bucket if foot and mouth disease were to hit the Texas Panhandle.
The United Kingdom is a little country compared to the U.S., he points out.
"U.K. is a little country compared to Texas," DeOtto says. "The impact in the Panhandle would likely be over $20 billion if we had that. That would be scary."
It was this very scenario, however, that initiated the original Agro Guard program. The program grew out of a 2005 animal health project with local, state and federal law enforcement officials sharing information.
"The nation as a whole isn't aware that the terrorists are still looking for ways to strike at our nation," Richardson says. "What we have to do is keep people's awareness to prevent acts of terrorism. If you think about utility plants or malls or those kinds of things, one way to hurt the nation the worst is the food chain. You shut down the cattle industry and you've crippled not just the Panhandle, you've crippled our nation.
"Thirty percent of the cattle that are fed in the United States are here," Richardson notes. "The Texas Panhandle is the beef capital of the world."
The key is the food production chain.
"We believe it to be that important that we protect that chain and do what we can do, do our part in the war against terrorism," Richardson says.
While fully implementing an anti-terrorism taskforce can be expensive, the Agro Guard program allows law enforcement agencies to participate at a level they can afford.
"The cost is in personnel," Richardson says. "Our print costs, our sign costs, those kinds of things are fairly minimal, yet on tight budgets they're still substantial."
Labor costs in the law enforcement community are going up, particularly in this area, as Pantex and other defense contractors and federal agencies hire commissioned peace officers for security work.
"We're going to use existing personnel," Richardson says. "The only additional cost we'll have is printing costs."
He admits that if they were to take the program any further, he would need some help financially.
"What we're trying to do is use existing resources to make people aware of potential problems," Richardson says.
He thinks programs like this will allow him to leverage the personnel he has in his department and spread the surveillance out to those in the county who will ultimately benefit the most.
"The most important thing that people can do is be aware and report suspicious activity," Richardson says. "That's it."
He says it helps when they know what to report and who to call.
"Those are the things we want to educate people on," Richardson says. "We want the opportunity to come into the feedlots, to come to meetings of farmers and ranchers who are getting their pesticide applicators licenses. We want five minutes in that meeting to talk about the program with them."
He says he needs specifics when it comes to out of the ordinary activities. It doesn't do much good to get a call saying that a blue car is driving down a county road. Richardson says he needs a more specific description.
"We want the tag number," Richardson says. "We want to know if it's two-door or four-door, and we want to know which direction it went. Those are things that help us."
Richardson says he would like for feedyards and ranchers and farmers to post the Agro Guard signs. He says the signs will have a local number to call to report suspicious activity.
"Signs themselves are not a deterrent, but just like Neighborhood Watch programs, what you're trying to do, unfortunately, is make your neighbor's property more attractive than yours," Richardson says. "That's exactly what we're doing here."
Richardson says he's just asking for the opportunity to talk to feedlot owners, operators, pen riders, farmers, ranch hands to teach them what to look for.
"Then we're going to ask them to place signs at their properties that basically say that they report all suspicious activities," Richardson says.
PS The man is right.........once its in Mexico its history,when I was a member of Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association,I stood on the banks of the Rio Grande with a pair of binoculars talking to one of their brand inspectors,pointing out some cattle across the river that had JS plainly visible branded on their side,not a thing we can do about it was his reply,got my cattle back but that's another story...............good luck
To Create Terror, Crime Watch
By David Bowser
AMARILLO — Almost a dozen Texas Panhandle sheriffs are uniting to form a kind of Neighborhood Watch program in the Texas Panhandle similar to one that's proven successful in Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico.
Randall County Sheriff Joel Richardson says 10 county sheriffs are joining him in the program, along with West Texas A&M University, the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, and the Texas Wheat Producers Association.
"All of these people are coming together to start what we call the Agro Guard program," Richardson says. "The Agro Guard program is a community policing effort. It's much like the Neighborhood Watch program. It was started in Ford County, Kan., and took off from there to where most of the state of Kansas has adopted the program as well as New Mexico. As far as I know in Texas, this local Agro Guard program will be the first of any of the communities and counties in the state."
He describes the Agro Guard program as an effort to help protect the food chain.
Kenneth Chambers, a field inspector with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers, says that from what he's heard, the program has been successful in lowering crime in rural areas where it's been tried.
"As sheriffs, we recognize the importance of agriculture to our region," Richardson says.
Agriculture accounts for anywhere from $3.7 billion to $6 billion annually in the Panhandle, he says.
"As we think about terrorism targets," Richardson says, "we think about places like Pantex."
Pantex is the nation's tightly guarded nuclear bomb assembly and disassembly plant northeast of Amarillo.
"Pantex has more guards per square inch than anything else does around here," Richardson says. "The most important thing that we do in the Panhandle is the food that we produce to feed the world."
There are as many as five million cattle on feed in the region.
"Dairies are continuing to increase and become big business here," Richardson adds. "The hog producers are coming into the Panhandle."
Wheat and corn are grown in the region.
"It's a big agricultural area," Richardson notes.
He believes agriculture and the food chain is a potential terror target.
"We as the sheriffs of the Panhandle," Richardson says, "are committed to fight against terrorism. We don't think it's just a local issue. We think this is a vast issue."
An education program will mark the beginning of Agro Guard here in the Panhandle.
"What we've done is develop a program where we educate people to look for suspicious activity, people who are ranch hands, people who are feedlot cowboys, pen riders, people who transport agricultural products, people who handle chemicals that are used in the production of our agricultural assets here," Richardson says.
He says law enforcement officials in the area, led by the sheriffs' departments, plan to meet with the hands who are on the ground and in the midst of the daily operations.
"We'll meet with the pen riders, not just the feedlot owners, not just the feedlot operators, but the local farmers and ranchers, and help them recognize what suspicious activities to look for," Richardson says.
He hopes for cooperation, not only from area feedyards, but from their employees as well.
"In the past," Richardson says, "when we show up at a feedyard, half the hands scatter."
He says he wants a dialogue between law enforcement and agricultural producers and workers to help prevent terrorism.
"To report suspicious activities is probably the most important part of that," Richardson says.
He says he wants to include the transportation industry as well.
"People who leave their bull haulers parked near or around service stations or truck stops need to know to watch their trucks," Richardson says, "and report suspicious activity."
He says he also plans to talk with aerial sprayers and people who handle agricultural chemicals.
"I think once we do the education process here," Richardson says, "it will help us in our day-to-day activities and in fighting thefts that might occur from farms, from feedlots, from agricultural places. I think that will be an additional benefit."
Potter County Sheriff Mike Shumate agrees that in addition to potential terrorism, the program will also help control the theft of anhydrous ammonia and the proliferation of methamphetamine labs.
"That's the big problem," Shumate confides. "It's probably a bigger local problem than the terrorism issue."
He says vandalism is also a problem in the county in which much of Amarillo is located.
"The other issue we face is the equipment thefts," Shumate says. "That's always a big problem."
He says a lot of equipment is stolen from farms, ranches and construction sites and taken to Mexico to be sold.
"It's an ongoing issue," Shumate says.
He says it's of particular concern to places in Amarillo that rent equipment.
"Someone rents a piece of equipment, takes it to their property to use it, and it's stolen and taken to Mexico," Shumate says. "You never see it again. It's just another issue that we have to confront and, unfortunately, once it's over there, it's gone."
Shumate says having extra eyes watching should help.
"The more the public is involved in law enforcement, the more effective we are," he says. "We're limited in the number of people, the number of eyes, we have. If we can expand that with this program, we're much better off."
"The side benefit of this Agro Guard program," Richardson says, "is that we will begin to get information on our thefts. It'll help with just general law enforcement."
Gray County Sheriff Don Copeland, who has held a tight rein on meth labs around Pampa to the point of driving many of them off into neighboring counties, says he doesn't have any problems in his county, but he wants to prevent new ones from cropping up.
"We don't have any actual problems," Copeland says. "We just want to prevent any problems. We hope the farmers and ranchers and feedyards and everybody will get on board."
Dr. Robert DeOtto, associate professor of environmental engineering at West Texas A&M University in nearby Canyon, says the program was first tried near Dodge City, Kan., in Ford County and spread from there.
"It started in Kansas," DeOtto says, "but they got a National Institute of Justice grant for more than $200,000 to get this thing going."
They got money to get it cranked up, he says.
"That's part of why this is not copyrighted," DeOtto says of the Agro Guard program. "It was done with grant money that comes from the feds. They did a nice job."
It's a program DeOtto says can be adapted to different locations and different circumstances.
"New Mexico's done it," DeOtto says. "We're trying to get the Texas Department of Agriculture to at least pick up part of this."
"The kickoff in New Mexico started with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture putting money in to get the program going," DeOtto says.
New Mexico State University worked with a $250,000 grant from the state's Homeland Security Office. New Mexico, however, has since turned to getting sponsors to help with the program.
"That's a good thing to do," he says. "I can see that we might end up going that route, too, but we would like to get the Texas Department of Agriculture to pick up at least part of it."
Randall County has a pretty good tax base, DeOtto says.
"The sheriff has a decent budget," he says. "The same thing for Potter County. The same thing for Deaf Smith County. All of those guys can pick it up pretty easily."
Some of the more rural counties, however, may have more financial constraints.
"It's going to be a lot harder to get it up and going," DeOtto says, "but that doesn't mean that they don't need it."
He hopes the state will help stimulate the program with some funding.
Part of the program includes maintaining a database and sharing data, but that relies on existing state and federal databases.
"As far as I now, there is not a national database," DeOtto says. "The FBI has a part in this. It's not a direct part, but they have their agri-terrorism task force."
He says they tend to be a clearinghouse for a lot of the information coming into the system.
Richardson says that there is a category in the National Criminal Information Center database that deals with agriculture.
"That 911 call is going to go into the local 911 dispatch," DeOtto says. "The sheriff is going to get a call saying there's something going on and you need to look at it."
The feds, he says, will only come in when something like a foreign animal disease pops up.
"If it's foot and mouth disease," DeOtto says, "or one of the other foreign animal diseases, the presumption is going to be that it was intentionally introduced as an act of terrorism."
He says an investigation would proceed as if it were a terrorist activity until it is determined that it isn't.
DeOtto points to the foot and mouth outbreak in England a decade ago.
"They weren't supposed to import the garbage and feed it to the pigs, but they did," he says. "Then the pigs make lots and lots of FMD virus. They incubated it really, really well and spread it all over the place. I think the last time I heard it was a $20 billion impact on the U.K."
That sounds like a lot of money, he says, but it would be a drop in the bucket if foot and mouth disease were to hit the Texas Panhandle.
The United Kingdom is a little country compared to the U.S., he points out.
"U.K. is a little country compared to Texas," DeOtto says. "The impact in the Panhandle would likely be over $20 billion if we had that. That would be scary."
It was this very scenario, however, that initiated the original Agro Guard program. The program grew out of a 2005 animal health project with local, state and federal law enforcement officials sharing information.
"The nation as a whole isn't aware that the terrorists are still looking for ways to strike at our nation," Richardson says. "What we have to do is keep people's awareness to prevent acts of terrorism. If you think about utility plants or malls or those kinds of things, one way to hurt the nation the worst is the food chain. You shut down the cattle industry and you've crippled not just the Panhandle, you've crippled our nation.
"Thirty percent of the cattle that are fed in the United States are here," Richardson notes. "The Texas Panhandle is the beef capital of the world."
The key is the food production chain.
"We believe it to be that important that we protect that chain and do what we can do, do our part in the war against terrorism," Richardson says.
While fully implementing an anti-terrorism taskforce can be expensive, the Agro Guard program allows law enforcement agencies to participate at a level they can afford.
"The cost is in personnel," Richardson says. "Our print costs, our sign costs, those kinds of things are fairly minimal, yet on tight budgets they're still substantial."
Labor costs in the law enforcement community are going up, particularly in this area, as Pantex and other defense contractors and federal agencies hire commissioned peace officers for security work.
"We're going to use existing personnel," Richardson says. "The only additional cost we'll have is printing costs."
He admits that if they were to take the program any further, he would need some help financially.
"What we're trying to do is use existing resources to make people aware of potential problems," Richardson says.
He thinks programs like this will allow him to leverage the personnel he has in his department and spread the surveillance out to those in the county who will ultimately benefit the most.
"The most important thing that people can do is be aware and report suspicious activity," Richardson says. "That's it."
He says it helps when they know what to report and who to call.
"Those are the things we want to educate people on," Richardson says. "We want the opportunity to come into the feedlots, to come to meetings of farmers and ranchers who are getting their pesticide applicators licenses. We want five minutes in that meeting to talk about the program with them."
He says he needs specifics when it comes to out of the ordinary activities. It doesn't do much good to get a call saying that a blue car is driving down a county road. Richardson says he needs a more specific description.
"We want the tag number," Richardson says. "We want to know if it's two-door or four-door, and we want to know which direction it went. Those are things that help us."
Richardson says he would like for feedyards and ranchers and farmers to post the Agro Guard signs. He says the signs will have a local number to call to report suspicious activity.
"Signs themselves are not a deterrent, but just like Neighborhood Watch programs, what you're trying to do, unfortunately, is make your neighbor's property more attractive than yours," Richardson says. "That's exactly what we're doing here."
Richardson says he's just asking for the opportunity to talk to feedlot owners, operators, pen riders, farmers, ranch hands to teach them what to look for.
"Then we're going to ask them to place signs at their properties that basically say that they report all suspicious activities," Richardson says.
PS The man is right.........once its in Mexico its history,when I was a member of Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association,I stood on the banks of the Rio Grande with a pair of binoculars talking to one of their brand inspectors,pointing out some cattle across the river that had JS plainly visible branded on their side,not a thing we can do about it was his reply,got my cattle back but that's another story...............good luck
