The Zapata County sheriff Thursday was questioning why a Mexican military helicopter was hovering over homes on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.
It was one of the more jarring incidents of the fourth week of border tensions sparked by drug killings, and rumors of such killings, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said he’d reviewed photos of the chopper flown by armed personnel Tuesday over a residential area known as Falcon Heights-Falcon Village near the binational Falcon Lake, just south of the Starr-Zapata county line. He said the helicopter appeared to have the insignia of the Mexican navy.
“It’s always been said that the Mexican military does in fact … that there have been incursions,” Gonzalez said. “But this is not New Mexico or Arizona. Here we’ve got a river; there’s a boundary line. And then of course having Falcon Lake, Falcon Dam, it’s a lot wider. It’s not just a trickle of a river, it’s an actual dam. You know where the boundary’s at.”
Shoot it down I say.
Found by Aric Mackey.
It is a federal offense to shoot at any aircraft over American territory unless authorized by the President. Simply put, there are international agreements on how a sovereign country may react to an aircraft, armed or not, over its territory.
But hey, stuff like this is good for the rednecks to get hardons.
I can imagine the conversation in the helicopter.
Juan: “Ernesto, are you sure that’s Matamoros?”
Ernesto: “Shut up Juan, I know what I’m doing!”
Juan: “Seriously, I theenk we are in Brownsville, let’s land and ask somebody”
Ernesto: “For the last time Juan, I know how to fly a helicopter!”