Posted on 10/16/2007 5:42:01 AM PDT by texanyankee
ROCKSPRINGS — When he left home late last year for a jail cell, Gilmer Hernandez was a little known rural Texas deputy charged with shooting into a carload of undocumented immigrants during a late night stop.
By the time he returned Monday, after 10 months behind bars for violating the civil rights of a woman injured in the shooting, Hernandez had become a national poster boy for conservatives in the bitter ongoing national debate over immigration.
To many, it was proof that undocumented immigrants have more rights than U.S. lawmen.
Columnists such as Ann Coulter and Phyllis Schlafly cited his case, as did primetime television pontificators like Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity.
Focusing on the U.S. attorney who sent Hernandez to jail, protest groups vilified Johnny Sutton as "Johnny Satan" and "public enemy No. 1."
But Monday afternoon, all such raucous partisan discourse was very distant when Hernandez walked into his living room, his wife, Ashley, on his arm, for the first time in almost a year.
"I'm home," he said, giving his father-in-law, Jose Arredondo, a long, muscular hug. He then gingerly held his year-old daughter, Alektra, who predictably squawked in protest.
"I'm still the same guy. I'm not going to let this bring me down," he said. "I'd like to thank everybody who wrote me letters and supported my family. It meant a lot to me. It meant I wasn't alone."
A little bit later, downtown Rocksprings became a Gilmer Hernandez welcome home carnival as the entire student body at the school complex, plus dozens of local residents, turned out to greet him.
More than 350 people crowded around the front of the school, blocking traffic, waiting to pay their respects to a local guy who had once taught as a substitute teacher there.
"Like the signs say, Gilmer is free and a favorite son has come home," said Tooter Smith, a photographer for the local Mohair Weekly.
One of the first to meet him outside the school was his old boss, Edwards County Sheriff Don Letsinger, who had suffered along with Hernandez during the federal investigation and trial.
"I told him I loved him and I'm proud of him," the sheriff said. "He stood up for what he believed in."
Hernandez, 26, who cannot serve in law enforcement again because of the conviction, said he had no second thoughts about how he reacted on April 14, 2005, in the incident that changed his life.
"It happened in a split second. I was in fear of my life. I did what I was trained to do," he said.
It all began with a late-night traffic stop after Hernandez spotted a dark Chevrolet Suburban running a downtown stop sign in his hometown. Unpretentious and peaceful by day, Rocksprings falls on a main smuggling route from the border, and after dark, unpredictable strangers often pass through town.
The car Hernandez stopped was full of people, and when he attempted to speak to the driver, he said, the vehicle abruptly pulled away, trying to run him over.
Hernandez shot between four and six times at the fleeing vehicle, blowing out a tire but hitting the back of the Suburban several times and slightly wounding a female passenger.
When the vehicle stopped a short way up the road, all the occupants but the woman fled. Two of the immigrants would later sue the county over the shooting and be awarded $100,000 each.
Hernandez, however, was charged with violating the wounded woman's civil rights. He was convicted, despite his claims of acting in self-defense.
"I had been offered six months' probation but I wouldn't take the plea bargain. They wanted me to change my report about what happened," he said. "The conviction felt unreal. I couldn't believe the verdict."
But, as Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Baumann said last year, "The law says you cannot use deadly force to stop a car unless it poses an imminent threat to the officer or another person. If the car is going away from you, it's not even a close call."
At that point, Hernandez's case swiftly ascended to national prominence.
Quickly, he, along with Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, both U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting an unarmed Mexican drug smuggler, became cause celebres in the national immigration debate.
Hernandez, who could have been sentenced to nine years, instead got a year with time off for good behavior. He tracked the immigration debate as best he could from his cells in Texas, Oklahoma and West Virginia.
"I felt like I was being used by all the politicians as an example. And they were right to use me," he said.
And even though his future apparently lies with the phone company, which has offered him a job, Hernandez and his wife both say they will continue to speak out on the issue.
"They might have taken his career away, his dream away, but we're still going forward," Ashley Hernandez said.
"It was a terrible thing, but it was also a great thing for the community," the sheriff said as he stood outside the crowded school. "Everyone came together. Look at these kids. They know what is going on."
ping!
ping!
Cant blame the guy if he doesnt want to ever be one, however, the pressure should still be applied on the authorities - Dubya especially - to offer a pardon & wipe Hernandez record clean.
The only thing Dubya is wiping is his butt with a map of the U.S. - Mexican border.
If terrorists sneak through and cause another 9/11, the prez should be held accountable, along with all of the other open borders types.
The people he was firing on were not just criminals - they were illegal invaders and part of a conspiracy to violate our national borders.
I’m glad he’s out. There’s two more that need to be released.
I am so glad he is home. Now if we can get El Presidente Jorge to wipe his record clean.
He wasn’t “released” in the sense of being let our early to “appease” public sentiment. He was sentenced to a year, and allowed time off for good behavior, and his sentence is up.
He served his time.
This story actually seems to tell the facts pretty clearly, and it's clear his actions were wrong:
The car Hernandez stopped was full of people, and when he attempted to speak to the driver, he said, the vehicle abruptly pulled away, trying to run him over.You could argue that if the van was coming at him, he had a right to shoot at it. In many jurisdictions, the police are taught how not to put themselves in harm's way from a vehicle, and are strongly discouraged from using deadly force.Hernandez shot between four and six times at the fleeing vehicle, blowing out a tire but hitting the back of the Suburban several times and slightly wounding a female passenger.
But in this case, Hernandez admits he shot at the back of a fleeing van. A van driving away from you is no threat to you. Shooting at the van to stop it endangered the lives of the passengers, who at that time were not known to have committed ANY crime. If there had been an american citizen walking down the street, he could have hit the bystander killing them as well, either directly or from a ricochet.
Deadly force was inappropriate, as at least three courts decided, two deciding for passengers in a civil case, and the one which convicted Hernandez.
Two of the immigrants would later sue the county over the shooting and be awarded $100,000 each.He shot a woman who posed no threat to him, and who he had no idea was illegal, or had committed any criminal act. He could have killed her, all to stop a van driving away.Hernandez, however, was charged with violating the wounded woman's civil rights. He was convicted, despite his claims of acting in self-defense.
There's a lot of support for him because the van was full of people who are assumed to be illegal (we don't know for certain because we only know of the three people -- and this particular story doesn't even tell us if the two who sued were legal or illegal, it just calls them "immigrants").
So the first question is, what if you and your family and some friends were driving in a large van, your neighbor's driving and he runs a stop sign. A cop comes up and it turns out he's got unpaid parking tickets and some moving violations and he'll lose his license. So he panics and drives away.
The officer, mad at losing the collar, fires six shots at the back of the van. When he's done, your wife is dead, your son is paralyzed, and your daughter is bleeding out from a gut wound.
How many of your are saying "The officer was perfectly justified in shooting us, because the guy shouldn't have driven away?
But of course, you are all american citizens. Does that make a difference? If it wouldn't be OK for the officer to kill your wife and shoot your children, WHY would it be OK for them to do so to illegal immigrants? Is being an illegal immigrant a capital offense?
The attorney in charge makes it clear:
But, as Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Baumann said last year, "The law says you cannot use deadly force to stop a car unless it poses an imminent threat to the officer or another person. If the car is going away from you, it's not even a close call."
I am happy he went after a vanload of what he thought were illegal immigrants. I'd be happy if he had arrested them all, and they were deported.
But I don't want police shooting at the backs of fleeing vans full of people, when there is no evidence that those in the van are life-threatening. If the driver was a known mass murderer, I might think differently. But in this case, the only thing the officer knew was the van drove through a stop sign on a deserted street, and then drove away when he tried to question them (possibly in a manner that at first put the officer in danger -- so I would have no trouble if the officer had apprehended the driver and charged him with attempted murder.
I know this will incense those who think Sutton should be hanged, and Bush impeached, and the Gonzales family locked up.
If the people in the van were all men holding machine guns, you’d have a good point.
The tone of this article is really disingenuous I kept waiting for the hammer to fall about the right wing support being wrong and it never happened. i get the feeling the writer really wanted it to turn out differently.
Shame on you for posting a rational, well-reasoned discussion of the situation.
And the message that was being sent was that being a suspected illegal immigrant is not a capital offense, and you can't use deadly force simply to stop someone who is here illegally.
Also, you can't simply shoot at a fleeing van just because you think there might be illegals in the van (I would bet that if the people in the van had been clearly white americans who spoke perfect english, he never would have shot, even if they tried to flee -- BUt I acknowledge that is speculation).
Ramos and Compean shot a fleeing suspect. This is a criminal offense in every state of the union.
I apologize for post 15. While I stand by my sentiment, it took a personal tact that could cause you emotional stress. I’ve asked the admin to remove it.
There are also women soldiers. We have female soldiers dying in Iraq even though it is said to be against our laws to have women in combat. Somebody posted on another thread “You invade a country, expect to get shot at.”
So are you saying that Gilmer Hernandez hates hispanic people?
While I understand the poster brought up R/C, their case is fundamentally different from this case.
In the case of R/C, they at least can claim they shot the actual suspect, and that the suspect was a threat to them (by claiming he had a gun and pointed it at them).
If they had caught the guy with a gun, they wouldn’t have been prosecuted, as their story would have been reasonable enough.
In this case, there was no gun, no weapon (contrary to popular opinion, in most cases a car on the road is not considered a deadly weapon), and the shots were not taken at the criminal (the guy driving the car) but rather at the van itself which the officer knew had people in it that were at that time considered innocent bystanders.
He actually hit one of them, injuring her. He could have killed her and others.
And in the end, most of the passengers and driver were not caught, so we don’t know they were illegal, and there were no drugs or other contraband found in the van. We can assume the worst, but the known facts show he shot a bystander to halt a van whose driver’s only know infraction was running a stop sign on a deserted street.
C/R shot a drug smuggler who they claim was pointing a gun at them. The jury didn’t believe them, but they actually have a better case than this guy.
Fleeing an officer IS a crime.
Why do you think police engage in deadly pursuit over traffic stops?
I see no where in the article where it says there were kids. The officer said they tried to run him down. I think he acted reasonably. There are always people to explain away why these people should be allowed ca rte Blanche to come and go as they damn well please and now we allow them to sue when they are caught and try to run down a police officer. More liberal dogma to allow the wholesale thievery of our country and our property. These bastards have no fear of coming here illegally. That’s the crime.
How do you know there was no gun?
And this was a federal offense because...?
No, I’m saying it is reasonable to infer that he decided they were illegal because of their ethnicity, in addition to the other clues (van, late at night, border smuggling route). He certainly didn’t have time to get their identification and run their names to find their legal status. And since people drive through stop signs every day, and even flee the police, and don’t usually end up with passengers being shot at, it seems reasonable to infer that there was some OTHER reason for wanting to stop this van.
It is this type of reasoning that strengthens a civil rights case. I don’t particularly like it, because it suggests that minorities have extra rights — few white male victims are ever going to be the recipient of a civil rights charge against their attackers.
I apologize for the inference that could be drawn from my post that it was their ethnicity that provoked him. That was not my intent.
Not always. Even if fleeing after committing a crime does not always permit the cop to use deadly force. See Garner v. Tennessee, 471 US 1 (1985).
Don't know the details of this case, so I do't know if it applies.
Officers rarely engage in “deadly pursuit” over traffic stops. Many jurisdictions prohibit “deadly pursuit”, as the reward (catching a stop-light runner) is not worth the risk (getting innocent bystanders killed).
Officers do pursue criminals and suspected criminals and even those who just ran a stop light. But they will break off pursuit if they think it is getting too dangerous, unless they run the tags and find the person driving is a known violent criminal.
Not all crime justifies the use of deadly force. Every use of deadly force requires justification, and many officers have been fired or criminally charged if shootings were not justified by a real and imminent risk of danger to themselves or others.
If somebody steals a purse, and is running away, the officer can not just pull out his gun and shoot the guy.
Maybe he claims to be a psychic. Though I bet he is part of the “illegal alien lobby.” He would be more effective if he stopped lying.
Yes, the officer said the van tried to run him down. He described this several times, and his story is somewhat implausible. He said he was standing next to the van’s drivers door, about 5 feet away. He said the van drove forward, with the wheels turned into the street.
At no time did the officer indicate he was in front of the van. So he was at risk for a moment as the van turned toward him, that the side of the van could hit him, or he could get run over by the rear wheels.
He was NOT hit by the van. He pulled out his weapon, and fired 4-6 times at the van as it DROVE AWAY. At no time did the van slow, or back up. He was in NO DANGER of being run over after the first couple of seconds, and in fact was mostly in danger of getting knocked over by the van turning into the road.
We don’t know exactly who was in the van, because they all ran away except the woman who was shot. I’m looking for references. I made another error in a previous post I need to correct.
I said 3 courts decided in this matter. That was wrong. The two who won a civil suit were in a single case, and that case did not go to trial, but was settled.
I apologize for the mistake.
Gilmer didn’t say he saw a gun. We have no idea whether there WAS a gun or not, although none was found in the van, and no shots were fired. So for the purpose of determining if deadly force was justified, there was no gun.
See post 35.
As my insurance lady told me, for God sakes don’t mess with the Mexican illegals because nothing but bad can happen.
Further extension of the 14th Amendment into other areas is another example of the expansion of Federal authority into areas where it was not warranted. As far as the fact that it may be "as currently implemented by federal law and in accordance with the rulings of the Supreme Court" fails to recognize the illegitimate expansion of Federal power over state and local affairs since the New Deal era for the executive branch and under the Warren and Burger courts for the legislative branch. Had Hernandez acted wrongly, it should have been the responsibility of the local authorities to prosecute or discipline him.
As far as it goes, both the border patrol agents and the deputy sheriff claimed that their use of deadly force was justified by the fact that the illegals had placed their lives in jeopardy. In the preponderance of instances, the word of LEOs is accepted in such matters, right or wrong. Whether they were truthful or not, I do not know, but it is probable that they were railroaded as Mike Nifong tried to do with the Duke lacrosse players. Unlike the Duke students, they came from families with limited financial resources and were therefore outlawyered by the Justice Department, with its deep pockets.
I would bet that if the people in the van had been clearly white americans who spoke perfect english, he never would have shot, even if they tried to flee
Hernandez is a Hispanic in a heavily Hispanic South Texas county. The days of racist lawmen like the one portrayed by Kris Kristofferson in the movie Lone Star (partially set in the 1950s) are long gone in South Texas.
No thanks to gutless Bush. Ah, well, there are always combat soldiers to be imprisoned.
God bless his heart!
Yes, as far as I’m concerned, being an illegal in the US is a capital offense.(May not be the Law,but then the law is wrong!)
However, you are right in saying this officer did not know that at the time of the shooting so he was wrong.
So, to follow the impeccable logic of the asst. U.S. Atty, if the driver of a car mows down 50 people and runs over a half dozen cops, as long as the car is “moving away” from the surviving cops, none of them can employ lethal force. Hmmm.
Professionally speaking, I do not agree with the deputy’s use of force in his incident.
He was only trying to kill the tire, and yes they were an imminent threat to other people just look how they were driving.
He should have regrets. There were women and children in that van, and he could easily have killed several of them.
That should have said "There could have been women and children", not "There were women and children". We know there were 8 people in the van along with the driver, and we know some were women, but we do not know if there were any children or not.
Gilmer said he knew there were several people in the back of the van (some reports say it was a Chevy Suburban), but he did not identify what their ages were, either to say there were children, or to argue that there were not children.
Obviously, a van smuggling illegals COULD include entire families, which could include children and even infants and pregnane mothers. We don't know who was in the van because everybody except the woman escaped.
I apologize for suggesting we KNEW there were children in the van. That was an error.
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
I reviewed the materials I had, and you were correct, there is no indication one way or another about children. I have posted a correction to my previous post, and I thank you for helping me get that correct.
As I explained in another post, it was my mistake to allow the inference that he was a racist. My point was that their ethnicity was a factor in his deciding they were illegal immigrants, and that his shooting at them was predicated on his belief that they were illegal immigrants, and not simply that they had “tried to run him over”.
It wasn’t the “whiteness” versus the “hispanicness” that I was getting at, it was the reason he would suspect they were illegal, and the suspicion on my part that he wouldn’t have shot at them if he didn’t think they were illegal immigrant smugglers.
I am pretty sure that if the van was full of a family of good americans, and the father just panicked and drove away and a police officer shot at them and hit the passengers, we wouldn’t be quite so quick to suggest that the passengers deserved to be shot.
Some people argue that he would be justified in shooting the van in any case. They are at least consistant, and I don’t think I’d try to argue with them. It’s those who argue that it was OK to shoot the van because it was full of illegals that I argue against.
Because while I do NOT support illegal immigration, I also don’t think we should kill them over it.
While I understand the humanitarian argument it needs to be said that they are killing US over it.
He could if the president pardoned him. But that isn't going to happen.
He made a mistake, it happens probably caused by poor training and after appropriate civil damages were awarded that should have been the end of it. But it’s a stretch to assume that he intended to deprive someone of their civil rights and therefore should be held criminally liable.
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