A planned shutdown of border crossings between the United Sates and Mexico by patriotic militia members failed to materialize Saturday morning with only five protestors showing up at one crossing in Pharr, Texas, according to Breitbart News Texas.
Organized by border militia movement leader Rob Chupp, the “Shut Down All Ports” protest was intended to disrupt commerce at the busy crossings to draw attention to the plight of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, jailed by by Mexican authorities on weapons charges.
Chupp, who was one of the five at Pharr, explained that their objective had changed and that they were only there to see how many law enforcement officials they could occupy for the day watching them.
According to the originator of the event, turnout was poor because organizers had called off the event just hours before it was to begin due to threats of "mass blood shed(sic)' from drug cartels.
In a statement issued by the event's organizer Stasyi Barth, she wrote, "Cartel threatening mass blood shed. One of the guys in Texas was followed into a Walmart, on the freeway, then approached at his hotel. At the same time, I got a bunch of requests to join the [Facebook] page from Sonora Mexico. I grabbed as many as I could, but realized it was getting out of control fast and I didn’t want them to see who the attendees were. This is after it was requested that we avoid certain areas, because of the recent border threats, unrelated to us. The cartel has people at every port listed..waiting for us, so I was told."
Barth apologized for the last minute cancellation adding, “Risking anyone’s life is not worth it.”
Breitbart reports that, although the protest appeared to have a large social media following, their reporters at various border crossing failed to see any indication of protestors massing.
