Had an interesting time this past week...thought I'd tell you about it. But first, a little bit of a back story here, so this will make sense.
A few counties over from where I live is Kaufman county. Just a little under a year ago, Kaufman made national headlines due to their district attorney...and not for a good deed. Unfortunately, the D.A. and his wife were gunned down in their home in the middle of the night. From early press releases, the type of weapons used seemed to change on a daily basis-but the reoccurring there was that the weapon(s) were "military in nature."
A few miles away in Kaufman, there is a shooting range called North East Texas Tactical. It is owned by one Adam Morgan, former Army Ranger turned civilian contractor to the Department of State via Triple Canopy I believe. Mike started this rifle range with the money he'd made overseas as a contractor, and it was a labor of love. I believe his range reaches out to 1500 meters.
Things didn't go too well for Adam. in the beginning. Apparently, there are some residential areas in the vicinity (not downrange) that gave him a lot of hassle via the HOA from the very beginning. It was, and from what I understand still is, a rocky road for Adam.
Adam and the former ill-fated district attorney crossed tracks one morning several weeks before the DA was killed, on the grounds of the range Adam had built-the meeting, as later described by eye witnesses, did not go well. Apparently, although on who's behalf will never be known-the DA had com out to the range to try and strong arm Adam. Witnesses state that the DA told Adam that he was going to see to it that Adam went to jail over his range, and even called the local Sheriff, ordering him to come and arrest Adam. ( the Sheriff refused, as he had no legal grounds to do so.) Being out of wind for his sails, the DA reluctantly left the range, but vowed that he would see Adam do jail time.
Now, this being Texas, there is far more to this whole story than what I typed...The Kaufman county assistant DA had been gunned down in broad daylight just 3 months before as he walked from his car to the courthouse, and the prime suspects were members of the Aryan Brotherhood-both the DA and the assistant DA had been involved in an investigation into the Aryan Brotherhood at the time of their deaths. There was, however, a large group of people-both law enforcement as well as civilian and media-who had their sights on Morgan. After all- An obvious hit-type murder, raid style in the middle of the night with military type hardware, kicked in door, etc...and the former Army Ranger, who had been in a very public altercation with the victim just weeks prior...it made for a good case of suspicion.
In the end, the guilty party was neither Adam nor the Aryan Brotherhood. As it turned out, both the DA and the Assistant DA had been killed by another former county official,a former justice of the peace in the county. Apparently, the DA and the assistant DA had investigated, filed charges, prosecuted and won a case against the former JP for stealing computer components from the county IT department.
I know this all sounds like a "too hot for TV" episode of Walker, Texas Ranger-but it really happened...look it up. ( here in Texas, we really do go big or go home.)
Anyhow, needless to say, Adam Morgan was off the hook. As far as I know, he's still running his range and battling the local HOA....I wish him the very best.
So we get to the present-or at least, the not-so-distant past...being last Monday. I find myself with another fellow graduate of the Army sniper school standing in a pasture in Kaufman county, Texas. We are there to speak to the owner of one local private gun range/club about the possibility of using his facilities to host some long range rifle courses. From the very beginning, we are not too pleased with the"facilities". The "range" turns out to be a cow pasture that has some very scrawny berms scratched out at 100 yard increments out to 700 yards. The "firing line" turns out to be a fold up table with a rickety fold up metal chair-both of which have been sitting out in the elements for far too long. The "classroom" turns out to be the nicest of the accouterments. It is a fairly new wooden Building-one of those that you buy in a kit and it comes on a truck in pieces that you must assemble, like a grown up version of a lincoln log house. It has good insulation, and good AC and heat. Unfortunately, it is surrounded on three sides by several years worth of hoarded junk. Old cars, chicken coups, piles of lumber, trash, you name it-the place looks like something from Sanford and Son. It is when I start to really look around that I notice some things.
There are empty propane bottles everywhere. I'm talking close to a hundred or so. There are also all kinds of empty medicine bottles and packaging all over the place-and most of them are some sort of antihistamine or cold remedy packages. I kind of elbow my buddy on the DL when this guy is looking elsewhere, and give him the "look over there" thing with my eyes. His look tells me he's seen it already. We are now both fully aware that-unless this guy has a terrible immune system and loves to barbecue,then we are standing in very close proximity to a meth lab.
Subjects are now being steered towards reaching an end to this meeting, but the guy doesn't get it. He brings up the subject of Adam Morgan and all of the interference he's run into at his place, and asks us if we are affiliated with Adam. We tell him no, and he seems a bit relieved.He tells us that he wants nothing to do with Adam-that Adam isn't a bad guy, it's just that he's had his run ins with the previously mentioned DA's office, and he doesn't want to get close to anything even remotely associated with that situation-that he'd prefer to "stay off of the DA's radar." He tells us that any courses we'd like to run on his property need to be on the "down low."
My friend that was with me has been-among other things- a Dallas cop, an ATF agent, and involved in some military units that work directly with federal law enforcement agencies in some capacity that I don't really understand. He is also not too pleased about having driven all the way out here to have his time wasted, and so you can only imagine what goes through my head when he just blurts out- "yeah, that probably wouldn't jive too well with your methamphetamine thing you've got going on here."
Things could have gone several different ways from here, ranging from bad to absolutely tragic. Fortunately, they welt as well as possible. The guy immediately tells us to leave...no further questioning or explanation, just tells us to get off of the property, and turns and walks away towards his house. We didn't really want to see what would happen if he got to it and we were still there, so we got in the truck and split ASAP.
Obviously, I had a few "questions" for my buddy as soon as we cleared the gate. (what the hell was that?, What were you thinking? etc.) I'll just keep his responses to myself, but ultimately I convinced him to call it in to the locals. He didn't want to at first, saying that he'd seen this a million times, and that no one was going to do anything about it. None the less,when we get home we looked up the Kaufman county Sheriff and called in what we had seen. The outcome was pretty much exactly what my buddy had expected. They took a statement with the enthusiasm suggestive that it might or might not be used a toilet paper at some later date.
But my buddy was not really done with it yet, and did a bit of research. From what I understand of it, the JP that killed the DA had a large arsenal confiscated by the Texas Rangers. From what I understand, it was a shipping container full of arsenal...and it was found in Kaufman county, in the possession and on the property of one un-named individual...also found was a small methamphetamine lab. The interesting thing is, public records searches do not locate any records of the state vs any individual in Kaufman county at the time,either for possession of weapons nor the manufacture of narcotics....hmmmm.
It's the Texas twilight zone, my friends.
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