http://www.svherald.com/articles/2006/06/23/local_news/news4.txt
Mackenzie takes stand for emotional testimony against Barnetts
Herald/Review
BISBEE — Donald Mackenzie, the plaintiff in a civil suit against anti-illegal-immigration activist Roger Barnett, took the witness stand in Cochise County Superior Court on Thursday and delivered a testimony punctuated by moments of visible emotion.
Mackenzie, under questioning from his attorney, Jesœs Romo V/jar, testified that he became incensed after learning that the three people he found on his monastery’s ranch with a group of Mexican migrants in late 2003 were not law enforcement officials but Roger Barnett; his wife, Barbara; and brother, Donald.
“For civilians to track down and capture human beings by force is so against everything I and my people believe in,” Mackenzie said. “So I got upset, I got really upset.”
Barbara and Donald are also defendants in the suit.
Mackenzie told a Superior Court jury that on the date in question, the Barnett men wore outfits similar to Border Patrol agents; that the group of approximately 30 migrant men, women and children with the Barnetts looked frightened; and that Roger Barnett briefly ordered some of the women to stop dousing their heads with water as they drank from Mackenzie’s water well.
During a tense cross-examination by the Barnett’s attorneys, however, Mackenzie was asked to reconcile a number of apparent inconsistencies between his testimony Thursday and statements he made in a pre-trial deposition and in his original civil complaint.
At one point, as he was being questioned as to why the migrants were afraid of the Barnett men and not of him — all three individuals, defense attorney Andrew Jacobs noted, were wearing sidearms at the time — Mackenzie said in a raised voice, “It’s what they have done continuously for 10 years!” before pounding his fist on the witness stand.
Judge James Conlogue ordered the remark stricken from the record.
Mackenzie, 65, an official with the Summerland Monastery and the resident in charge of the organization’s WindTree Ranch in
When he later discovered who they were, he says he suffered emotional distress — largely because he had left migrants in the care of people who he considers to be abusive vigilantes.
Roger Barnett, a local businessman and rancher, has made national headlines with his efforts to locate undocumented migrants and turn them over to the U.S. Border Patrol. He says he had affected the arrest of over 12,000 migrants since he began patrolling for them in 1997.
A number of migrants — and some
Mackenzie testified Thursday that he had often seen law enforcement officials on his ranch dressed in either civilian clothing or a combination of outfits. Therefore, when he saw Roger and Donald Barnett in green shirts and caps and wearing utility belts and sidearms, he assumed they were connected with the Border Patrol.
He also said he saw one of the men wearing a cap with a yellow Border Patrol insignia on it, and he was not surprised by Barbara Barnett’s presence because he had previously seen agents in the field with their wives or girlfriends.
“It was my impression from what I saw that day that they were working with some sort of legal authority,” he said.
During cross-examination, Jacobs, who is representing Roger and Barbara Barnett, noted that during a
In addition, he pointed Mackenzie to a portion of the deposition where he said he saw the Barnett men in unlettered caps. Mackenzie said his memory was cloudy at the time of the deposition and remembered seeing the Border Patrol logo later on, after thinking more about the episode.
Jacobs also recalled Mackenzie’s testimony from earlier Thursday in which he said it took him several weeks of investigation to determine that the Barnetts were civilians with no law enforcement role.
The attorney pointed to the original complaint filed in the case in which Mackenzie said he feared the Barnetts during the initial encounter, because he was afraid they would learn that he opposed civilians who detain migrants. Jacobs suggested the statement showed that Mackenzie knew immediately that the Barnetts were civilians.
Mackenzie, an Air Force veteran with combat experience in
“Although I saw no physical abuse, it was clear (the migrants) were being threatened,” he said. “They were all very quiet, apprehensive, frightened and uncertain.”
Both Barbara and Donald Barnett testified Thursday that the migrants were laughing and joking as they drank from Mackenzie’s well.
During Donald Barnett’s testimony, he reiterated statements made by his brother Roger on Wednesday that the men had tracked the migrants because they had broken a water float on the Barnett ranch. But when Donald encountered the group and found they were suffering dehydration, he coordinated with Roger to get them to WindTree ranch’s well.
Donald Barnett, 60, said that as he led the migrants to the well, he never confronted them about the broken float — an item that Romo V/jar and Mackenzie suggested cost less than $10 to replace.
“I didn’t bring up the water float,” he said. “By that time, I had forgotten all about it. I just knew that the people needed water and so it became a mission to get them to water.”
While questioning Barbara Barnett, 64, Romo V/jar asked her about hers and her husband’s dogs. She said the dogs were often present when the couple encountered migrants and acknowledged that she had seen women with children as young as two months among the groups.
And while she said the dogs might bark at people who tried to move, or possibly lick them out of friendship, she said they were not used to forcibly detain migrants.
Thursday’s proceedings began with Romo V/jar continuing his examination of Roger Barnett by fleshing out Barnett’s history with illegal immigrants.
He noted an incident report from the Sheriff’s Office in which Roger Barnett was accused of shooting into the air when a migrant man ran from him, another in which he was alleged to have pointed an AR-15 assault rifle at a group of 27 Mexican citizens and another in which he was accused of using his Australian shepherd dog against migrants.
Barnett said he had not seen the reports, but rejected the allegations.
Romo V/jar also asked him if he recalled saying on the Phil Donahue Show that he “had to take the law into his own hands.”
Barnett said he did not recall the statement, but if he did say something to that effect, “it was said under the context that if the government couldn’t take care of the problem, then citizens would have to.”
Romo V/jar also asked Barnett if he was affiliated with the Minutemen or other civilian border patrol organizations. He said he was not.
During his cross-examination, Jacobs asked Barnett about a news clipping he had sent the attorney with a quote from Jennifer Allen of the Border Action Network, a human rights organization that is assisting Mackenzie in the suit.
As Jacobs began to explain what the Border Action Network was, Judge Conlogue interrupted.
“There is no evidence in this case of any involvement of the Minutemen or any organization at all,” the judge said. “And so it doesn’t need to be brought up.”
But later, during his cross-examination of Mackenzie, Donald Mackenzie’s attorney, Peter Akmajian, was able to bring up the BAN as he questioned the plaintiff about the events that led him to file the suit.
The trial continues today at the Cochise County Superior Courthouse beginning at