Free Republic

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...

Even after he put him in prison for more than two years, Gary Brugman doesn't hate Johnny Sutton. But thousands of others across the country feel differently, professing a deep abhorrence for Sutton, the top federal law enforcer in San Antonio as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas. Appointed to the job a month after the 9-11 attacks by longtime friend President Bush, Sutton has in recent months become the target of anti-illegal-immigration groups who say he's leading an unjust campaign against law enforcement officers, particularly Border Patrol agents, such as Brugman before he was convicted of...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE On Saturday, June 30th, at HIGH NOON, the San Antonio and Austin Chapters of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. headed by Schuylar Crist and Teresa Alvelo respectively, in partnership with Danny Smith and hundreds of his American Freedom Riders, a nationwide organization of bikers dedicated to stopping illegal immigration, will all descend thunderously upon the office of US Attorney Johnny Sutton and EMPHATICALLY demand he resign, or that President Bush FIRE him for his illegal prosecutions of former Edwards County Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez, and former US Border Patrol agents Gary Brugman, Ignacio Ramos, and Jose Alonso...

Two illegal aliens have agreed to a $100,000 out-of-court settlement after threatening a multimillion-dollar civil rights lawsuit against a Texas deputy over an incident in which the lawman shot at an alien-smuggling vehicle he said tried to run him down. Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia and Candido Garcia-Perez, Mexican nationals who were being smuggled into the U.S. in April 2005 when they were injured by fragments of the lawman's bullets, agreed to the amount after a mediation hearing in Austin, Texas. They initially asked for $1.5 million. Mrs. Rodriguez-Garcia, struck by bullet fragments in the cheek and mouth, and Mr. Garcia-Perez, injured when...

In a case eerily reminiscent of the controversial jailing of Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos while the illegal-alien drug-smuggler they wounded went free, two illegal aliens are now suing imprisoned Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez for injuries from shell fragments that struck them as the officer shot at the tires of a van in which they escaped from a routine traffic stop. Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia and Candido Garcia-Perez are preparing to file a civil lawsuit against Hernandez and Sheriff Don G. Letsinger, possibly seeking millions of dollars in damages for alleged violation of their civil rights. Jimmy Parks,...

Edwards County Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez was led into a holding room near the Geo Group-managed prison in Del Rio, Texas for our interview Friday afternoon, Mar. 9. He was shackled in red, metal handcuffs and dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit and booties. He is awaiting sentencing from a federal judge scheduled for March 19, 2007 that could send him to a federal penitentiary for ten years.

Guillermo "Gilmer" Hernandez, former Edwards County deputy sheriff, says he feared for his life and was just doing his job when he shot at the tires of a vehicle carrying Mexican nationals after, he says, the driver tried to run him down. But federal prosecutors say that because the vehicle was heading away from him, he illegally used deadly force, violating the civil rights of a woman slightly wounded in the 2005 incident. Hernandez, 25, faces sentencing March 19 in Del Rio, where he has been held in a federal detention facility since being convicted, in December. He faces...

The federal government has recommended a seven-year prison term for Gilmer Hernandez, a Texas deputy sheriff who drew grass-roots support after he was convicted for violating the civil rights of a fleeing illegal alien, WND has learned. In a case prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in El Paso, who also led the high-profile prosecution of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, Hernandez was charged after stopping a van full of illegals for running a stop sign April 14, 2005, in Rocksprings, Texas. The driver attempted to run over Hernandez, prompting the officer to fire his weapon...

The Rocksprings Record has published a story concerning the conviction of Edwards County Sheriff's Deputy Gilmer Hernandez who faces sentencing in March for injuring an illegal female immigrant that was a passenger in a vehicle that attempted to run over the deputy. As Editor Carolyn Anderson puts it, "Many here question why this law officer was ever even charged for doing his job". The following is an excerpt from the article detailing a recent letter by the county sheriff expressing his viewpoints of the trial: "Your Honor, I have served the enforcement of the law and the protection of the...

If the illegal immigration situation were not bad enough, evidence accumulating from attempts to unearth the true facts concerning the arrest and conviction of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean suggest strongly that the United States government is not only trying to placate the Mexican government, but is actually carrying out policies demanded by Mexico.

Supporters of ex-Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean stand at the foot of the Federal Courthouse steps in El Paso last month. (Photos By Ruben R. Ramirez -- El Paso Times Via Associated Press) Early this week, the Bush administration urged angry conservatives to remain calm over the convictions of two former Border Patrol agents who shot an unarmed Mexican drug smuggler, but petitions for their release continued to flood the White House. It did not help that one the lawmen, Ignacio Ramos, was attacked by Latino gang members in his cell at the Yazoo City Federal Correctional...

The immigration protest has gone Hollywood — complete with superheroes, villains, and furry cartoon dinosaurs. Saturday’s march past the stars on the Walk of Fame didn’t start off having anything to do with amnesty or reconquista. Rather, it was supposed to be a cry of support for imprisoned Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos and Edwards County (Texas) Sheriff’s Deputy Gilmer Hernandez (all convicted on federal charges involving incidents in which illegal immigrants were shot and wounded). And it was, with signs of support for the “Texas Three” and tearful appearances from Hernandez’s wife and Ramos’s father.