A Texas family is mourning the sudden loss of a husband and father who, according to state officials, accidentally shot and killed himself during a weekend hunting trip. 

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) game wardens responded just after midnight Saturday to a hunting accident in northeast Texas that claimed the life of Jose Ramirez, 45, of Grapevine, the agency said.

Ramirez, a father of three, was identified in a GoFundMe campaign created by one of his daughters. 

“My father, Jose Ramirez, passed away unexpectedly, and our family is heartbroken. My dad meant the world to me,” the GoFundMe reads.

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Ramirez was removing his firearm from a vehicle when it discharged, local outlet KLTV reported, citing TPWD. Life-saving measures were unsuccessful.

His daughter described him as “the pillar of our home, the provider for our family, and the one who always made sure we were taken care of.” She added that the “light of his life” was his infant granddaughter.

“He taught me the most important lessons in life — to never give up, to work hard for what you want, and to always do what makes you happy, no matter how small it may seem,” she wrote of her father. “He believed that true success comes from loving what you do and living with a happy heart.”

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Ramirez grew up in Grapevine and was active in the community, working at many restaurants in the Dallas suburb over the years, according to the Facebook page “Grapevine Edit.”

“Most recently, he worked at Son of a Butcher, Silver Lake Marina’s Rockin’ S Express Bar & Grill, and spent over a decade at Kirby’s Steakhouse,” the page wrote in a post honoring Ramirez’s life. “His family wants the community to know of his passing because they know how many coworkers, customers, and locals cared about him and would want to know.”

The TPWD said game wardens are trained to investigate hunting-related incidents, but “always wish a tragedy like this could have been avoided.”

The agency encouraged all hunters to “take safety seriously” and added a few reminders for handling firearms in a Facebook post.

“Always handle all firearms as if they are loaded, keep muzzles pointed in a safe direction and take time to unload your firearm before placing or removing it from a vehicle,” the agency wrote before extending condolences to Ramirez’s loved ones.

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Texas’ general rifle season for white-tail deer began on Nov. 1 and ends on different dates in January depending on the location.

Authorities throughout the country are warning shoppers to remain vigilant ahead of their holiday errands as thieves are turning to a popular crime trend to make off with quick cash. 

The trend – nicknamed “jugging” – involves criminals following victims from ATMs, banks or stores in an effort to steal their cash or new purchases, according to the FBI. Law enforcement officers typically see a rise in incidents around the holiday season, with shoppers often walking around with large sums of cash or high-cost gifts. 

“Jugging is just, in my opinion, a slang term for crimes of opportunity,” retired NYPD officer Bill Stanton told Fox News Digital. “Think of predators, where there are crocodiles or water creatures that hang out by the watering hole, right? And in this case, it’s an ATM or an ATM-type machine.” 

Numerous instances of individuals falling victim to the trend have made national headlines, with the most recent incident striking a Texas man earlier this month.

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On Nov. 10, a 70-year-old man was robbed at gunpoint as he was visiting an ATM in a Walmart parking lot in Houston, according to FOX26. 

Police said the suspect forced the victim to withdraw cash from the machine, then shot the man after he handed over the money. The unnamed man was transported to a local hospital, where he remains in critical condition. 

A similar incident unfolded on April 29, when police say a Houston man was followed from a Wells Fargo Bank ATM to a car wash, where an unidentified male suspect brandished a firearm in an attempt to rob the victim, according to the Houston Police Department. The suspect then fled the area on foot, before entering a white SUV and driving off, police said. 

One day earlier, a man was followed from a Chase Bank in Houston, where surveillance video captured two suspects pulling up next to his vehicle on each side while the man entered a gas station convenience store, according to police. Video then captured the two suspects – who are believed to be the same individuals involved in the robbery on the following day – breaking both front windows of the victim’s vehicle before removing a cash envelope from the center console. 

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Earlier this year, a Houston man was sentenced to 120 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to the “jugging” robbery of an ATM technician, according to the Department of Justice.

According to prosecutors, 33-year-old Johnny Juwan Clark was out on supervised release for a separate robbery incident when he, along with three others, forced an ATM technician to the ground and forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from the machine in Midlothian, Texas.  

The group was working within a Houston-based criminal organization called the “Hiram Clarke Money Team” when Clark admitted following the technician to multiple stops, before approaching the victim from behind and forcing him to the ground in front of a Chase Bank ATM, according to the DOJ. 

Clark kept his fist to the back of the technician’s head as two alleged accomplices stole approximately $248,000 in cash from the machine, prosecutors said. The group then allegedly fled the scene and met at a nearby apartment complex, where the stolen money was loaded into the back of a Range Rover and driven back to Houston.

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Once the cash was transported, Clark and another codefendant used a portion of the money to purchase an S-Class Mercedes-Benz and jewelry, according to prosecutors. 

Clark’s attorney and the Houston Police Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

“It’s more of a want issue,” Stanton said. “And if the economy isn’t going in their favor, it’s more of a motivating factor – that, and the holidays.” 

According to Stanton, criminals often seek out victims that look as though they are not paying attention to their surroundings when in a public place.

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“If you give the impression that you are prey, that you are lunch or dinner by way of giving up your money, it’s only a matter of time,” Stanton told Fox News Digital. “It’s not a matter of if, but when. Just because it’s never happened before, doesn’t mean that you’re untouchable – it means that you’re lucky.” 

Stanton urges shoppers to take precautionary measures to protect themselves, especially during the holiday season. 

He, along with the FBI, suggest shoppers should look around for anyone who may appear suspicious before approaching an ATM or exiting their vehicle in a parking lot.

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Additionally, the FBI urges individuals to vary their banking habits and stay away from a traceable routine, while also concealing their cash when leaving an ATM or store. 

“Don’t make it easy for them,” Stanton said. “Take the money, put it deep in your pocket and go right to the car. Don’t be fanning the money, counting it out while you’re on the phone.” 

Stanton also implores shoppers who may find themselves in a dangerous situation to simply hand over the money if they are approached by a criminal. 

“If you’re in the middle of it, give it up,” he said. “Whether the money is from the ATM, that can be replaced – not your life. Toss the money and run the other way if you’re able to.”

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As Americans are taking to the stores to get a jump start on their holiday shopping, Stanton urges buyers to keep personal safety at the forefront of their minds as they buy their gifts for the season. 

“While you’re doing your holiday shopping, so are the bad guys,” Stanton said. “While you’re looking for that deal or to buy that expensive item, they’re watching you and are like, ‘Oh, I like that person’s taste. That’s what their gift is, and it’s going to be my possession.’ You know, put that in your mind, and it makes you a little bit more aware.”

A federal judge in Texas responded to the court’s decision to scrap the state’s redrawn map with a jaw-dropping dissent on Wednesday in which he lobbed dozens of insults at his colleague and repeatedly invoked Democratic mega-donor George Soros.

“This is the most blatant exercise of judicial activism that I have ever witnessed,” Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan-appointee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, wrote of the 2-1 decision to toss out the map.

In the turbulent 104-page tirade, he named the majority opinion’s author, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, hundreds of times, accusing him of “pernicious judicial misbehavior.”

The majority opinion would be a “prime candidate” for a “Nobel Prize for Fiction,” Smith said.

“The main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom,” Smith said. “The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law.”

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Smith, a Yale Law School graduate, wrote that “if this were a law school exam, the opinion would deserve an ‘F.’”

Smith’s dissent came as part of a three-judge panel’s decision in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to temporarily block the state from using its map in the 2026 midterms. The map had created five new Republican-leaning districts, which the majority said was a product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has already turned to the Supreme Court for relief.

Just as striking as the dissent itself, which Smith conceded was “disjointed,” was that the two judges in the majority did not wait for it, issuing their decision on Tuesday and leaving Smith’s dissent to land on the docket a day later.

“Any pretense of judicial restraint, good faith, or trust by these two judges is gone,” Smith wrote. “If these judges were so sure of their result, they would not have been so unfairly eager to issue the opinion sans my dissent, or they could have waited for the dissent in order to join issue with it. What indeed are they afraid of?”

Brown was joined in the 2-1 opinion by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama, an Obama appointee.

Smith’s broadside focused on Brown, saying that, “true to form,” he preferred to “live in a fantasyland” and had engaged in “judicial tinkering.”

The Supreme Court is now under pressure to act quickly on what has become a pivotal election issue that could shape the outcome of next year’s midterms. Texas requires candidates to declare their candidacy by Dec. 8.

The high court is already considering a similar Voting Rights Act case that originated in Louisiana. The justices heard oral arguments in the case last month and are expected to address the race provision of the law, which is relevant in the Texas case, on a normal timeline during this term.

Brown’s majority opinion in Texas had opened with a quote from Chief Justice John Roberts, who said in an unrelated case, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

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“Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” Brown wrote.

Brown said Department of Justice Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon’s warning to Texas this year to address four districts with non-White majorities because they were “coalition” districts was a race-based directive as evidenced by Dhillon ignoring all other Democrat-leaning districts that had White majorities. Abbott had responded to Dhillon by adding redistricting to the legislative agenda in a rush, leading to a stunning protest involving Democratic state lawmakers fleeing the state earlier this year.

“The Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race,” Brown found.