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It was a hot summer in Laredo. True, all summers in Laredo are hot, but that one in the mid-1960s seemed exceptionally so because I was there, working day and night, as a Special Agent for U.S. Customs. The smuggling of narcotics into the U.S. was rampant, and a handful of guys like me was devoted to making this business as unprofitable as possible.
This was a tough task because most dope smugglers worked out of the U.S., traveled to Mexico to “connect” for their contraband there, and then delivered it back across the river or had it delivered to a point in the States. The policy of the Mexican government was not to permit American investigators to operate inside their republic, making it very difficult for us to know what was happening in the narcotics trade there. If Mexican rules were occasionally stretched, such stretching was for a good cause.
Just at sundown one July evening, I parked my disguised government car behind the Lincoln Bar and Restaurant in the thriving border city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. I hadn’t eaten or slept since the previous day and was thinking in terms of a double shot and a rare steak. I entered the Lincoln and went to my favorite corner table. It was situated where I could watch other crowded tables and especially the long standup bar.
I spotted Dobe Grant lifting a glass of tequila at the far end of the bar. I sent a waiter to fetch my old friend to my table just as my own drink was delivered. We shook hands as he sat down.
“Been lookin’ for you out at Turkey Track, Skeet. You busy?
“I sure hope you been catchin’ some of those dope-sellin’ bastards. When you gonna get caught up enough to come out for a visit?””Maybe soon, Dobe. We just finished a big case this evening. I’m going home for some rest as soon as I eat.”
While we were talking, a slim and neatly dressed Mexican boy entered the restaurant, looked around, then walked by my table as he headed for the bar. As he passed, a tiny slip of paper was dropped on the tablecloth. Making certain no one but Dobe was watching, I retrieved it. The message was simple: “8:00.”
Dobe said nothing. He had another tequila while I finished my steak. I paid the check, and we departed, heading for my car.
“Where’s your truck, Dobe?” I asked. “Here in the Lincoln parking lot.” Well, it’ll be okay there. Leave it and come with me.”
The wiry, hawk-faced old man silently accepted my invitation and took a seat in my two-toned, white-sidewalled Ford. As I fiddled with the keys, he tapped the shirt pocket where I’d put the note and asked, “Where we goin’ to meet your friend?”
I laughed. “Down by the railroad bridge. He’ll be there before we are. He’s an old informant of mine and a hell of a reliable one. As far as you’re concerned, his name is Chulo.”
Fingering his white moustache, Dobe said, “As far as I’m concerned, he don’t even exist.”
We drove over a potholed dirt street to an open area near a railroad bridge which spanned the Rio Grande. There were no streetlights and no houses. Traffic was nil. I parked by an abandoned adobe building. Within minutes, Chulo entered the car.
Glancing nervously at Dobe, Chulo spoke to me in soft Spanish. A gringo was in town, and he was trying to locate a marijuana dealer. He had talked to several locals and shown a large amount of cash to at least one, but he hadn’t made a purchase. He was driving a black Chevrolet pickup bearing Texas license CSA357.
I thanked Chulo, and he disappeared into the darkness, secure in the knowledge he would be rewarded if we caught the smuggler with a load. But we had to locate him first.
“Can you remember that license number, Dobe?” I asked. “Sure. It’s Confederate States of America three fifty-seven.” “Right. The best place to start looking is out in the zone.”
Like all Mexican border towns, Nuevo Laredo had a zona de toleréncia, a red-light district that was segregated from the rest of the community. In this case, it was actually contained within high concrete block walls through which there was only one exit. Inside this “walled city of sin” were buildings containing madams, prostitutes, murderers, pick-pockets, muggers, con men, and dope dealers.
Dobe grunted in disgust as we drove through the gate, which was guarded by Mexican police. “Damn good place to stay out of,” he grumbled.
The bartender at the Club 45 had occasionally furnished me with bits and pieces of information in the past, so I parked in front of that imbiber’s institution. I didn’t have to ask Dobe whether he was armed.
As I did, he carried a Mexican gun permit provided by Arnulfo Vasques de Villareal, the local commanding general of the army. One thing the general had made us promise when he issued these credentials was that we would not carry firearms into low-class saloons.
Though I hated to do it, I slipped my Browning Hi-Power from beneath my shirt and hid it under the car seat. Eyeing me as though we were both crazy, Dobe did the same with his Colt .45 automatic. Unarmed, we walked into the Club 45 and approached the bar.
We almost made it. As I reached out to place my hand on the mahogany bartop, I was grabbed from behind, and my arms were pinioned to my side. My hat flew off, and something wet brushed my neck. I got an elbow into the ribs of my assailant, then grabbed his wrist and twisted, throwing him to the tile floor. Dobe had grabbed a bottle by the neck and was standing over the prone figure, ready to finish matters.
Holding my attacker down by twisting his arm, I looked him over. His ruddy skin and frazzled blond hair said he was Anglo. His faded Levis, one pants leg caught in a scalloped boot top, and greasy cowboy hat made him a cowboy. I let him go, and two more just like him made their way through the curious crowd to help him to his feet. The threesome stood there, obviously pleased with themselves. They had the look of rodeo hands, and as it turned out, they were. They were also three sheets to the wind.
“Why did you do that?” I politely inquired of the one who’d grappled with me.
“Well, you see, old Jim Bob an’ old Roy an’ I was gettin’ bored. No action at all. An’ they bet me the drinks that I didn’t have the guts to go up to the next big, ugly sonofabitch that walked in the door and kiss him on the neck. That was you. I won–unless of course you want to buy the drinks yourself.”
I gazed at the three smiling, swaying youngsters and was reminded of my own somewhat raucous youth. I retrieved my hat, put it on, and sighed, “I just believe I will.” And I did.
A private visit with the bartender about the truck I was looking for was unproductive, and Dobe and I left the Club 45. Back in my Ford, we made a quick survey of the rest of the zone without results.
Clandestinely, since use of our radios in Mexico was prohibited, I radioed to ascertain if any other U.S. Customs agents were in service. There were, but they were tied up in a surveillance in another case. One officer, young Bill Sessions, broke off and crossed the river to assist Dobe and me.
We divided the list of the known narcotics dealers in Nuevo Laredo and drove by their places of business and homes, still searching for the Texas pickup. Sessions finally spotted it inside the fence at the home of Tacuache, a notorious wholesale dope merchant. He radioed that he’d made the license number, and it was on a black El Camino pickup.
Like Ford Rancheros, El Caminos were ideal vehicles for contraband. With large, paneled-off compartments in their beds and the hollow sidewalls of the beds, they could hold a lot of marijuana and keep it well concealed from a casual inspection.
Having located the El Camino at a dealer’s place, we backed off, crossing into the U.S. and placing “pass and call” lookouts with the Customs inspectors at the International Bridge in Laredo. If the suspect truck arrived there, they were to let it pass with a search and call the agents. This was in case the pickup was not loaded in Mexico, and its driver had arranged to have the marijuana delivered to a point on the American side.
Dobe and I parked on a side street near the bridge. Sessions parked a block away. We settled in to wait. It was almost sunup, and Dobe saw me rubbing my tired eyes.
“I’ve slept since you have, old horse. Grab a few winks. I’ll stay awake and listen for the radio.”
I gratefully settled into the car seat and sank into oblivion. When I awoke, it was midmorning. Sparse traffic moved along our street.
Dobe saw me stir and sit erect, stretching my cramped muscles. The ashtray brimmed with the butts of cigarettes he’d smoked during the shank of the hot night. I contacted Sessions. He was still in place.
Dobe walked to a corner café and returned with two large Styrofoam containers of coffee. This revived us, and we endured our wait with wider eyes.
“If you’re gonna live in this car, you ought to furnish it more comfortable,” Dobe declared.
As the day wore on, Dobe entertained me with tales of his days as an officer during Prohibition, when he had worked along this same troubled stretch of river. We both reflected on how little life changed along the Mexican border, where smuggling had been a way of life for so long.
The day crept by. We changed the position of our car several times so as not to arouse the curiosity of passersby. We stayed near the port of entry in order to pick up on our suspect vehicle quickly when it came.
In the early evening, our radio crackled. My office flashed the news that our El Camino had just entered from Mexico and been passed by the inspectors. Alert now, I drove to the intersection of the main thoroughfare from the International Bridge. Two, three, four cars passed before us, and then there it was, our black Chevrolet, occupied by an Anglo man. After allowing a couple of “buffer” cars to file in between us, I entered the line of traffic behind the suspect; Sessions pulled into line behind us. Dobe sat calmly, his eyes riveted on the pickup.
Instead of leaving town on the San Antonio highway as we anticipated, the El Camino made a sudden turn into the parking lot of a large shopping center. The driver parked near the storefronts, and I passed him, taking a place near an exit about 100 yards away. Sessions took a position on the far side of the lot.
We waited for about two hours. The suspect sat in his pickup. Was a delivery to be made in a crowded parking lot?
As dusk approached, I told Dobe, “If he’s loaded or is going to pick up the load down the road toward San Antonio, he’ll leave here and go right down the freeway. It’ll be hell trying to tail him in the dark in all that traffic.”
At that moment, the suspect got out of his vehicle, locked it, and entered a drugstore.
Without a word, Dobe removed his hat, left my car, and walked briskly across the parking lot to the El Camino. I could barely see him in the lengthening shadows as he pulled his gun and used it to smash the left rear taillight of the black pickup. He returned circuitously to my car, grinning as he got in.
The driver of the El Camino left the store, looking carefully around the parking lot. After a moment’s delay, he got in his truck and drove rapidly from the lot. As we followed, he entered the San Antonio freeway and headed north, staying barely within the 70-mile-per-hour speed limit. Sessions was on our bumper, and I held back, letting the suspect increase the distance between us to about a quarter of a mile.
Where the red plastic of the broken taillight had been, the white bulb glared like a lighthouse beacon. We could have picked him out in traffic if he’d been a mile ahead of us. I grinned and slapped Dobe’s knobby knee.
“Do you think he’s going to meet somebody, Dobe, or is he already loaded?” I asked.
His eyes never left the broken taillight as he replied, “I’m bettin’ he’s already loaded. How long you gonna follow him before we see?”
“Let’s take him out 25 miles or so. If he hasn’t met someone by then, we’ll grab him.”
We raced through the night for another 30 minutes, guided by the bright light. Then I radioed Sessions, “Let’s take him. I’ll come in from the side; you stay close on his tail.”
Pulling up beside the pickup, I hit the siren as Dobe plugged the portable flashing red light into the cigarette lighter and signaled the driver to stop. As the suspect brought the El Camino to a halt, Dobe and I leaped out of the car, pistols in hand.
“Police! Gitcher hands up!” shouted the old rancher, pointing his .45 at the startled suspect. The man took one look at the cowboy-hatted, grizzled figure and did as he was told. We got him out, then spread-eagled and searched him. He was unarmed. Sessions cuffed his hands behind his back, and we began to check out the El Camino.
It was loaded and then some. A wall of plastic-wrapped kilo bricks of marijuana was stacked behind the seat and came level to the top of it. A brightly colored blanket concealed the contraband from outside view. Using a Philips screwdriver, we opened the compartments in the bed, and they were also neatly filled with “keys” of the illicit weed. When we weighed the catch, we would find we’d captured 250 kilograms–more than 500 pounds–of marijuana.
We prepared to return to Laredo.
I was to take the prisoner, a middle-aged ex-convict, in my car, Dobe was to drive Sessions’ car, and Sessions got the load vehicle. Then we found out about the missing keys to the pickup.
“There’s a trick to starting it,” said the prisoner. “Take the cuffs off me, and I’ll reach under the dash and fix the wire.”
Before I could stop him, Sessions started to comply.
“Hold on there,” Dobe said gruffly. He bent under the steering wheel, reached up under the dash, and came up with a loaded and cocked .38 Super Colt automatic.
“This what you’re after, partner? I’m glad you brought it. It’ll get you maybe an extra couple of years.”
Dobe handed me the pistol. We finally managed to start the pickup, which was stolen and hot-wired. We returned in caravan to the office.
Dobe sat near my desk as I interrogated and wrote up the prisoner. The man broke down and told us his whole story.
“It’s been a hard-luck deal from the beginning,” he complained. “I figured on doubling my money fast and got a few friends to invest. They’ll be after me now. That Tacuache charged me almost double what I intended to pay for the grass. Then it took a whole day to round it up and load it. I had tire trouble.
“And then the damnedest thing happened,” he continued. “I was parked at a shopping center, waiting for dark, and decided to buy some cigarettes. While I was in the drugstore, I looked out the window and saw a gray-headed old coot walk up to my pickup, take out a gun, smash the taillight, and walk off. I didn’t want to tangle with no looney with a gun, so I just let him go and got the hell out of there. The whole world’s against me.”
Dobe stood up, his face reddening, and said, “If that’s all you need from me, Skeet, I’ll be headin’ back to the Turkey Track. This city life’s too fast for me.”
Author’s Note: I am constantly asked if Dobe Grant really exits. He does, but not as a single man. He is the essence of at least four old-timers that I know and have known.
When Dobe Grant acts out on the printed page the things that these men have done, and…with the élan, irascibility, courage, and honesty that shrouded them, then Dobe becomes alive.
(AP)—The U.S. military is cracking down on special operations troops who share knowledge of their secret missions for profit, punishing seven Navy SEALs, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, who moonlighted as advisers on a combat video game.
Current and former SEALs, including the author of a tell-all book on the bin Laden raid, complain they’re getting mixed messages from the military, which likes to see itself on big and small screens on its own terms.
The seven SEALs are being reprimanded and having their pay docked for sharing information with the designers of “Medal of Honor: Warfighter,” by video game company EA, according to military officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigations publicly.
The men will remain in the SEAL teams, but were punished for working on the video without their command’s permission, revealing classified information by sharing the tactics they use and showing designers some of their specially designed combat equipment unique to their unit, the officials said.
Four more SEALs could face the similar punishment.
The deputy commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Garry Bonelli, issued a statement acknowledging that nonjudicial punishments had been handed out for misconduct, but he did not offer any details.
“We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as sailors in the United States Navy,” Bonelli said. He alluded to the importance of honoring nondisclosure agreements that SEALs sign.
He said the punishments this week “send a clear message throughout our force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability.”
The SEALs’ unauthorized work came to light as part of the investigation of the book “No Easy Day,” by former SEAL Matt Bissonnette, with his firsthand account of the raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan last year. Publisher Penguin’s Dutton Imprint ignored the Pentagon’s warnings that the book contained classified information and published the book just ahead of the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks.
The Pentagon would have a hard time proving the video game makers had disseminated classified information that threatened national security because the combat tactics shown in the game are common to games and action movies, said Mark Zaid, a Washington-based national security attorney who regularly handles cases involving secrecy agreements and classified information.
EA spokesman Peter Nguyen said the company has no plans to recall “Medal of Honor: Warfighter,” and there are “no plans to alter the content contributed by combat veterans in the game.” He would not elaborate.
“EA didn’t break any rules,” said Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities, an investment firm that follows video game companies. “It’s not against the law for them to ask questions.”
Video game companies often use military consultants for games in order to make them as realistic as possible.
The Xbox 360 version of the game scored poorly on with just 52 points out of 100 on Metacritic, a gaming website that aggregates reviews, Pachter said.
Pachter expects the latest “Medal of Honor,” which launched on Oct. 23, to sell 3 million copies. The “Call of Duty” games routinely sell more than that in their first day in stores.
The SEALs who were punished for helping with the game were all members of Bissonnette’s old unit, SEAL Team 6. Officials say Bissonnette drafted his friends from his old unit SEAL Team 6 to work on the video game—a common practice among the SEAL teams, where current and former members help trusted teammates to find work.
Current and former special operators troops complain there’s a double standard when it comes to publicizing details of their missions. This year’s movie “Act of Valor” was filmed with the Pentagon’s approval and featured active-duty Navy SEALs, showing off the methods they use on the battlefield. Navy officials say they worked with the filmmakers as a recruiting tool and that unlike the video game, or the Bissonnette raid book, the filmmakers gave them an opportunity to review the film for classified material. They also point out that the SEALs in that movie were unpaid.
“I don’t know if terrorists can just take from a video game tactics … but it does speak to a bigger issue that just, hey, if you’re not authorized to give out information or speak about information, then you have to be held accountable,” said former Navy SEAL Scott Taylor, now with Special Operations OPSEC, a political advocacy group that criticized the Obama administration during the presidential campaign for releasing details of the bin Laden raid.
The head of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Sean Pybus, responded to the Bissonnette book by telling his force that “hawking details about a mission” and selling other information about SEAL training and operations puts the force and their families at risk.
Members of the SEAL community have been embarrassed by the rash of books and films about the elite force, and some SEALs say they fear top secret missions will now be given instead to units whose members keep quiet.
California enacts first statewide gun and ammunition tax in the country
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California: “Yes, the Second Amendment affirms your Right to keep and bear arms, but we’re going to make sure you can’t afford it, nor are you going to be able to afford ammunition to learn to shoot safely.”
The F-35 stealth jet isn’t the only example of expensive technology that crashed recently. The implementation of New York’s ammunition background check law – the rollout of which was, to be generous, extremely low visibility – was a disaster of its own, judging from initial reports.
The new law was actually passed as part of broader gun control legislation a decade ago. The so-called SAFE Act (2013) authorized a statewide ammunition background check database and required that the superintendent of the state police make a formal “certification” that the database was “operational” before the law could take effect.
Confusion over whether this has occurred and what the new changes involve is understandable. Readers of the government’s official “Gun Safety in NYS” website were still being given the following outdated information as of September 21:
Is there any background check now required for purchasers of ammunition?
Not yet. The law provides that background check requirements imposed on all retail sellers of ammunition are scheduled to take effect on September 13, 2023.
To complicate things, the implementation of the ammunition background check law coincides with another gun control development in the Empire State, pursuant to which the New York State Police (rather than the FBI) is responsible for conducting all firearm and ammunition-related checks using both NICS and a “statewide license and record database.”
The database requires detailed personal information about the purchaser: name, “up to five additional names/aliases,” residential address, date of birth, height, weight, race, ethnicity, “prior military status,” country and place of birth, citizenship, whether and what driver’s license or government-issued identification the person has, social security number, contact information, and (for ammunition buys) the manufacturer, the “Ammunition Identification Number,” the caliber and amount of ammunition being purchased. (The State Police guide for dealers has, out of a total of 21 pages, devoted eight to the initial personal information needed.)
All background check transactions currently “need to be processed online,” as an “Interactive Voice Response (IVR) telephone solution is in the process of being implemented but will not be available until October.”
Shortly before September 13, a gun store owner indicated that there was no outreach: “No dealer in New York has been contacted by the state about how it will work.” Other ammunition retailers complain that the new system isn’t actually working – apart from the time it takes just to enter the required customer information online, there are significant delays in getting the system up and running and in response times. “It took eight hours between a computer tech and me to play with their website to get their website working,” reported one gun store owner. Only a few days after the system went live, another retailer expressed frustration with delays before a sale could proceed, describing his longest wait time for a response (at that point) as 22 hours.
Even worse, an improper denial means the person has to appeal to the State Police and wait out the appeal period of up to 30 days before being able to purchase ammunition. Tom King, the executive director of the New York Rifle & Pistol Association and the holder of a state pistol permit for over 40 years, was denied when he tried to buy shotgun shells, and has since appealed. “They’re denying everybody I’ve talked to,” he said.
Gun owners are dinged with additional fees to pay for this, being $2.50 for ammunition purchase background checks and $9.00 for firearms, and the law will have other, less obvious financial repercussions. “We lose money on every box of ammo we sell because of the time involved,” one retailer says, adding that, “It’s not going to get easier. We’re going to have to raise our prices.”
A newsletter from New York’s Assembly Minority Office of Public Affairs confirms there are “very legitimate concerns about the burden this new system will place” on the business community, the State Police, and gun owners. “Costs will go up and it is unclear what benefits this new law will generate…This law targets law-abiding gun owners and puts yet another financial burden on already overtaxed businesses and individuals. It is hard not to look at this as anything more than a punitive fee for access to the Second Amendment.”
Empire State residents who are not gun owners won’t escape the reach of this folly, either – a reported $20 million in the 2023-24 budget has been allocated for the State Police for implementation, including the hiring of 100 additional personnel.
The most ridiculous thing about all this wasted time, money, ink and effort is that New York’s dangerous criminals will continue to flout the law. The executive director of one New York gun control group was quoted as saying that, although “lawful gun owners may have to wait a bit longer right now in the immediate, they themselves understand what could potentially happen if an individual who does not have a license or does not pass a background check is able to obtain that gun.” Contrary to her claims, lawful gun owners understand all too well that criminals don’t waste time jumping through government hoops to buy guns or ammunition. “The only people that this is affecting,” says Tom King, “is the lawful legal citizen in New York state.”
————————————————————————————– I am sure that up state New York is just over joyed by this. Thanks to NYC and its choices that they make. Grumpy
A soon-to-be vacant gun store in Culver City has a new owner: the city itself.
Earlier this month, Culver City announced plans to purchase the Martin B. Retting Gun Store on Washington Boulevard for a price tag of more than $6 million.
The gunshop was a mainstay in Culver City for more than six decades, but in July, its longtime owners announced the store would be closing shop.
After 65 years in business, with the company staying in the hands of various members of the Retting family throughout, retirement beckoned its current owners.
“Despite having overcome and flourished after everything the firearms industry could throw at us, it turns out that the one thing we can’t defeat is the inevitable march of time,” store management wrote in a note to customers posted on its website.
The store became the subject of public ire in recent years due to its close proximity to La Ballona Elementary School.
It was also listed in a 2022 report by the California Department of Justice identifying it as one of the state’s top sources of guns that were illegally possessed, were used in the commission of a crime, or were suspected of having been used in a crime.
Years ago, Culver City passed an ordinance that prohibits gun sellers from operating businesses near schools, but the gun store received leniency due to its longtime residency and was allowed to keep doing business.
But those rights were transferrable, officials said, meaning if the storefront were to ever be sold, a new one could quickly take its place.
Yasmine Imani-McMorrin, the city’s vice mayor, said the city listened to input from the community and determined many were worried about public safety if a new store were to open.
“They had concerns about their families’ well-being,” Imani-Mcmorrin told KTLA’s Rachel Menitoff.
At a Sept. 11 city council meeting, the council met to discuss the sale and listen to feedback from the community. A crowd of mostly supporters gathered in the chambers to urge councilmembers to vote in support of the city’s purchase.
“Ending gun sales in our school zones will have an impact on our children and families that will be felt for generations,” said Melody Hanson, a mother and member of Culver 878, a local gun safety advocacy group.
After public comment ended, the council unanimously voted in favor of purchasing the property for $6.5 million. But despite the unanimous support from the council, not all in Culver City were encouraged by the sale.
Gary Zeiss, a Culver City resident who called into oppose the purchase, raised concerns about the overall cost of the property, which he said was significantly above market value.
“I am not a Second Amendment proponent by any stretch of the imagination, however I am a proponent of good government,” Zeiss said. “There’s no evidence that the value of the property is in any way proportional to the value of other properties in the area.”
Zeiss also questioned why the property was being purchased without any definitive plans on how it will be used.
In a statement provided to KTLA Wednesday, Mayor Albert Vera confirmed that there was no immediate plan for the property, but said it will eventually serve the community as a whole.
“The City’s decision to purchase the building is in large part from listening to the community and its desire to have a different use for that location. It will be an involved process with the community on the next steps for that building and what it ultimately will become,” the statement reads.
The Martin B. Retting Gun Store initially planned to shutter its doors at the end of July, but it remained open as recently as early September. Despite the retirement of its owners, guns and other merchandise were being sold at their original prices because the business closure was “not a liquidation, clearance or distress sale.”
The store’s phone number has since been disconnected.
—————————————————————————————-Now I am of mixed minds about this subject. For the following reason below.
In that I now have one less Gunshop to go to here in LA LA Land. A dying breed believe me!!
As usual Government has once again shown its ability to spend a LOT of money for basically symbolic reasons. Also I have been to their shop a couple of times. Now they had a great selection of $$$$ guns and a horrible attitude to boot.
Now for the good news. The owners with their backs to the wall were able to make the enemy pay a mighty hefty price for its victory. A weirdly shaped brick buildong with piss poor parking.
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