The dangerous combination of squatting, illegal logging, and illegal farming came to a head at Maya Ranch Farm in San Antonio village on Friday where shots were fired in a testy dispute between the landowner, the farmers and squatters with Forest officers in the middle.
Today Jaleeza Roberts went to the massive 2,555 acre spread to see where the illegal activities are occurring and what's driving the dispute:
Julian Sherrard has lived to tell the tale of illegal activity on a property he manages. The dangerous encounter unfolded at Maya Ranch in San Ignacio on Friday.
Sherrard had gone to the ranch to address ongoing illegal activities - namely squatting, logging and farming which he had previously reported to authorities.
He said that shortly after police left, a man he recognized pulled up on a tractor in an intimidating manner.
According to Sherrard, he repeatedly ordered the man off the tractor, asserting that the land was private property. The man allegedly refused and attempted to run Sherrard over. Fearing for his life, Sherrard drew his licensed 9mm pistol and fired three shots at the tractor before holstering his weapon.
At the ranch today, Sherrard said that this incident simply brings light to a greater issue.
Julian Sherrard, Property Manager
"As you know, logging, whether it's on private property or on other lands, must be done with a permit from forestry. So even if it's your own land, you cannot just be chopping down trees and milling. You must get a permit from forestry. Whilst the forestry team was out there confiscating, loading up the trailer, we had drones flying over. And we had also gotten a report of a tractor having gone into the property that very morning, towing a trailer. and it supposedly is somebody who has possibly been involved in illegal logging, we're not sure, but certainly we were following up on that report. When I mentioned it to Forestry, they drove in quite a ways looking for it. They could hear a chainsaw in the distance operating, and so they were following the sound of the chainsaw. Unfortunately, they never did find the whatever was operating, whoever was operating the chainsaw, they never came across anything."
"The police were there and I asked them to hold because we had a grader coming in to close off the roads. We have one legal access to Maya Ranch and that we have left open because the farmers who have been illegally farming on this property, we've given them time to be able to harvest their crops.But all other entrances we've been intending to close anyway. And it just so happened that that day we had heavy equipment coming in to close the road there. I asked the police if they could wait a while for the grader to operate and then leave the property. They did so.And then as the grader was leaving the property, I sent aloft a drone with a dying battery one more time just to see if we could find anything. And we saw that the tractor was coming out of the property. But we couldn't get in close with the drone. There was literally just the last few minutes of flight that the drone had in it. Unfortunately, the police didn't choose to stay. I asked them to stay and they said that they had to go. They were well overdue for the shift change. I explained to them that the tractor was on its way and they decided that they had to leave."
Three Forest officers were with Sherard and they confiscated a saw mill on the property. Deputy Chief Forest Officer, John Pinelo explained that many times his officers are put in these high risk situations:
Reporter
"When your officers need to go, is there now a safety factor that you need to consider?"
John Pinelo, Deputy Chief Forest Officer
"There is always a safety factor for us to consider. The first thing what we do is we usually take police officers with us. And actually police officers were out there with our guys. Unfortunately, they left right before the tractor arrived. I don't know the reason why they left, but they were there up until when the tractor started coming and then they left. We do appreciate the support of the police. We try very much to get their help whenever we go to these situations because it can escalate us with this situation to a problem where you might get somebody being hurt. But that cannot stop us from doing our job. We need to get the work done. People need to realize that not because as the gentleman there and as Stan said, he has been logging in there for 12 years, but not because you've been doing it for 12 years illegally means it becomes legal. And so we will be out there doing our work. Yes, we do make sure that we try and not put ourselves in too much risk."
The individual who pulled the gun on Sherrard and the officers is still pending potential charges. Jaleeza Roberts, 7 News.
We will have a deeper look at this story tomorrow night.
