Two Hostages in Texas Standoff Released

After negotiating the release of two hostages held by a self-styled separatist group Monday, law enforcement authorities stepped up pressure outside the armed extremists’ compound here, issuing arrest warrants, evacuating neighbors and calling in a SWAT team.

As night settled on the remote mountain retreat, officials still were trying to negotiate an end to their standoff with the so-called Republic of Texas, a fringe of the militia movement that purports to be the rightful government of the Lone Star State. Although wary of triggering a bloody clash that could make martyrs of its members, police seemed eager to quickly resolve the conflict. FBI agents have joined state and local authorities at the site.

“Hopefully, we won’t be here too long,” said Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Mike Cox.

Earlier in the day a prisoner exchange had helped to ease some of the tension. Twelve hours after three Republic of Texas militants stormed their home with blazing guns on Sunday, Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe were released by their captors and taken to the Big Bend Regional Medical Center in nearby Alpine. Speaking to reporters while her husband was being treated for a shrapnel wound to his shoulder, Margaret Ann Rowe said she believed their assailants were willing to kill them.

“It wasn’t an empty threat,” she said. “If somebody will come shooting in your door, they mean it.”

“We’ve been telling people . . . this was going to happen,” said neighbor Michelle Behrendt, one of an estimated 120 people living in the area. Authorities, she said, “sat on their hands and did nothing.”

Her husband, Ben, a retired public-aid worker from Illinois, said he and his wife have been so concerned about the militants that they posted guns and rifles of their own at every door and window, taking round-the-clock shifts lest they fall victim like the Rowes.

“We’re not going to get caught by surprise like Joe and M.A. did,” he said. “We have the ability to repel an attack. We’re prepared to try.”

The Rowes were released in exchange for Robert Scheidt, a Republic of Texas member who had been arrested by local authorities Sunday morning after they found an AK-47 and other arms in his car. His arrest triggered the ensuing violence, which was apparently meant as retaliation against the Rowes, whom Republic leaders accused of tipping police to the guns.

Law enforcement officials defended the release of Scheidt, saying their top priority was the protection of innocent lives. But neighbors here in the Davis Mountains, a rugged corner of West Texas about 220 miles southeast of El Paso, said police should have made a preemptive strike against the anti-government group months ago.

At the center of all the consternation is a thin, frizzy-haired, 43-year-old ex-winemaker named Richard L. McLaren, who considers himself the Republic of Texas’ “ambassador” and who calls the Fort Davis compound his “embassy.” A militia sympathizer who advocates the use of “common-law” courts, McLaren contends that Texas was illegally annexed by the United States in 1845 and that it should revert to its former status as an independent republic.

To make his point, he has engaged in what Texas Atty. Gen. Dan Morales calls “paper terrorism,” filing a blizzard of bogus liens, passing off tens of thousands of dollars in worthless checks and insisting that the federal government pay his group some $93 trillion in “war reparations.” Chief among his demands for ending the siege is a statewide referendum to recognize Texas as a sovereign nation.

Last December, he was charged with contempt of court after failing to appear on allegations that he violated a federal judge’s order against filing more liens. Comparing his situation to fatal clashes near Waco, Texas, and at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, McLaren vowed to battle to the death all those who would seek his arrest.

“Those boys are asking for a total military assault,” he told the Associated Press last month. “Our defense forces will fire because we would consider it an invasion.”