News 8's Jason Whitely has more.
TRINIDAD, Texas – After almost 15 years, what is believed to be the longest armed standoff in American history quietly came to a peaceful close earlier this week.
Gray was eventually charged with assaulting a public servant, but he refused to return to court, and instead, armed himself at home.
"If they come out after us, bring extra body bags. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword," Gray told ABC News in a 2000 interview.
Since the felony charge in 1999, Gray has never left his 47-acres
along the banks of the
Instead, Gray, his children, grandchildren, and friends patrol their property with pistols and rifles and refuse to let strangers inside.
"We've never shot no one yet,” Gray told National Geographic. “But they know, if they come on us, they'll be surprised what's going to happen to them."
The felony charge of assaulting a peace officer was actually
dismissed in December 2014, when the district attorney left office.
But for some reason, no one notified the Henderson
"Being a peace officer, you do have some emotions — that you would like to see him brought before court and the case tried — but on the other hand, was it worth all that it might have cost to do that?" Henderson County Sheriff Ray Nutt said about the incident.
And while it may be easy to draw comparisons between
the standoff currently underway in Oregon and what happened in
this rural Texas county, the situations are completely different,
according to
"Those folks have occupied a public building. Joe Gray is on 47-acres that he owns out there," the sheriff explained.
The Grays painted their paranoia on signs posted along their
fence. “
Sheriff Nutt said he’s glad the district attorney decided to drop charges.
"Yeah. It takes pressure off people. And it may take pressure off them," the sheriff said. “There's always been the potential for something bad happening.”
Nutt said he didn't go get Gray because deputies could have died.
"It wasn't worth it,” the sheriff said. “Joe Gray has been in prison out there himself, in my opinion, for 14 years."
It was justice served, the sheriff suggested, in a felony case that never went to court. And for the first time this century, Joe Gray is free to leave his home.
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