Badges - Re: Enemy at gate? Not in this case
- From: Michael Volling <mvolling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 06:16:19 -0500
Interesting story.
I can certainly understand the Sheriff's reluctance to ignite a powder keg and
get someone killed, but it annoys me to no end that this guy isn't being held
accountable for his crimes. A catch 22 for sure.
On May 24, 2011, at 6:06 AM, CarlGlas@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Enemy at gate? Not in this case
> In a one-sided standoff, a fugitive has holed up on his land for 11 years —
> but lawmen don't seem to care
> By STEVE CAMPBELL
> FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
> May 23, 2011
>
>
> <17097e2.jpg>
>
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> TRINIDAD — On the other side of the barbed-wire fence, John Joe Gray, a
> "free-standing man" and fugitive from the law, is locked and loaded for the
> coming apocalypse or authorities - whichever shows up first.
>
> "It's coming," he says. "It's time this country knows God is coming."
>
> A rifle is slung across his back and a gun belt around his waist holds a
> revolver and extra cartridges. A knife is strapped to the other side of his
> lean torso. A battered felt hat frames a deeply lined face and bushy beard.
>
> Dangling from a nearby tree, a hangman's noose strangles a weathered sign
> that sums up his stance: "Solution to tyranny."
>
> Warily covering Gray's flanks are two of his six children, sons Jonathan, 39,
> and Timothy, 33. The dark-bearded, fit and tanned brothers are as well-armed
> as their 62-year-old father.
>
> Ten feet behind her brothers and father, long-haired Ruth Gray, 31, stands
> solemn and silent. She, too, is armed to the teeth.
>
> Next to her is teenager Jessica Gray, "who is old enough," according to her
> father, Jonathan. She has on a cowboy hat that the wind keeps blowing off, a
> long denim skirt, a sequined denim vest and cowboy boots. She's packing a
> pistol and binoculars.
>
> Law is ignoring him
>
> This is one stubborn side of what has been called America's longest-running
> standoff with law enforcement.
>
> But it's been a single-sided siege. Henderson County authorities have
> pointedly ignored the would-be war.
>
> For more than 11 years, John Joe Gray and his country clan have been holed up
> inside their own private prison, a 47-acre strip of Trinity River bottomland
> about 100 miles southeast of Fort Worth in Henderson County.
>
> They've scraped out a harsh life here ever since Gray was bailed out of jail
> in January 2000 after he was charged with assaulting a state trooper on
> Christmas Eve 1999.
>
> During a traffic stop, Gray and the driver of the car told two Department of
> Public Safety troopers that they were armed. When ordered to get out, the
> driver did but Gray wouldn't budge.
>
> One trooper pushed Gray out, and he then lunged for the other officer's
> sidearm. Gray bit the trooper as they struggled for control of the weapon,
> according to investigators.
>
> An Anderson County grand jury indicted him on two felony counts - assaulting
> a public servant and taking a peace officer's weapon.
>
> "We're here because two highway patrolmen lied about what happened," Gray
> said last week. "Land of the free and home of the brave? That's a bunch of
> bull."
>
> He has refused to be taken alive and in a long-ago letter to authorities, the
> family warned officials to "bring extra body bags," if they come for him.
> Authorities kept tabs on the compound for months but haven't maintained an
> active presence for years.
>
> "We fear no man," John Joe Gray maintains. "We believe in an eye for an eye
> and a bullet for a bullet."
>
> But nobody's storming the gate.
>
> Henderson County Sheriff Ray Nutt, who is the fourth lawman in the post since
> 2000, says, like his predecessors, that he's not willing to risk a gunbattle
> just to arrest Gray.
>
> "John Joe Gray is not worth it. Ten of him is not worth going up there and
> getting one of my young deputies killed," he said.
> Living off the land
>
> The hardscrabble compound has no phone, no refrigeration, no power.
>
> Contact with the outside world is through a handful of "supporters" and via
> shortwave radio, John Joe Gray said.
>
> Drinking water comes from springs, and Gray and his sons say they subsist by
> growing beans, potatoes, corn, squash, tomatoes and peppers on fields they
> plow with donkeys. They can vegetables and dry meat to get through the year,
> they said.
>
> They also raise goats and chickens and catch catfish, carp and drum from the
> Trinity and hunt deer on the wooded property. Friends bring them staples they
> can't produce themselves. Last year, they harvested their first crop of
> peaches.
>
> One supporter, who frequently visits the farm, said eight children are inside
> the compound. The kids are armed at an early age, she said. They are equally
> adept at reciting the Constitution or Scripture.
>
> "It's sort of Wild West. It's what a traditional American family looked like
> 100 years ago," said Dolores McCarter of Arlington, who says she once worked
> for Homeland Security and now operates a small nonprofit called Dee's House
> that helps battered women and children.
>
> "John is standing as a free man. He loves his family. They are prepared to
> live out their lives there," McCarter said. "Some people pity them and they
> ... pity us."
>
> http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7576723.html#ixzz1NGbFaEbd
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