-Caveat Lector- Four Arizona parks among the nation's most dangerous Associated Press May 31, 2001 11:20:00 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Related story: � Top 10 dangerous parks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- TUCSON - Arizona is home to the nation's most dangerous national park and three others in the top 10, according to a new study by park rangers worried about inadequate law enforcement. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which borders Mexico 120 miles west of Tucson, ranked first in the study, conducted by the Fraternal Order of Police's U.S. Park Rangers Lodge. Droves of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers are mainly to blame for the problems there, the group says. Lake Mead National Recreation Area on the Arizona-Nevada line ranked 7th and Grand Canyon National Park 8th. Tucson's Saguaro National Park ranked 10th and was described as a "home to body dumping, smuggling and poaching" after rangers go home at night. The list of most dangerous parks was based on a survey of several hundred park rangers but ultimately handpicked by three leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police's park ranger chapter. The study didn't actually tabulate the number of crimes or mishaps in parks. Other studies have found the odds of victimization in parks to be lower than the risks in cities. At Organ Pipe, the rangers group listed a dozen run-ins with drug smugglers and migrants from Mexico in the past two months. Twice, rangers had to use road spikes to stop fleeing vehicles. In another incident, a van thought to have been used to smuggle drugs sheared the door of a patrol car off its hinges; its driver fled to Mexico. The group said Organ Pipe is "so dangerous the Park Service uses it as a training ground for tactical operations," with rangers from throughout the nation practicing with camouflage, assault rifles and night-vision goggles. Organ Pipe Superintendent Bill Wellman told the Arizona Daily Star he didn't think his park deserved to be named the most dangerous park, but he said it should be in the top 10 because of all the cross- border activity. Wellman said 60,000 to 80,000 pounds of marijuana were seized in the park last year and up to 1,000 illegal immigrants pass through each day. Between five and eight law enforcement rangers patrol the 330,000-acre park - "it's about half what we need to handle the situation," Wellman said. Although migrants generally don't harm visitors or rangers they encounter, and smugglers try to avoid any contact, Wellman said some smugglers are becoming "a lot bolder and not as concerned with the public." "The likelihood of a bad incident is going up," he said. At Grand Canyon National Park, the decades-old practice of staffing the foot of the Canyon with rangers 24 hours a day has ended. That leaves 170 campers near the Colorado River without emergency medical or law enforcement assistance at night, even though the park averages nine after-hours emergency calls per week during the summer. At Lake Mead National Recreation Area in both Nevada and Arizona, the park only has enough firefighting personnel to adequately staff one of its six fire engines. In Saguaro National Park, the rangers group called Sandario Road a "heavily used corridor for narcotics and illegal-alien trafficking" - a description park officials don't dispute. In the past five years, authorities have found three murder victims in Saguaro's west unit - all shot execution-style. Two rangers have been assaulted in the past year. "We're becoming more of an urban park with urban law-enforcement problems," Paula Nasiatka, Saguaro National Park's chief ranger, said. Nasiatka said that while the top-10 list exaggerated some of the incidents in Tucson, it was on target in saying the park needs more resources to combat crime. The number of reported crimes at Saguaro National Park rose to 1,013 in 2000 - a 53 percent increase since 1996 - but the number of serious offenses has dropped in the past two years. Nasiatka said much of the increase is due to Tucson's growth. Visitation to the park also increased 60 percent in the 1990s. Officials at both Saguaro and Organ Pipe say problems with illegal immigrants and drug smugglers began to rise in the mid-1990s as the Border Patrol started beefing up enforcement at urban border crossings such as Nogales. Randall Kendrick, the ranger group's executive director, said the study is meant to alert the public that many park rangers have insufficient equipment and manpower to cope with the growing number of visitors, legal and otherwise. "Rangers themselves and the visitors aren't as well protected as visitors think they are, or they deserve to be," said Kendrick, who served as a ranger for 31 years. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
