Ping!
Well, that's really what is going on here with all of these cases. The Mexican Government is targeting our border patrol agents and LEOs in border counties for this kind of harassment and prosecution, and our own DOJ and DOS is going along with it! Un-friggin-believable!
So who is running this country, Our government or the Mexican government.
It appears the Mexicans are.
"Deputy Hernandez had a right to stop that vehicle," Letsinger told WND. "Can you look at what happened and say that Deputy Hernandez intentionally wanted to injure someone in that vehicle? You cannot. Deputy Hernandez did not want to injure anyone that day. He fired at the tires to stop the vehicle and he was justified in doing so."
He shot out the REAR tires. That means the van was driving away from him or past him, NOT trying to run him over.
He was therefore not in danger when he fired, and therefore the shooting was not justified.
That is the prosecution argument, and it has merit. The van's driver was not at that time a threat, and had not committed a crime that necessitated the use of deadly force to apprehend the driver of the van or the passengers.
It probably doesn't matter whether the sheriff MEANT to hurt anybody -- his acts did hurt someone who could well have been a completely innocent american citizens riding in a van.
I'm not as disturbed as some people seem to be about the idea that a person's government would push for justice to be done for them. If I were shot by a mexican police officer for a trivial traffic offense, and the Mexican government refused to listen to my complaint, I would hope my own government would put pressure on them to prosecute the person for his crime against me.
On the other hand, I doubt that a jury in the United States is going to CONVICT based on pressure from the Mexican government. They will convict based on the evidence presented at trial.
I don't know what to make about THIS part of the WND article:
Letsinger contended that if the federal grand jury had heard "the whole truth of what transpired," Hernandez would {sic: not?} have been indicted.
"The statements by the prosecution that Gilmer Hernandez had chased the illegals across a pasture, cursing them and shooting at them were completely false," he said. "The Texas Ranger and a federal ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agent and an ATF dog were taken to that location. That dog searched that location thoroughly and could find no shell casings. When the dog failed to find the shell casings, the officers used a metal detector to search the field thoroughly and failed to find any shell casings."
Letsinger added he has no way of knowing for sure what the federal grand jury was told or was not told. He suspects "the grand jury was told about the shell casings, but most probably not about the law enforcement search that failed to find the shell casings."
This appears NOT to be discussion of testimony at the TRIAL, but rather secret grand jury proceedings. Except that Letsinger acknowledges at the end that he doesn't actually know WHAT was said in the grand jury, and he's speculating about what stories were told to the grand jury.
I don't know if we have transcripts from the trial of this sheriff, but if we do I bet they don't contain this "story" about the sheriff, or else the article would have sited the transcript rather than Letsinger's speculation about what was said in the grand jury.
As it is though, that story sounds really odd.