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As usual, there is the media report and there is the truth.

This incident is well known within the Border Patrol and comments from informed Agents are many and I offer the below as counter-point to the distortions and deliberate twisting of facts that this “pastor” engages in.

Now for facts from sources in the Border Patrol.

The preacher was dragged from the car, subdued, and hauled back to Yuma for arraignment by AZ DPS (not Border Patrol), under state charges. He did go to jail and was released pending trial. (Note: Is was NOT the Border Patrol).

Here is the case info from the State of Arizona's website.
Case Information
Case Number: J-1403-MS-200900009
Title: ST OF AZ VS ANDERSON Category: Criminal
Court: Wellton Justice Filing Date: 04/17/2009
Judge: HONORABLE CORA M ROMINE Disposition Date:
STEVEN LEE ANDERSON - Defendent 1 Date of Birth: 7/24/1981
Citation Count Description Disp. Date Disposition
NONE 1 OBST HWY/PUB LIC THOROUGHFARE
NONE 2 RESIST ORDER CONTROL MOTOR VEH
Case Activity
Date Description Party
04/17/2009 COMPLAINT FILED-PROSECUTOR Defendent 1
04/16/2009 NOTICE OF APPEARANCE FILED Defendent 1
04/15/2009 I/A HELD: FELONY/MISD/CR TR Defendent 1
(None of the charges brought by the Border Patrol).

Here is his REAL job
http://www.andyfire.com/index.html

Here is the doctrine of the church he has founded
www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/page6.html

His philosophy.
www.truebornsons.com/read.html

Narrative of the incident:
The pastor drove up to the Border Patrol checkpoint's primary inspection point and stopped. When he pulled up to the primary inspection point, he had all his car windows rolled up. When the BP agent on the primary inspection point tried to talk to him the pastor just stared straight ahead and refused to give any indication that he heard the BP agent speaking to him.

The BP agent asked him to roll his window so the agent could speak to him and the pastor continued to stare straight ahead and ignore the agent.

The agent then tried using hand gestures to ask the pastor to roll his window down so he could speak to him. The pastor continued to stare straight ahead and ignored the agent.

I have to drive through this checkpoint and every time I go through it there is a BP K-9 handler walking his drug dog along side the vehicles at the primary inspection point and as they approach. That same thing happened with this pastor and the BP drug dog alerted to the presence of drugs.

The BP agents continued to try to talk to the pastor and communicate with him with hand gestures and to direct him into the secondary inspection area. He remained parked in the traffic lane of I-8 with his windows rolled up and continued to refuse to acknowledge any of the BP agents’ attempts to communicate with him.

His refusal to move his car into the secondary inspection area caused a HUGE backup of interstate traffic that grew to over a mile long while the BP agents tried to divert passenger cars through the commercial truck inspection lane.

With the pastor continuing to block the car inspection lane and refusing to move his car into the secondary inspection area, the single commercial truck lane was unable to handle all the traffic and cars and trucks remained back up over a mile from the checkpoint.

This went on for about an hour with the pastor continuing to keep his car parked in the lane of I-8 with it's window rolled up and refusing to acknowledge the BP agents attempts to communicate with him.

While this situation was going on the BP agents at the checkpoint called the Arizona Highway Patrol (AZ DPS) for assistance. DPS was called because of the tremendous traffic backup the pastor was causing and the resulting danger of collisions.

When the DPS officer arrived at the BP checkpoint, he tried to speak to the pastor but the pastor continued to ignore all attempts to communicate with him.

The Highway Patrol Officer then tried to get the pastor to roll his window down so he could speak to him by hand gestures and verbal commands. The pastor continued to ignore the DPS officer and the BP agents and continued to keep his car parked in the traffic lane of I-8.

After over an hour of trying to communicate with this pastor and get him to move his car out of the traffic lane the DPS officer made the decision that he could not continue to allow the mile long back up of stopped traffic on a 75 mph Interstate and he used his ASP baton to break out the pastor's car window. It was after breaking the window that the DPS trooper and the Border Patrol Agents used force to remove the pastor from behind the wheel of his car.

If you have ever had to remove someone from behind a car's steering wheel when they are seat belted in and not cooperating you know how difficult that is and how much force has to be used.

Couple that with the broken glass from the window that the pastor had refused to roll down for over an hour and the real surprise is that his cuts weren't more severe and it only took eleven stitches to close them.

After they got the pastor out of his car and got it moved into the secondary inspection area they discovered the concealed camcorders and microphones.

Those concealed camcorders and mikes in his car along with the pastor's statement that he has done the same thing at other Border Patrol checkpoints several times makes it pretty obvious that he was intentionally trying to provoke an incident so that he could sue the Border Patrol.

The pastor posting an 8 minute video on You Tube right after he got to Phoenix also makes if real clear that his intentions from the beginning were to get as much publicity as possible from any incident he provoked.

As that was his obvious intent, it would not be surprising to find out that he had rubbed some illegal drug on the side of his car to make sure the drug dog alerted. Dogs have incredibly sensitive abilities to smell. There have been many situations in the past where drug detector dogs have alerted to vehicles that had carried drugs weeks before and only trace amounts that you would need a microscope to find were present.

But you can bet how the media is going to handle this. I can see the national media blaring away about the bad, mean Border Patrol and Highway Patrol officers “torturing” an innocent Baptist pastor who was just doing God's work.

Further, please note he was armed with a very deadly weapon: the car itself. In extracting a non-compliant subject, the officers must be prepared for any response. The ‘pastor’ could have gunned the engine when the agents or officers reached inside to apprehend him,. and could have ended up dragging one or both of them all across the highway or into the desert.

He could have had a knife, a pistol, or other weapons handy. He could have pulled a .45 from under his butt, or a knife, or a machete, or a baseball bat, or a sawed off shotgun.

When force was used, they attacked him simultaneously from both sides, in a deliberate attempt to surprise and subdue him, and to make it harder for him to injure or kill either officer.

They pressed his head against the door, because if you control the man's head, his body must follow. By immobilizing his head, he is unable to aim a pistol or a knife if he has one.

How do you know that he was tazed ‘multiple times?” Just because he said so? That's not likely. He was probably zapped once, and the ‘stingers would have stayed in his skin. He was probably asked and told to comply with the officers to get out, and he probably continued to refuse and passively resist extraction.

His head was immobilized again once he was on the ground, again to prevent him from fighting effectively and to prevent injury to the officers. He could not have been badly cut by the broken glass, unless his car had non-standard safety glass. Modern safety glass shatters into ‘pebbles,’ with very minimal sharp edges or surfaces. If he was pressed into a pile of ‘broken glass’ as he claims, his face would have looked like hamburger.

Just facts and info omitted in the reporting.