Posted on 03/19/2007 11:17:15 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
DEL RIO — A federal judge sentenced former Edwards County Sheriff Deputy Guillermo (Gilmer) F. Hernandez to a year and a day in jail this morning for shooting at a fleeing vehicle transporting undocumented immigrants and injuring one of its passengers.
Although U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson denied pleas from Hernandez and his lawyer for probation, the judge did deviate from federal sentencing guidelines that made the former deputy eligible to be sentenced to up to 9 years in prison.
Hernandez’s attorney Jimmy Parks Jr. expressed mixed emotions afterward.
“I’m so appreciative of that,” Parks said of the judge’s more lenient sentence. “But as an advocate and friend of Gilmer’s, I didn’t want to see him spend any day in jail.”
Hernandez’s case gained nationwide attention after a federal jury convicted him Dec. 1 of violating the civil rights of a Mexican woman who was being smuggled into the country along with several other undocumented immigrants in a Chevrolet Suburban.
After pulling the Suburban over on a traffic stop in April 2005, Hernandez fired several shots at the vehicle when the driver attempted to flee. Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia suffered a facial wound.
Hernandez’s attorneys argued the deputy was trying to protect himself, fearing the vehicle might turn on him. Prosecutors claimed otherwise, saying the deputy faced no eminent threat and abused the “color of law.”
This morning, more than 100 residents from Hernandez’s hometown of Rocksprings gathered outside the federal courthouse in Del Rio to show their support.
They carried signs saying, “Free Gilmer,” and “Please Let Gilmer Come Home.”
Hernandez has been held in jail without bond since his December conviction.
Parks said Hernandez will get credit for the 110 days he has been in jail and is eligible to receive credit for good behavior since the judge sentenced him to a day more than a year in jail.
Parks said Hernandez could be freed in about six months.
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jzarazua@express-news.net
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
I've argued previously that if you shoot the rear tire of a van driving away, it wasn't trying to run you over. The supporters of Compean and Ramos argued against me and said the van was trying to run him over. I think they got that from a WND article.
The man's LAWYER says here he simply feared the van MIGHT turn on him. He shot at a fleeing van, and injured a passenger that was no threat to him.
I'm glad he only got a year. I wish the judge in the Ramos/Compean case had been as wise as this judge.
Somebody in law enforcement explain to me what the hell "color of law" is???
Last I looked the lady "justice" was holding the scales and was blindfolded...
I wonder why...hmmmmmm...
"After pulling the Suburban over on a traffic stop in April 2005, Hernandez fired several shots at the vehicle when the driver attempted to flee. Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia suffered a facial wound."
Apparent, but not actual, legal right. A cop doing something illegal, perhaps, or claiming title under a void deed.
I agree with you. They run us through a "shoot/don't shoot" scenario annually. I wonder if they do that in Texas too. If I had done what this deputy did I wouldn't be allowed to carry a gun.
I guess the message we should hear from this is that 99.99% of law enforcement officers go out and do their jobs every day and don't endanger anyone. But when the .01% does something stupid that puts people in danger, the justice system makes sure that they will never do it again. It's too bad someone had to get hurt to get this idiot off the streets.
Time to make the decision to rely on yourself for your safety.
Good grief! These people make their living with language?
Major part of the story is missing.
Deputy Hernandez was shot by the driver and returned fire as it was speeding off.
Graycliff, can you source that? That should make a whole lotta difference to previous comments in this post...
Give me a little time. When i went hunting this weekend, we went through Rock Springs and seen all the signs. My buddy who went with me is a police officer from Odessa TX. He was telling me about it. He said Deputy Hernandez had them pulled over when the drive shot him point blank and drove off.
Rocksprings, Texas sheriff says his deputy victimized by overzealous federal prosecutor Wednesday, March 07 2007 @ 09:59 AM CST Contributed by: Admin By Joe Hyde
“I’ll tell you one thing is going to happen from all of this: someone is going to get killed,” Edwards County Sheriff Don G. Letsinger said about the current climate of prosecuting law enforcement officers, including one of his own.
Letsinger has noted five highly publicized cases brought by the United States Attorney’s Office, Western District of Texas. That “someone” that may be killed is not likely to be a civilian, according to Letsinger. “The checklist is getting too long before you [as a law enforcement officer] decide ‘is it going to be me or you?’” he said.
Letsinger is Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez’s boss. And today, Hernandez sits in the GEO Group jail in Del Rio, Texas, awaiting sentencing that could incarcerate him for ten years in a federal penitentiary. Hernandez’s crime was that he used a firearm, he contends, in self-defense. The feds say he violated the civil rights of an illegal alien in doing so.
On April 14, 2005, at almost 12 midnight, Deputy Gilmer Hernandez was nearing the end of his shift that had started at 4 p.m. His wife, Ashley, called and asked if he would give her a ride to get a Coke out of a nearby soda machine. With his house not far off the path of his last patrol, Hernandez picked his wife up, expecting to drive from the Coke machine back to the sheriff’s office to end his shift. From there, he and his wife would drive home together in their on car.
Fate would interrupt the plan when a blue Chevrolet Suburban ran a stop sign in front of Hernandez. He flipped on his lights and pursued the Suburban for .8 mile until the driver finally pulled over on U.S. 377, just north of Rocksprings, away from any streetlights. Hernandez got out of his patrol car and approached the Suburban on the driver’s side, according to procedure. Hernandez walked to just behind the driver’s door and ordered the driver to roll down the window. Inside, he could see seven or eight people hunched over, as if hiding.
Rocksprings, in Edwards County, Texas, is 80 miles from the Texas border with Mexico. And while drug trafficking and people smuggling is not as concentrated as it is in Val Verde and Maverick County that are directly adjacent to the Rio Grande, the sparse population of Edwards County makes it an attractive conduit for traffickers making their way to the Interstate 35 corridor, and onward to Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
And while human smuggling and drug trafficking are nothing new to Edwards County, “One thing changed it all for us and that was 9/11,” Letsinger said. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland, federal agencies have informed border law enforcement agencies with plenty of information about the kinds of human smuggling that may be happening in their backyards.
“We usually don’t get anything specific, but we have been warned that groups like Al Qaeda could use the coyotes smuggling humans out of Mexico to get their people in our country,” Letsinger said. And then there are dirty bombs, chemical and biological weapons, Letsinger said. “We don’t know on a day-to-day basis exactly who we are going to confront out here,” he said. And the message traffic his office receives each day is reviewed by everyone, usually before shifts begin, noted Chief Deputy Sheriff Jay Adams. “We watch the threat conditions issued by Homeland Security rise and fall daily,” Adams said.
That evening, with the apprehension of not knowing who he was facing, Deputy Gilmer Hernandez, standing barely a foot from the side of the blue Suburban, witnessed the driver suddenly place the transmission into gear and swerve violently left into the space where the deputy was standing. “That was assault on a law enforcement officer,” Letsinger said, not to mention fleeing arrest.
Startled, Hernandez told the Texas Rangers that he jumped out of the way, pulled his weapon and discharged three bullets, aiming at the tires of the Suburban. One bullet punctured the left tire. Two others lodged in the tailgate near the taillights. At least one bullet (or a fragment) penetrated a seam in the tailgate and entered the rear compartment. The Rangers later determined that Hernandez fired four bullets that night.
Obviously, the Suburban had something to hide, and Hernandez feared it had a “load” of either humans or drugs…or both.
The Suburban sped off on the flat tire, but only traveled another 1,500 feet with Hernandez in hot pursuit. By this time, Hernandez had called for backup. When the Suburban came to a stop, it slammed into an “H” brace after attempting to turn off the highway.
The human cargo, that the Texas Rangers determined in a subsequent investigation were illegal aliens, a coyote and a “guide,” scattered on foot, except for one woman who was apparently injured. A bullet fragment had penetrated the lip of one of the illegal aliens by the name of Maricela Rodriguez Garcia, and shattered a few teeth before exiting out the hole of her mouth. Garcia was rushed to Val Verde Regional Medical Center in Del Rio and then on to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio where she was released the next day into the custody of her husband, who drove down from Austin to pick her up.
Discharging a firearm is a big deal at the sheriff’s office and Hernandez immediately informed Sheriff Letsinger of the incident. Letsinger told Hernandez to follow procedure by writing an incident report. Letsinger called the Mexican Consulate in Del Rio to inform them of the incident and injury.
The next morning, Letsinger called the Texas Rangers to request a formal investigation. “We have a policy here that law enforcement agencies don’t investigate themselves,” Letsinger said.
All was going along as expected with the Texas Rangers until August 5, 2005, the day the FBI subpoenaed the Edward County Sheriff’s Office for information about the incident. The sheriff was informed that the Texas Rangers were no longer leading the investigation. The FBI was.
“What told me that this was a political prosecution was that the feds didn’t even allow the local, state agencies to conclude their investigation, and if necessary a trial, before they stepped in,” Letsinger said.
Jerome Corsi, a writer for World Net Daily, uncovered important details of a letter sent to Letsinger but also copied to Norman Townsent, a supervisor in the FBI stationed in Laredo, Texas, from the Mexican Consulate in Eagle Pass demanding “that is the care of my Country that this kind of incidents against our nationals, do not remain unpunished.”
U.S. Attorney, Western District of Texas, Johnny Sutton ordered the arrest of Hernandez on June 6, 2005 and charged him with violating the civil rights of Garcia. Hernandez stood trial in federal court in Del Rio and was convicted on Dec. 1, 2006. He sits in jail, awaiting sentencing scheduled on March 19.
According to Letsinger, Edwards County spent $20,000 defending Hernandez, and even though Letsinger is pleased with the performance of Hernandez’s defense lawyer Jimmy Parks Jr., he doesn’t believe any honest effort to defend Hernandez can overcome the power of a federal prosecutor. “Nobody has the resources of the federal government,” Letsinger said.
A 1985 Supreme Court case, Garner vs. Tennessee, ruled that it is improper for law enforcement to shoot at a fleeing suspect. According to the ruling, an officer of the law must believe that he or she and-or others are facing “significant threat of death or serious physical injury.”
“A police officer may not seize a non-dangerous suspect by shooting him dead,” the decision states.
But according to Letsinger, the U.S. Attorney manipulated the facts of the case to place doubt in the intentions of Hernandez that evening. The statements of the occupants of the Suburban conflict with Hernandez’s as to the number of shots fired and when they were fired. One claimed seven shots were fired. Another claimed five shots were fired. Furthermore, some of the vehicle occupants claimed that Hernandez continued to fire a gun at them even as they were fleeing the vehicle into the dark field after the Suburban ran off the road. Hernandez wrote in his report that he fired only three shots, all at the tires of the fleeing vehicle.
The subsequent Texas Rangers investigation determined that four shots were fired based upon the number of casings at the scene, the number of bullets remaining in Hernandez’s chamber and clip, and the number of holes in the back of the Suburban (and its left tire).
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Bauman, the attorney assigned to prosecute Hernandez, made hay out of the discrepancies of the number of shots fired, according to Letsinger. “In the heat of the moment, it is not uncommon for a law enforcement officer to lose count of the number of shots they fired, although it is something we train to do,” Letsinger said. “One of Sutton’s reasons to prosecute was that Gilmer tried to cover something up,” Letsinger said.
The tactic of highlighting the difference between Hernandez’s claim of three shots fired versus the claims of the illegal aliens placed doubt in the veracity of Hernandez’s statements in the jury’s eyes, Letsinger suggested. And if Hernandez was trying to cover something up, maybe, just maybe, Hernandez did fire on the occupants of the car as they fled in all different directions into that field that evening.
The Texas Rangers, using dogs during their investigation, found no casings or bullet fragments that would suggest that Hernandez fired at the suspects as they fled into the field.
Sutton’s office is renowned for convicting four other law enforcement agents for similar charges. But the other cases involve Border Patrol agents, not local sheriffs in the region.
Former U.S. Border Patrol agent David Sipe was convicted for use of excessive force against an illegal alien in 2001 in a McAllen courtroom. His conviction was overturned in January, but not before his life was ruined with bankruptcy and divorce.
Former U.S. Border Patrol Agent Gary Brugman spent three years in prison after a Sutton conviction for violating the civil rights of illegal aliens he captured near Eagle Pass.
Former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean began prison sentences Jan. 17, of 11 and 12 years respectively, for their actions in the El Paso sector where they shot and wounded a Mexican drug smuggler who was granted full immunity by Sutton’s office to testify against them.
Uproar over the recent convictions is gaining volume, primarily in the conservative press. But, as World Net Daily’s Jerome Corsi noted in an exclusive interview with LIVE!, “This is not a partisan issue. Whether you are Republican or a Democrat, all want truth and justice. And as many Democrats are upset over this as Republicans.”
What is more, Sutton is a Republican, appointed to his current position by President George W. Bush. His biography states that he and the president have worked together for more than 12 years. “Mr. Sutton served as the Criminal Justice Policy Director for then-Governor George W. Bush from 1995-2000,” his Web site biography notes. He worked on the Bush transition team in 2000 before being appointed to his current position.
“We can’t allow the Mexican Consulate to dictate how we [the U.S.] enforce our laws,” Corsi explained. And while these cases seemingly have the pendulum pinned so far away from allowing flexibility of our law enforcement officers to do their job without fear of unjust prosecution, danger exists for the citizens on the border, in particular. Drugs and human smuggling flow almost freely here.
But for now, Sheriff Letsinger wants his deputy released and, if possible, pardoned. “He didn’t do anything wrong. Gilmer told the truth,” Letsinger said. Before the conviction, the U.S. Attorney offered Hernandez a plea bargain of three years probation for a guilty plea. Hernandez refused. “This young man didn’t do anything wrong, and he refused to say he had. I think that speaks to his character,” Letsinger said.
While Hernandez awaits his sentencing from Robert T. Dawson from the U.S. District Court, Western Arkansas, in Port Smith, Ark., Letsinger wrote the judge a letter requesting that Hernandez’s sentence be reduced to time served.
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Sheriff Don Letsinger's Letter to Judge Robert T Dawson on convicted Edwards County Deputy Gilmer Hernandez
"Your Honor,
I have served the enforcement of the law and the protection of the public for 25 years, 15 of them as an elected Sheriff. I have been cross-designated with the DEA. I was the Task Force Officer and case agent in the prosecution of a Conspiracy to Traffic Narcotics in violation of Federal Statutes. I fully understand the need to protect the rights of all individuals, especially the rights of the accused. I understand the need to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. I understand the need for 18 USC § 242, Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law. I also understand the Doctrine of Self-defense from the use and threatened use of deadly force.
I have always believed that those of us that protect and defend the law are obligated to truth. The truth to disclose to a Jury or Grand Jury all the facts, all the evidence, the truth and the whole truth. We must do this even if the guilty are not indicted or found not guilty. Justice is only truly served with the truth.
I cannot begin to explain to anyone my dismay when I was informed of the guilty verdict handed down against Deputy Sheriff Guillermo F. Hernandez. I assure you that I became truly ill. I could have not been any more upset if the verdict had been passed on my own son.
My first thoughts were that the system that I have served for 25 years had failed. For about three days I was ashamed to be part of the law enforcement community that serves and protects the Constitution. Finally I remembered what I already knew. The Grand Jury did not fail, they indicted on the information they were given. The Jury did not fail, they convicted on the evidence presented. The Court did not fail the system. The Court does not control the investigation or the prosecution’s presentation of the facts.
I know that the system only fails when we (law enforcement officers and prosecutors) the protectors of the system fail the system by not disclosing to the jury the whole truth, all the facts and all the evidence. We fail the system when we imply to the jury wrong doing when there is none. When it is implied that evidence was not collected to protect an officer from prosecution. When we know that the policy requires another agency to collect that evidence and the prosecution knew the evidence was collected.
We fail the system when we imply to the jury that policy is law. When we know that policy is only a guideline for operations. When we imply before a jury that evidence may have been tampered with. When those of us who know better know that it is a simple thing for the FBI to test a videotape to see if it has been erased or tampered with. We fail the system when an expert witness testifies with words like “There were four shots fired and maybe six.” When we posture before the jury with implications that we do not believe the integrity of a witness when we know the witness is honorable and truthful. We fail the system when we know a witness for the government has made false statements to investigators and we justify those statements as confusion and we do so for a conviction. We fail the system when we buy witnesses and purchase testimony at the expense of our Statutes.
Your Honor, no man should stand for judgement based on prosecution courtroom antics in the name of advocacy based on false statements and implied evidence. As God is my witness Deputy Hernandez is a good and honorable young man. Deputy Hernandez told the truth when he said the driver of the vehicle tried to run him over. Even the statement of Yvonne Hernandez-Morales supports Deputy Hernandez. “When the officer got to the drivers door the driver took off.” Deputy Hernandez and his wife could have told any story they wanted. Deputy Hernandez was shooting at the tires trying to stop a vehicle whose driver was evading arrest or detention. Deputy Hernandez had every right to arrest and detain the driver of the evading vehicle. Deputy Hernandez did not intentionally harm anyone. Deputy Hernandez is a good enough shot to have placed all the rounds in his weapon right through the back glass of the suburban.
Your Honor, I respectfully request that you sentence Guillermo Falcon Hernandez to time served and release him from custody.
Sincerely, Don G. Letsinger, Sheriff, Edwards County
The Duke lacrosse players were fortunate that they had wealthy parents who would fight for them - their fight is far from over. Hernandez was not as fortunate, with Johnny Sutton using the power of the federal government to railroad yet another person. Now it is even a crime to act in self defense.
Of course, one can hit a rear tire of a car trying to run you over - depends on its angle or if it is likely to head back at you. One woman who killed her husband by driving her Benz, made several circles over him.
This case, like the several others recently, is all about keeping law enforcement officers from enforcing our immigration laws.
Finally, illegal aliens have no civil rights. This crime didn't exist. You notice they didn't charge him with assault, attempted murder or any other crime that would have been commiserate with shooting indiscriminately. They had to come up with some BS law that really has no basis in this country. Kiss butt with the open borders crowd if you want, but for me, I say enforce our laws and let the cops do what they have to do to make arrests.
Bush's fault. (sarc off)
This is not true. The driver of the vehicle tried to run over Hernandez after he stopped the vehicle and approached it. Hernandez shot at the tires 4 times, hitting one tire and the lower back of the vehicle. Apparently a bullet fragment hit one of the illegal aliens in the vehicle. The driver of the vehicle had just committed assault with a deadly weapon. It was proper for Hernandez to attempt to stop the fleeing felon for his safety and for the safety of others.
The investigation was taken over by the FBI and the infamous Sutton got involved at the written request of the Mexican Consulate.
Again, illegal aliens win, decent American citizens lose.
Whether Deputy Hernandez followed correct procedure should be a matter of State law, and investigated by the District Attorney and/or the Texas Rangers. The Feds have no business intervening in what should rightly be a state and local matter.
What i posted was not true. That's what happens when you use second hand info, My apologies to all.
Here's the link, where the driver tried to hit him with the vehicle.
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=176577
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