TSCRA: 30 TX/OK LEO's arresting cattle thieves, cattle scammers.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

The TSCRA is the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. Its enforcement arm consists of 30 "rangers" who have jurisdiction in all of Texas and Oklahoma. Their primary mission is to arrest cattle thieves, as well as criminals who steal horses, tack, trailers, etc. Although some of their arrests are due to the direct thievery of cattle from ranches, they also prosecute those who commit fraud by claiming to own "x" amount of cattle, and using these non-existent head to scam banks out of loan money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Sol_Estes
The above link is the story of the notorious Texas scammer Billy Sol Estes, who also got loans by claiming assets that did not exist. His "assets" were not cattle, but I threw him into this thread due to the similarity with today's cattle collateral scammers. His scamming was in Texas, but he made nationwide news for his misdeeds, circa early 1960's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_and ... ssociation
The above link is a short piece on TSCRA's history. This link says "29" rangers. It's now up to 30.

http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2016 ... 1557604672
The above link is from the Dallas Morning Snooze, 4/15/16. It provides text and graphics about the TSCRA.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2 ... ll-rancher
The above link from the DMN, 6/17/15, details how a Stephenville man stole $200,00 of livestock (cattle plus horses) from a dying Odessa man. What a charmer.

The DMN dated 5/12/19 contains the original story with which I wanted to start this thread, but I could not access it from the DMN website. Maybe it won't be on the "dallasnews.com" website until 5/12/19. That article is entitled "Ridin' herd on a costly breed of villain" and features TSCRA ranger John Bradshaw of Decatur, Wise County, Texas (the county just west of Denton County in North Texas). John carries a nice 1911 with white (ivory? plastic?) grips carrying his last name's "B" on them, as well as either a state of Texas seal, or the TSCRA logo. The hardcopy DMN photo was not clear enough to determine which one. It is a .45 and appears to be a commander model in a tooled leather holster, also with letter "B" on it.

John Bradshaw is from Decatur, TX. A resident of this town will call himself "an eighter from Decatur."
The town's symbol is represented by a picture of 2 dice, each with 4 dots showing. It's not necessarily the town's official seal, but it can be seen on signs sometimes.

IIRC from an earlier (years ago) piece that I read, the TSCRA arrested a Pilot Point, TX (maybe Gainesville, TX) man about 21 years old, for cattle rustling. He had a brand new pickup truck and used to have breakfast every morning at the same place. Come to find out, he was leading a comfortable financial existence because he was stealing cattle at night, and reselling them.

So, there you have it. I'm not sure that many Texas urbanites are aware that the TSCRA exists, and that they stay busy policing the cattle rustling beat.

Over and out.

SIA

[KLB]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Sol_Estes
The above link is the story of the notorious Texas scammer Billy Sol Estes, who also got loans by claiming assets that did not exist. His "assets" were not cattle, but I threw him into this thread due to the similarity with today's cattle collateral scammers. His scamming was in Texas, but he made nationwide news for his misdeeds, circa early 1960s.

And he was the subject of a satirical song by the Chad Mitchell Trio called "The Ides of Texas."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Wt7FEy9To

Then there was "The Ballad of Billie Sol Estes."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3zAyEpSq790

[surprise_i'm_armed]

KLB: Well those 2 songs were quite entertaining about ol' Billy Sol. I had never heard them before.

A fictional song, but could be based on real bad guys, is the song "Dallas After Midnight" by Ray Wylie Hubbard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRMOVSOUGGM

The bad guys rob a liquor store, get caught south of San Angelo, and arrested.
Judge: Why'd you rob a liquor store?
Singer: It's hard to be white trash and poor.

I welcome comments on the original subject of this thread, or if someone has more Texas criminal songs, let's do it.

SIA

[joe817]

They have a great website that reports on thefts surrounding their mission:

http://tscra.org/

My family were members for many years when we were in the cattle and horse business. They came out to the house several time to investigate killings of our livestock by hunters who did not have permission to hunt on our property, and just plain old drive by shootings. They do an outstanding job and are highly respected in the farm and ranching community.