Free Republic

A homicide investigation is launched in Hidalgo County after the La Joya Police Chief is found dead in his patrol unit. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino told Action 4 News Chief Jose Del Angel was found with at least one gunshot wound to his chest around 9 o’clock Thursday evening at a vacant lot on Palm Shore Drive in La Joya. The Sheriff said a passerby noticed an officer sitting in a unit not moving, and called 911. An officer responded to the scene, and discovered his boss slumped over in his city issued vehicle near a vacant lot. Texas...

A La Joya man is behind bars after he allegedly sexually abused an 8-year-old girl several times. La Joya police arrested Eduardo Agustin Mottu on an indecency with a child charge on Thursday. Investigatoros told Action 4 News that what’s even more shocking is that it’s not the first time he's committed this type of crime. Police said the mother of the child filed the complaint earlier this week. She told police that her daughter told her that Mottu had allegedly touched her inappropriately and penetrated her. Investigators said Mottu is an illegal immigrant and was using one of ten...

LA JOYA - With every pin of the badge and every zip of the uniform, a law officer knows his or her life is on the line. A new threat from Mexican cartels highlights that danger. The warning sends La Joya PD and other departments a message: the front line on the war on drugs is here, in the front seat of the patrol unit. La Joya police say they know they have a target on their back. It comes with the job. “For them to get the load across, they're going to do anything in their power, but of...

LA JOYA — Police found 11 suspected illegal immigrants in an abandoned tool shed Sunday morning. Officers responded to an "old, dilapidated house" at the intersection of 12th Street and Perales Martinez at 10:39 a.m. Sunday after neighbors said they heard people on the property, said Joe Cantu, a La Joya police spokesman. No one was inside the house, but officers found 11 people crowded in a small tool shed littered with soda cans on the property. Two of the immigrants told police they are residents of Nepal, police said. The other nine people, aged between 18 and 44 years...

LA JOYA — Two men dropped caltrops along Highway 83 as they evaded police during a pursuit early Thursday morning. La Joya police attempted to pull over a Ford F-150 along Farm-to-Market Road 2221 about 7:40 a.m. Thursday. The truck's driver turned around and went south before heading west along Highway 83, said Officer Joe Cantu, a department spokesman. The truck veered south along Sam Fordyce Road, where the driver and passenger eventually bailed and swam across the Rio Grande to Mexico. Along the highway, police said several dozen caltrops — spiked devices with several metal points designed to always...

LA JOYA - Police turned 17 undocumented immigrants believed to be from China over to officals from the U.S. Border Patrol earlier today. Officers responded to a call just after 8 a.m. about reported suspicious activity near the corner of Ebony Street and Palm Avenue, just blocks south of U.S. Highway 83, police spokesman Officer Joe Cantu said. When they arrived, police found 15 people believed to be from China who could not speak English nor Spanish, Cantu said. There were 10 men and five women crowded inside a red Chevrolet Suburban, he said. They appeared to be in their...

EDINBURG - A La Joya woman estimated to weigh at least half a ton was charged with capital murder Wednesday in connection with the death of her 2-year-old nephew. Investigators allege Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, struck Eliseo Gonzalez Jr. at least two times, causing the head injuries that eventually killed him last week. Their findings contradict earlier reports that the bedridden woman accidentally crushed the child under her own weight and raise troubling questions over how she will be prosecuted should her case go to trial. "Whatever the county and court system has to do in reference to the death...