In the spring of 1929, civil war was raging across Mexico with fighting in the central-west of the country between government forces of Emilio Portes Gil and the Cristero revolutionaries and fighting in the north between the federal government and the rebel forces of General José Gonzalo Escobar. Following the rebel defeat in the Battle of Jiménez on April 3, Escobar was in retreat and his men were deserting in large numbers. No longer having a war to fight, many of these deserters turned to banditry, and like in the decades before, saw the ranches on the American side of the international border as easy targets.