How far are these parts from Fort Stewart, Ga? Was my last duty station
but never went around the area since most of my time while there was
spent in Iraq. I figure non federalized NG troops can stage and deploy
for peacekeeping operations in Georgia from that point. Can't use fed
troops in this case due to The Posse Comitatus Act.

==================================================================


"We're afraid to sleep at night because they might return," she said.
"We want justice done. ... We don't want them to think nothing will
happen so they return and commit more crimes."


Five killed, six injured in south Georgia attacks


Saturday, October 1, 2005 8:17 PM CDT



TIFTON, Ga. (AP) - Five men were killed and at least six other people
were wounded in what appeared to be a string of robberies targeting
Hispanic immigrants at trailer parks in and around the city early
Friday, authorities said.

Some of the victims were beaten with an aluminum baseball bat found at
one of the crime scenes, and at least one of the victims was shot,
Colquitt County Sheriff Al Whittington said.

Police were looking for two black men in the attacks, but Whittington
stressed the attacks appeared to be robberies, not hate crimes.

All the dead were immigrants from Mexico, and all but one belonged to
the same family, said Francisco Dominguez, who says his uncle and a
cousin were killed in their trailer on the outskirts of town.


"He came here to work and here is where he died," Dominguez said of his
uncle, who immigrated from Mexico a year ago. "He should have gone out
to build chicken houses this morning."

The attacks took place in southern Georgia, about 180 miles south of
Atlanta. Three of the attacks were in Tift County - two within Tifton
city limits - and one in neighboring Colquitt County.

"We think they're tied together," said Colquitt County Sheriff's Capt.
Hal Suber.

Among the injured, at least two were in critical condition, said Mike
Lewis, a GBI agent.

In the Colquitt County attack, a man was shot in the head and beaten
with a baseball bat, and his wife was hit in the mouth, Suber said. The
man was in stable condition at a hospital in Thomasville. The woman has
been released, Whittington said.

Whittington added the attacks might be linked to other robberies of
immigrants in the past two weeks, including some in neighboring Cook
County to the east.

Immigrants "carry large sums of cash and that makes them an easy prey,"
Whittington said. "I don't think it has anything to do with race or
hate."

Hispanics in the area fear otherwise, said the Rev. Alfonso Gutierrez
of Our Divine Saviour Church, the only Catholic church in Tifton.

"There is a lot of fear because people wonder up to what point it could
be a race question," Gutierrez said. "It's a vulnerable community."

Many immigrants are undocumented and therefore can't open bank
accounts, which means they tend to carry a lot of cash or keep it in
their homes. They are also afraid to call the police when threatened -
even in these killings, those who found the bodies hesitated to call
911, Gutierrez said.

Tift and Colquitt counties are home to at least 14,000 immigrants from
Mexico and Central America who work on cotton and peanut farms, said
Luz Marti, a volunteer with Gutierrez' church. Census data indicates
that Hispanics make up at least 11 percent of Colquitt County's
population and at least 8 percent of Tift County's residents.

"They're panicking," Marti said, adding that lack of Spanish-language
media beyond a small, bi-weekly two-page supplement to the Tifton
Gazette makes the community especially jittery.

At Town & Country Mobile Homes in Tifton, two bodies were found by a
14-year-old boy - one behind a trash can and the other out in the open.
The boy, who lives in a trailer next door, first saw the bodies from
his living room window then ventured outside to get a closer look.

Neighbors said they didn't hear any gunshots or noticed a struggle
during the night.

"All I heard last night was the dog barking too much," said Margarito
Castillo of his dog. "We're used to having the dog bark because there
is always strangers walking up and down the street. So we didn't pay
much attention to that."

One woman who lives in the mobile park was so terrified that she
refused to give her name. Sitting in a plastic chair holding her
six-month-old son, the woman said the community isn't secure, pointing
out a missing front door knob on one home.

She just hopes that the suspects are found before anyone else is
harmed.

"We're afraid to sleep at night because they might return," she said.
"We want justice done. ... We don't want them to think nothing will
happen so they return and commit more crimes."