What Led to the Death of a Border Patrol Agent: Your Texas Roundup

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The game warden asked if I wanted to process it. I said, ‘No, I’ve had enough deer for a lifetime.'”

—Katie Reed, of Conroe, to the Houston Chronicle. When she tried to leave for work on November 2, an eight-point buck ran into her garage and trapped Reed in her car. Then it entered her home, where it remained for hours as first responders tried to coax it out. The buck eventually had to be euthanized due to its injuries.

BIG NEWS

The Rio Grande forms the U.S.-Mexico border while winding through the Santa Elena Pass in the Big Bend region on August 1, 2017 near Lajitas, Texas.John Moore/Getty Images

Border Tragedy
More details have emerged about the death of Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez, who died from injuries he suffered while on patrol near Big Bend on Sunday. The National Border Patrol Council union claims Martinez was ambushed while on patrol near the Van Horn Station, according to the El Paso Times, though investigators declined to comment on those claims. Border Patrol sources told the Associated Press that Martinez was found at the bottom of a fourteen-foot-deep culvert in an area that is known for drug activity, and that investigators believe he may have fallen in the dark. Martinez’s partner, who was seriously wounded in the incident, does not remember what happened, according to both the union and the AP’s sources. A Border Patrol supervisor told the AP that reports the agents were attacked were “speculation.” “I would tell him, ‘Son that job is too dangerous.’ But he would say, ‘Dad, it’s the job I like. I want to defend my country from terrorists . . . I want to prevent terrorists and drugs from coming into the country,’” the agent’s father, Jose Martinez, told the Times. “He loved his job.” Governor Greg Abbott has offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone involved.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS

Political Football
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones lost a battle in his war with other NFL owners and league commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday, when the NFL’s compensation committee denied his request that team owners be allowed a final vote of approval on Goodell’s contract extension, according to the Wall Street Journal. Jones has been angling for a chance to kick Goodell out of his seat, and he’s threatened to take legal action to remove the commissioner if the committee doesn’t vote his way. But the owners that make up the committee are standing strong against Jones in this fight. Over the weekend, Jones sent a letter to Arthur Blank, the Atlanta Falcons owner and chair of the compensation committee, asking if the extension will come to a vote again, and said Blank’s reply didn’t need to be longer than one word—yes or no. Blank said no, and used more words in his reply to clearly state that Jones wasn’t getting a second vote because the committee already voted to approve Goodell’s extension last spring. He added that Jones was ignoring the facts “to satisfy your personal agenda” and urged Jones to end his battle with Goodell, which Blank said in the letter “reflects conduct unbefitting an owner and is damaging to the League.”

Shopping for Texans
The hardest part of putting together our “Made in Texas Gift Guide” wasn’t finding incredible items from Lone Star State makers—it was whittling it down to the one hundred items that we included. For our December 2017 cover package, available on stands this week and available on TexasMonthly.com now, we hand-picked Texas-made gifts for anyone on your list this year. From the picky men in your life to the consummate home entertainers, our eight categories of gift ideas have got you covered. Get something for the kids, something for your spouse, something for your friends, and, hey, maybe even something for yourself. We won’t tell.

Sanctuary Savior
A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to strip funding from sanctuary cities, according to the Washington Post. District Judge William H. Orrick in San Francisco ruled on Monday that the Trump administration’s attempts to force local officials to cooperate with federal efforts to ramp up deportations of undocumented immigrants are unconstitutional, violating the separation of powers doctrine and the Fifth and Tenth Amendments. “The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the President, so the Executive Order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds,” Orrick wrote. “Further, the Tenth Amendment requires that conditions on federal funds be unambiguous and timely made; that they bear some relation to the funds at issue; and that they not be unduly coercive. Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the President disapproves.”