Texas hunters weren’t shot by ‘illegal aliens’

Authorities say men fired at each other then lied about it

Hunting guides Walker Daugherty and Michael Bryant were leading a hunting party in southern Texas in early January, when they claimed immigrants illegally crossed the nearby Mexico border, converged on their camp in the middle of the night and tried to rob them.

Gunfire erupted. When the smoke cleared and the fight was over, Daugherty was bleeding from a shot to his abdomen. Another member of the party had been shot in the arm.

After being airlifted to the hospital, the men told authorities that immigrants who crossed the border from Mexico wanted to steal an RV some of the hunters were using. In statements made through friends and family, they went further, suggesting that the assailants wanted to kill everyone in the party, as the Albuquerque Journal reported.

A GoFundMe page set up by a family friend to cover Daugherty’s medical bills raised $26,300 from more than 200 donors.

The story was harrowing, to be sure, not to mention rife with political implications. The Texas Agriculture Commissioner even shared it on his Facebook page, saying it underscored the need for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall.

But authorities say it was all a lie.

Daugherty and Bryant were indicted last week on one count each of using deadly conduct by discharging firearms in the direction of others, according to CBS 7. Presidio County Sheriff Danny Dominguez told the station that an investigation had found Daugherty and the other injured hunter were struck by friendly fire. There was no sign, he said, that anyone else was involved.

It wasn’t clear whether Daugherty or Bryant had retained attorneys or entered pleas.

Daugherty, Bryant and a group of their clients had been hunting at the Circle Dug Ranch, a 15,000-acre tract of valley land just a few miles from the Mexico border in Texas. On the night of Jan. 6, a deputy in the sheriff ’s office responded to a call for a shooting, and when he arrived he found Daugherty and 59-year-old Edwin Roberts suffering from gunshot wounds.

Authorities were suspicious from the beginning. Prompted by the group’s claims that illegal immigrants were responsible, The U.S. Border Patrol dispatched 30 agents to sweep the area, aided by expert trackers and thermal imaging technology, Big Bend Now reported.

Within days of the shooting, however, the sheriff ‘s office said there was “no evidence that suggests cross-border violence” and “no sign of human pedestrian traffic leading to or from the ranch that night.”

By then, however, the rumors had already spread. A rancher and family friend in Arizona released a statement based on the Daugherty family’s account, describing the incident as a brutal, calculated attack by “illegal aliens.”

Sid Miller, the Texas Agriculture commissioner, shared the story with his 400,000-plus followers on Facebook.

“This is why we need the wall and to secure our borders,” Miller wrote in a since-deleted post that was shared more than 6,500 times. “There are violent criminals and members of drug cartels coming in and it must put a stop to it [sic] before we have many more Walker Daughertys.”

What really happened, Sheriff Dominguez said, was much simpler and less nefarious: Daugherty shot his client, and Bryant shot Daugherty.