Freedom of information is not free!

Sorry I haven't been active lately.

After naively believing that I could get the government to help me solve both my personal and my hobby problems, I came to the startling realization that we really have no rights when it comes to freedom of information. Thus, I figured it was pointless to continue pushing for answers that we'd never get.

I guess you could say I fell into somewhat of a depression, feeling that I let every one down considering we had made such good progress only to run into a wall I could not overcome.

I have so much to say and not enough words to say them.

Here is a recap of what I've discovered:

1) Our freedom to information is worthless unless you have money to buy it, and even then could you find out that you paid for naught.
2) You can invent information and get away with it. All you have to do is take a course on how inventing information is bad.
3) The Texas Attorney General, FBI, Texas Rangers, DPS, and pretty much every agency that claims to be there to protect your rights, are worthless, useless, and a waste of tax payer money. They can never do anything!

In trying to deal with some corruption in our local court house, I also learned that having evidence of said corruption is considered a "suspicion" and the FBI does not investigate a case going off of "suspicion". Wow!

But...I figured it wouldn't be a waste of time to rant here. I mean, I've pretty much been discussing this with myself, and that was a waste of time, lol.

So here I am again :)

I installed blogger on my phone and this is the first time I've used it in a while, so I have no idea how this post will look.

Also, Google Ads sent me a notification that they deactivated my account because I was in violation somehow. I have no idea how, but apparently I was. Yet, logging on today I see they still have their ads up. Bunch of rats. I hope no one clicks on their ads. I'll see how I can have them removed...if they can be removed.

In any event, I'll see what I can rant about next.

I haven't been keeping up with the news lately, so I have no idea what is going on in the world today, but I'll get to it fast.

Until then, I hope all is well to those who have been here before and kept up with my blog.

Thank you and until next time :)

Religion doesn't Hurt Anyone

When I posted my last post, I already knew I would get a thrashing for it, but I never expected it to come from my family.

My family reads my blog?!!

That’s a new one for me, lol.

I didn’t even know they knew I had one, but now I do, and in the most upfront manner, may I add.

Nothing beats waking up to your mother chewing your butt out over something you posted on the internet!

I'm 33 mom!!

But, it wasn't just my mother that tried to chastise me.

I received emails, text messages, and facebook messages asking me what was wrong with me for posting such “vile” stuff.

Just so they know, nothing is wrong with me.

A better question to ask would be, what is wrong with people who believe in something that doesn’t exist, to dedicate their lives and their living to a being that was created to control the masses?

Maybe what they meant was why was I being so harsh? 

Me being harsh?

I’m not being harsh.  I’m being realistic.

If you think what I have to say about religion is harsh, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your beliefs because there is nothing harsh about telling people that something that doesn’t exist, doesn’t exist.

Unless they are kids, then that’s different.

I had a hard time telling my daughter that Santa didn’t exist, but it had to be done because Santa couldn’t afford her gifts anymore, lol.

And the toothfairy?  She found that out on her own when she caught me sneaking glitter under her pillow with a dollar bill.  Oops!!

But, like my mom says, “What’s wrong with letting them believe?  Why do you have to try to influence them to believe like you do?”

Why?

Because it is not just a harmless game that is being played!

It’s not like saying, “Oh, what’s wrong with letting them play with water?”

This is mass brain washing at its finest!

Do you know who else brain washed the masses?  Hitler!

So, sure, the lady next door might be a great example of a good Christian and she is hurting no one with her prayers, right?  After all, she keeps her religion to herself. Right?

Right.

But this isn’t about the nice little old lady next door, or the good Samaritan working at the Red Cross.

This is about the idiot that thinks he can play god just because he read the bible and now he knows what “god wants” and so he wants to shove it down everyone else’s throats.

And while we can sit here and say, “Oh, that’s just one person.  There’s many more good for everyone bad.”

No, that’s not true.

Entire countries have changed their laws to fit their religious beliefs!

Here is a story of a religion that forces little girls to get married to protect them from sin:

"If they have sex and are not married they commit adultery and this is forbidden in Islam. So we allow them to marry and not to commit a crime."

You can find more evidence of harm by religion at the Facebook website called Evidence Of Harm by Religion.

What some people fail to see, or maybe I just don’t make myself clear enough, is that religion has a source. That source is fed to believers as being the ultimate power.

If you believe in the ultimate power, then his word is the ultimate word.

You can’t challenge that!  You just can’t challenge that ultimate power and his ultimate word!

If you do, guess what?

You are a non-believer!!

You are a non-believer, because if you truly believed that there is a god in the sky and that the bible is the word of god, or whatever religion/religious book you’re into, then you cannot change any of it without consent from the Supreme Being.

That’s like me making plans on how to budget your money, but you change them to your benefit. 

Those are no longer my plans.  Those are your plans!!

And you can’t say you trust me with your budget, because if you trusted me, you would have never changed my plans to begin with.

It’s the same thing with religion.  You can’t say you believe in the teachings of your religious book, but not follow it to a T.

Not that I’m encouraging anyone to follow it to a T, but that’s the way I see it.

Now, what does this have to do with the nice old lady across the street?

Well, she’s bending the rules, and when it comes to religion, I cannot trust rule breakers.

It’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the good religious people, but faith is a strong thing.

What I am saying is that these good religious people will one day have to face their faith and it may be something where they prefer to not bend the rules anymore.

They’ll do it because it will make them feel like they are doing good in the eyes of their lord.

It is evident already in today’s society.

Yes, the little old lady across the street has no problems with gay people, but she is not in agreement that they should be allowed to get married.

Yes, John Doe at the Red Cross, is a good guy, and while he can accept gay marriages, he cannot support abortion.

Yes, Jane Doe from the super market accepts gay marriages and supports abortion, but she cannot tolerate other languages.

Yes, Juanita Venado from your yoga class accepts gay marriages, supports abortion, is accepting of all languages, but she believes a woman’s place is in her home, not out there doing a “man’s job”.

Their religious beliefs haunt them and will always hinder progress, because when you challenge those beliefs, they will stomp their feet down and will not budge.

How do I know?

Because I was there before, and thankfully, I saw my way out of it.

What happens to religious people when they bump into the wall of reason?

They begin to doubt your intentions.

Yeah, you religious readers who read my last post, and who are reading this one, you know what I am talking about.

You are wondering if I am Satan tempting you into sin.

Do I not sound like the devil throwing a tantrum because of religion?

To religious people, voices like mine, where once there was reason to them in it, all of a sudden it starts to shift to doubt, because I have challenged their belief.

And when you challenge those beliefs, you become the enemy.  You become the voice of Satan, and like a good religious follower, they must shun the voice of Satan and stay strong by their god.

Remember, they changed the rules of their god to their benefit?  Now it is no longer beneficial for them to change it because I am challenging them against their belief.

Where they stopped believing that god hates gays, or that god hates abortion, or that god wants us to speak only one language, or that god prefers women to be silent and obedient;

Now they want to believe because I sound like Satan when in reality I'm just trying to open their eyes to the fact that they've been brainwashed?

That is exactly why I say that I am trying to convert people to stop believing in religious fairy tales, and start using common sense.

Sure, there are many good things in the bible that we can learn from, but it continues to be just a book.

There are many great fictional books out there that we can learn from too, but we don’t go around worshipping the authors.

“But Myra, I’d rather believe in god and find out he doesn’t exist than to not believe in god and find out that he does!”

Oh my!

What are you worried about then?  That if you don’t believe and it turns out that there is a god you will go to hell?

In that case, you are damned either way.  You believe in god, but you don’t follow his word to a T.  You invent your own religion and you sin repeatedly by not following his commandments. 

If hell exists, you’re going to hell either way!!! 

What?  Do you expect mercy from a god that has no qualms about killing innocent little children just because you kept strong to your faith?

You are out of your mind!

What you are saying sounds just like what I told my husband once, but I said it smarter and it had nothing to do with religion.

I said, “I’d rather checkup on you and distrust you and find out that you are not cheating on me than to trust you wholeheartedly and find out you are cheating on me.”

Which sounds smarter to you?

I would rather not be the idiot who’s sitting at home trusting her husband while her husband is out cheating on her.

That’s why I think it is wiser to not believe while you are living, and find out he exists when you are dead than to live believing and finding out he doesn’t exist.

Not that it matters much.  You are going to be dead anyways.

So what have you got to gain by believing?

Do you think that by not believing you will start breaking rules and stuff?

Do you not trust yourself enough to know right from wrong without religion in your life?

If, by now, you still think I sound like Satan tempting you to turn away from god, then you understand why it is so important for me to abolish all religion.

There is no getting through to people who insist on making the voice of reason their enemy.

Maybe to you there is no harm in believing, and who am I to tell you what to believe and what not to believe in, right?

I am no one other than the gay couple that was not allowed to marry because of the little old lady.

I am the pregnant teen that couldn’t get an abortion because of the good Samaritan at the Red Cross.

I am the immigrant who was taunted at school for speaking a different language.

I am the woman who was denied a job because of my sex.

I am the rule that you broke when you invented your religion.

I am the Satan in your hell, and you are the god in mine. (Not really, but I thought that sounded cool, lol)

So, naturally, you can do as you will, but I do hope you wake up soon.

I might rant about religion some more before moving on to another topic. Religion has been a lot on my mind as you can tell.

In the mean time, I will pray to the Unicorn goddesses that they shine many rainbows in your life.

Take care, and until next time…. 

Footprints in the sand

During the past couple of days, I've had this anger that's been festering inside of me regarding religion. 

The feeling is akin to watching a girlfriend getting brain-washed by an abusive boyfriend and not being able to do anything about it because she claims to be happy with him and besides, it's her life, right?

Yet, you want to do something about it because you care.

I believe this feeling began to manifest itself after I watched a documentary (National Geographic: Inside North Korea) in which Lisa Ling travels to North Korea to get an inside look at their oppressive government.


In the film, there's a segment in which an eye doctor is allowed to go in and help some North Korean's.

As each patient has their sight restored, everyone of them thanks their supreme leader, Kim Jong-Il.  Here's the segment I speak of:

 

That's not much different than how I view religion now a days.

I mean, what's the first thing the majority of us say when we find out everything is going to be ok?

"Thank God!"

If things aren't going well, who do we turn to? God.

If we've tried and we can't succeed, what do we say?  

"Let's just leave it to God"

And it's not necessarily just God, but whatever god that person tends to worship.

In this day and age, we are facing a crisis that is on the brim of becoming out of control, if it already isn't.

We've had politicians who want to use their beliefs to tell us what we can or cannot do and they usually base those beliefs on one thing alone:  The Holy Bible.

Now, here is where I must warn everyone who is religious, because what I am about to say will more than likely come out as offensive, but I am saying this as someone who is on the outside looking in, and who's been there.

What I am about to say is offensive!

If you believe in a god, you are either brain washed or have not grown up yet!

Look, I've been there. 

I grew up reading the bible and going to church and praying to god and there was even a time when I thought I was chosen to be one of god's brides.

It's one of the reasons why I am obsesses with the game Zelda.

I am supposed to be Link, god is Zelda, and I'm supposed to save her from the evil forces of the world by destroying the devil, a.k.a Gandandorf.

When I was about 9 or 10, I forced my parents to baptize me and I went to CCD classes religiously so that I could do my communion, and at one point in my life, I actually considered becoming a nun.

When I went to college, I remember writing on the bottom of the top bunker, "God DOES exist!  Just ask me! He's helped me so much!"

And one time, I was disappointed in my Atheist brother (who oddly enough is now going to church, lol) because he refused to give credit to god for helping him with his eye surgeries.  

I clearly remember him saying, "God was not there for me when I needed him most.  I was!  He did not help me get better through my surgery!  I did!"

It was a crush to my heart!  How could he not see the blessings of our Lord and Saviour!!

*gag*

That is exactly how I thought, but thankfully, not anymore!

Which brings us back to the title of this post, "Footprints in the Sand".

We've all more than likely heard the poem and seen the picture.  It goes something like this:

Now, this is not an attack on the poem.

This is undeniable a beautiful poem, but to the faithful, it's another cover over their eyes that they do not notice.

It's not just this poem, but every post you put on facebook, every religious picture you share, every prayer you have hanging on your wall, there I see it: Kim Jong-Il!

In other words, brain washed!

What do you mean that god carried you when there was only one set of footprints?  Are you kidding me?!!

God does NOT exist!

Do you know who carried you when there was only one set of footprints?

It was your family!

Your friends!

Your children!

And if there was no one there, guess who it was?

It was YOU!!!

You carried yourself!

These poems are meant to brain wash you into believing that there is an invisible being who is helping you out in your times of hardship, and that you should thank that invisible being when he helps you.

But tell me...

How do you know he exists?

For me, I knew he existed because my parents told me.

And when it wasn't my parents, it was the tv, the neighbor, our church, my friends, our teachers, our schools, and even our money.

The seed of doubt was planted in my head when I was in college taking a sociology class and our professor had us imagine our world without those influences.

It was the hardest thing to over come!

And if you are like me, like I was then, you will think that it is the devil trying to lead you astray.

But think about it...

How do you know the devil exists?

Have you seen him, or have you only heard about him, and if you've only heard about him, can you remember who it was that told you about him?

Wasn't it your parents?

And didn't your parents get that from church, who in turn point to the bible to "prove" to you that he does exist?

Now, I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but I feel that I have to start saying what I believe. 

I know it will offend some people, but I hope everyone takes it as constructive criticism. 

It's just got to the point where I see religion as verrrrry bad, and it should be abolished. 

It's hard to explain, but in my opinion, religion is the root of all our social problems, and it doesn't matter if those who practice it are good people, so long as religion stays alive, there will always be someone who wants to use it for bad, and religion doesn't take people one by one.  

It takes them in masses because most everyone needs something to believe in. 

They need to have a purpose, and when a bad person gives them that purpose, they can easily be manipulated. 

Just look at our current state of politics.  Religion plays in almost every aspect of it.  So many lives are being injured because of it, and in my opinion, I think that enough is enough!

People need to know the truth, and that truth is that god does not exist, so they are basically ruining the lives of others over something that does not exist.

Am I trying to convert people?  

Yes I am.

However, unlike all the other religion's out there, I'm not trying to convince them to believe in something that does not exist.

I am trying to convince them to believe in themselves and to thank themselves.

Life is about common sense.  Do good, feel good, receive good.  Do bad, feel bad, receive bad.

It's not always the case, as I'm sure some of you have had those moment where you do good and people always come and shit on you anyways, then you do something bad to them, like kick their ass, and feel better, lol.

But you don't need a god to feel better and believe in yourself.

Alas, I've reached the end of my rant, plus time is making me cut this short, but I will leave everyone who is religious with a little task.

In the next couple of days, try and catch yourself when you thank your god, or when you bring him up in your thoughts and why you bring him up.

Ask yourself, i.e., why am I thanking him?  Did he really help me, or did I help myself?

Do I really need to leave it up to him, or is there something I can do about it?

Did he really carry me during my most trying periods, or was it my friends and family that stood by my side faithfully?

Does god exist, or do I believe in him only because I've been told to believe?

Take care, and until next time.

Back Again

I want to thank everyone who has called, written, and spoken with me directly about continuing with my blog.

I must admit that it feels nice to have a group of people who are so supportive, but I must publicly announce that I never had the intention of quitting.

Therefore, I would like to apologize for not being around lately.  I burnt out and took a long break, but I have not given up.

Several factors contributed to my burn out.

One was having three computers break on me consecutively (I'm having bad luck with computers), and while I have a smart phone, it's kind of hard to write whole paragraphs with that stupid touch screen that keeps pressing the smiley face every time I want to delete a character (Arrgh!!).

The other is that I have nothing new to report, and the fact that it seems everyone is doing a damn fine job of preventing me from obtaining any new information in the case is a result of my burn out.

The last I heard was from the Attorney Generals office, whose explanation as to why the Sheriff of Zapata has not released information to me, despite having been ordered by the Attorney General's office themselves, is that so long as Sigi is playing phone tag, it is considered him "trying to work things out" with the AGO.

I gave the AGO my new address so they could resend me anything they might have sent to the last address, and the lady, Tamara Wilcox, said she was going to send me something, but to date, I have not received anything from them.

This new address is an address I can trust, so I am positive this time that they have not sent us anything.

I followed up on 3/28/2012 by calling the AG's office to find out if they've heard anything from Sigi.

Coincidentally, Ms. Wilcox claims that she just called Sigi on 3/27/2012, but he wasn't in his office.

Upset, I asked her if there's a timeline.  We've been waiting for over a year for this information!

Alas, she said there is no timeline, and so long as he is trying to contact them, then it is considered him trying to work things out with the AG, and the AG, according to Ms. Wilcox, is not going to spend resources trying to sue the Sheriff when it is evident he is trying to work things out with them.

How it is evident is beyond me, but none of this smells right, and I'll look into the PIA handbook to see how much Ms. Wilcox is saying is true, because as far as I know, this is like paying a bill, and playing phone tag with a bill collector does not mean the bill is paid, and the bill collector sure as hell isn't going to wait around for you to get back to them if your bill is waaay past due.

Update:  I found this article that basically says I may as well give up pursuing the Sheriff with the AGO.  As a matter of fact, I have decided to just give up for now, and if in the future I am contacted or new information is released to us, I will pick it up again.  That's the only thing left to do as no lawyer will represent us, and our only hope, the Attorney General, as is stated in the article, hasn't pursued a case since early 1995.  I highly doubt they'll decide to pick one up now on account of us.

So, for the meantime, I'm thinking about tackling new projects on my blog (something I should have been doing anyways), and putting the Hartley case in the back burner until we get/hear new information on the case.

For now, I have a doctors appointment to tend to, but I will be getting back on shortly to report on other news around web.

Until then, thank you for staying tuned...

Falcon Lake Murder: A Guilty Response

I was at the Dollar General the other day when I overheard the manager and one of his employees joking around.  Apparently, the manager found something that was broken, and before he could say anything, his employee jumps right out of the blue declaring, "I didn't do it!  It was already broken before I got here!"

The manager bursts out laughing and tells him that he wasn't even thinking that, but now that he brought it up...

That scene has been playing in my head for the last couple of days because it so reminds me of what the Texas Department of Public Safety did to us.

They sent us the DVD we requested for the David Hartley Police stop in Rio Grande City, but they made sure to let us know to not look at the closed captioning time stamp because it was wrong.

Geez, I didn't even know the video came with closed captioning so I would have never guessed to look there, but...thanks?

So what's the first thing I do?  I look at the closed captioning time stamp.

Now, when I first read their letter about the incorrect closed captioning time stamp, I assumed that since we requested the video waaay after the incident happened, that what I was going to see was the date the video was uploaded for us to view.

Instead, I get something that I just cannot ignore:  a time stamp that indicates the possibility that the stop might have actually occurred two days before David was supposedly shot.

Here is the letter that they sent us:

Notice they claim to have sent us a station activity log and the audio communications.  We had already previously received those, so it is nothing new.  If you are interested in viewing/hearing them, you can read my previous blog here:  LINK

As for the dash camera video, here is the dash camera video with the closed captioning on (and check out the ending so you can see a close up of the truck "full of marijuana" that ended the stop):

Now, there are several reasons why I have an issue with their claim that the closed captioning has the incorrect time and date.


One of them being, how do they know it's incorrect?  They state that the station activity log reflects the correct time and date of the stop, but how do they know that that is the correct time and date?


Secondly, the time stamp seems to be working just fine.  If the police officer hits the brake, the time stamp reflects a little "B".  When the lights go on, it shows a little "L", and when the microphone turns on, it shows a little "M".  So it seems to be working just fine.  Or do you mean to tell me that the Texas DPS is in the habit of operating units that display the wrong time stamp?  


Third, they told us before that the dash cameras they use do not have a date and time stamp, so what is this?!!

Fourth, to add more to the mystery, if you notice the cars in the video that parked on the side of the road across from where the police stop David.  Where those cars are parked, that's Sanchez Funeral Home.  While it may be nothing, normally, the only time cars are parked there is when there is a funeral service going on.  I called Sanchez Funeral Home to check what times they held services on September 30 and the 28th, but they claim that they had NO services on those days.  Could those cars be parked there because of a funeral service?  If so, the time stamp on the closed captioning might be even more off than we think!


Lastly, and most importantly, had Tiffany kept her story straight from the beginning, I might have not heeded my doubts so much.  But not only did she not keep her story straight, everything and everyone that is involved with this case has been real shady.


Take for example, the Zapata County Sheriff, Sigifredo Gonzalez, who STILL has not answered ANY of my public information requests, with the exception of the half assed response he gave us for the 911 call.


But, I'm not going to be too hard on him just yet, as it has come across my attention that it could be possible that I am the one to blame.


You see, I do live close to the border, so the last thing I want is for anyone to know where I live, especially Sheriff Sigi because if I am correct about his involvement and his connections with the cartel, then he doesn't need to know where I live

So I asked to borrow a P.O. Box from a friend who lives out of state, and I guess my friend just lost interest in this case because he has not responded to my inquiries regarding some pending PIAs.

Long story short:  I might have to re-request everything again and have it sent to a different address just to be on the safe side.

Anywho, I'm sure by now that those of you who have been keeping up with the Hartley story have heard by now that there were some human remains found near Falcon Lake.

This is one of the few times that I agree with Sigi and state that I do not believe those remains are from David.

In one of the first videos aired by Will Ripley, which is no longer available, Tiffany looked amused, almost as if she found it funny that anyone could find David's body, either because she knows there is no body, or because she knows the body won't be found on Falcon Lake.

Whatever the case, I'd really like to get my hands on those photos, but it opens a whole new fresh can of worms.

Why would the cartel go out of their way to drag a dead body up stream?  And, assuming Tiffany's story is true, a dead body to top it off!

And why tie the feet if the man was supposedly already dead?  It's not like they needed to kill him anymore.  Usually the feet are tied to drown the victim, not sink him, even though it is possible for someone to tie the feet to sink a body, but that's not something commonly practiced by the cartel on an already dead body.   Again, it's just not something the cartel would do.


Also, the guy who found the body claims that he saw what looked like a bullet hole on the back of the skull of the remains he found, but he wasn't sure.  While I can't judge what he saw without pictures, it could be further proof that what he found was not David.  


I mean, in several interviews, Tiffany kept pointing to her forehead to emphasize where David was shot, so I'm pretty sure it couldn't be too hard to notice a hole on the skulls forehead.  The back of the head is one thing if the skull is laying facing up, but the forehead, basing on the details he gives, should have been visible and one would more than likely clearly see a bullet hole on the forehead.


But, like I said, without pictures we can only speculate.


Unfortunately, that is all I have for now on this subject considering that I must re-do several requests to ensure that I have not been denied information.


I know that the Texas Attorney General has already received some of my complaints, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I am not made to look like a fool for failing to receive the information that they might have already sent out.


But I have a new address now.  I just hope it doesn't turn into a big deal having to request everything all over again.


Until next time, please stay tuned...

Starr County says whaaat?

You know, life out here in the country is pretty much droll.

Normally, we have nothing else to do other than wait for something interesting to happen, and when it does, we start swarming around like hungry bees.

I mean, it's pretty often that I am sitting at home, minding my own business, when all of a sudden, here comes a relative, friend, or neighbor to ask me if I have heard about what is going on, and my answer is usually, "No I haven't".

Following course, they usually proceed in telling me what just happened, and it never fails that the next person who comes along to tell me the recent exciting events that has the whole town buzzing with excitement, it never fails that they add more to the story than there is to it.

It is why my mom and I usually laugh when we jokingly share news.

"Hey mom!  Did you know there was a car accident down the road?"

"No mija!  Quando paso?"

"It must have been recent because the cops were just arriving.  You should have seen it!  There were 20 police cars, 15 ambulances and they had to bring in 5 helicopters!"

In reality, it normally is just some guy getting pulled over, and because the news is not exciting enough, we make it so.

Now, I admit, I rarely go out and I rarely watch TV, and as a result I often question if the stance that I have taken to protect the border from being demonized is an ignorant one.

I see my reality of life on the border, and pretty much assume that everyone around me lives pretty much the same life style.

I go town.  It's peaceful.  I come back.  It's peaceful.  What a peaceful day!

On the other hand, I wonder if I did myself a great disservice of subscribing to my local news sources.

It pretty much seems that there is something going on every day, and it just reminds me of what my best friend once told me.

She said, "Don't watch the news unless you want to get depressed."

Of course, she was referring to children being murdered or being abused by their parents.  Apparently, there's a story about that every day, and it saddens her that someone would want to hurt their children in such manner.

However, we don't live in fear that our next door neighbor might murder their child, so why do we live in fear that the border is anything like they make it sound on the news?

As an example, the other day I received a call from my husband who asked me to check out the news because apparently he heard that the cartel had crossed to this side and that a war had broke out between them and the local police.

"It's so bad that the local police has requested back up from other cities because they don't have the power to control them.  This has all gone to shit!" he said.

Now, I've always said that the day our borders actually turn into a war zone, I would tell you.

I'm not going to say that it won't suck having to admit that my home has turned into a disaster area, so when my husband told me this, my heart sank.

How could I face my blog and tell them that it has finally begun and that I can no longer defend the border from being maligned?

After such an event, there can be no denying that the borders are dangerous, so to me, it was as if my career had ended.

I checked the local news stations and nothing was on, so I went online to check my news sources on facebook and sure enough, the rumors had started.

"...there is a shooting with the cartel.  There is a bp dead!"

"15 individuals have crossed to this side!"

"I heard that 18 armed men crossed the river near Garceno..."

In the end, the reality turned out to be that there was no border patrol agent dead and it was never confirmed how many individuals really crossed, although one news source stated about 10-15 suspects.

And the shoot out?

There was no shoot out here unless the border patrol are covering up something.

The reason I say that is because the shoot out actually happened IN Mexico, which is why the suspects had to swim the river to get to safety on THIS side.

Where it gets fishy is the part where one of the suspects, who was supposedly shot, is taken to the hospital in Rio Grande City in critical condition.

It's fishy because it begs the question:  How can a critically injured man swim a river in his condition?

Could the border patrol have shot him and disguised it as a consequence of a battle gone wrong in Mexico?

But that's neither here nor there.

The moral of the story is that sometimes things are taken out of context and made to sound more extreme than they really are.

Having said that, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that no war has broken out on our peaceful borders.

Then the next day, as I'm getting ready to go run an errand, my neighbor runs to me in a panic.

"Did you hear about the men that crossed the river yesterday?!!!  The ones that got away are holding the kids at the middle school hostage.  They've thrown road spikes to thwart the police and they are threatening to start shooting the students if the police don't let the other suspects go!  The school has gone into lock down!"

**SIGH**

Will it ever end?

So here I go to check out my sources, and guess what, it was all a lie.

No, my neighbor wasn't being intentionally mean.

That's just the way rumors get started and it makes for a great story to us socially deprived border folk.

Unfortunately, it hurts us just the same, and thus, my job gets harder to do, as I don't only have to tackle the exaggerated stories about our borders that are being created by those who don't live here, but I also have to wrestle with the locals who delight on such rumors.

For now, rest assured that our borders are just as safe as they have ever been, and the reality is, the news and rumor is making people panic, including myself I must admit.

Before I end, I want to share a video with you from our local news station that captures the kind of drama that exists here.



The reason I am sharing it is because I live around the area where these residents live and I know for a fact that the situation is not as extreme as they make it sound, but stories like theirs are convincing to others, who tell others, who tell others, until the rumor grows.

One of the posters on the facebook wall for this newstation questioned why the station was only reporting about the negative stories in Starr County, but when something positive happens, they are never there to report it.

I could not agree more with the person who posted that question, and thus, I will do my best to share the positive while I battle the negative.

As a final note, we would like to remind you that we have not given up on the Tiffany Hartley story.  We are still working to resolve some issues and we have not received any new information that we would like to share other than we are still in the process of taking the Sheriff to court for disregarding the attorney general's decision.

Also, we sent out some more complaint letters to the attorney general, which they have already responded to having received.

We also had sent an amended FOIA to customs and border protections, to which they have not responded and are already way past their deadline to respond, so we must now figure out to whom we should address our complaint to.


Until then, rest assured that I am still here and counting on you to stay tuned...

Falcon Lake Murder: The OAG decides

Well, we have finally received the decision from the Attorney General as to whether the Sheriff is allowed to except information, and they've ruled against him because he took too long to respond.

However, because he was able to provide compelling reason to withhold certain information under the guise that the witnesses lives "were in danger" because he had "sources" telling him that the cartel were seeking to "eliminate" all the witnesses, the OAG allowed him to withhold identifying information, or so that's what I understand from their letter.  Here is what they sent us:

It's a little confusing because they are addressing Sigi, not us, but mainly what they are telling Sigi is that the only information he can withhold is identifying information, which is what should be done anyways.

On the other hand, I'm not completely positive on this.

The OAG keeps referencing items that they've highlighted, but until we get this information from Sigi, we won't know for certain what he was allowed to withhold.

According to the OAG, Sigi has 10 days from the receipt of their letter to provide the information to us.  We received this letter on September 20, 2011.

Holy crap!

Sigi is late again with providing this information to us!

More signs that something is up with this Falcon Lake murder story.

So what's our next step?

I believe our next step is to write a Writ of Mandamus.  This is sort of like Tiffany Hartley and Judicial Watch's lawsuits against the FBI, the DOJ, and the DOS.

In short, Sigi is being ordered to give us the information we are requesting.

According to the Texas Government Code § 552.353:

(e)  An offense under this section is a misdemeanor 
     punishable by:           
    (1)  a fine of not more than $1,000;                                          
    (2)  confinement in the county jail for not more 
         than six months;  or       
    (3)  both the fine and confinement.                                           
(f)  A violation under this section 
   constitutes official misconduct.         

We'll let you know how that works out.

In the meantime, we're working up another FOIA similar to the one that Tiffany Hartley sent the FBI, DOJ, and DOS.

I'm hoping the one we send them will make them interested in investigating Tiffany deeper, but my partners in this case believe that we'll get about as much from them as Tiffany has, meaning we are expecting to get nothing from them.

Personally, I think it's still worth a try.  I'm really interested in knowing if the FBI was involved in this case or not.

It may be the reason why the FBI was unable to provide Judicial Watch any information.  They may have never been involved.

Not that that leaves them off the hook, but if that's true, then why has Tiffany been deceiving us on that?

I've tried looking for articles that mention the FBI involvement in the case, but the only one I found was one claiming that they weren't involved.

ValleyCentral reports:

"Even though Hartley's interview was inside the FBI building, no FBI or American authorities were present during the questioning, something Hartley was okay with."

Of course she was okay with it.


Lord forbid the FBI might actually want to investigate her, right?


Which is why I suspect that these lawsuits she just tossed into the ring have her looking nervous.


One bad step, and the FBI might decide to do what they should have done a long time ago to her.


But I also suspect that she didn't squeal too much about NOT submitting a FOIA because

a.) she didn't know a FOIA could lead to a lawsuit, and;

b.) she knew they were not going to have any information on the case because they were never involved.

I also suspect that Judicial Watch was aware of b, but it was in their best interest to have them NOT provide any information so they could go forth and sue.

From what I have read, but don't take my word for it, it seems that these lawsuits really mean nothing.  If they don't want to provide this information, they don't have to, but they have to pay for the attorney fees, which might explain why Judicial Watch was all too ready to accept the case.

Like I said, don't take my word for it, and I will investigate that to see if I hit the nail on the head or not.

In any event, in the end, I'm really interested in seeing how this lawsuit is going to play out.

My bet is that it was all a publicity stunt to help boost Judicial Watch and, garner some support to scare whomever into giving Tiffany a death certificate for David, even though we don't really know if he's dead or not.


Well, that's all for now.

I will keep you informed soon as to what has been going on in this case as soon as we get more information from the PIA's and FOIA's (or complaints for such) that we sent out.

Until next time, please stay tuned for more....

Falcon Lake Murder: Update

I just want to let everyone know (because a lot of people have been asking) that there will be some updates pretty soon.

I understand that many of you are getting anxious to hear what is going on in the background, but rest assured that the delays on this case are only because information is being withheld from us and the appeal process is a pretty long one.

We found that out the hard way.

A complaint that many people have been giving me a lot of is that I am taking too long to post and that my posts are too long to follow.

A good blogger needs to do things the opposite, blog more and say less, lol.

I appreciate constructive criticism, thus, I will work on posting more often and making them shorter and easier to follow.

I just find it hard to make a long story short without excluding important details, and this story seems to be full of important details if you ask me.

Anyways, I decided I will also start working on other stories/cases during periods where we are awaiting information.

Now, this does not mean I have given up on this case.


All it means is that if I want to keep people interested, I need to blog more, and I'm not doing that during times when responses are taking too long to be received and thus there is no news to share in this case.
When I started this blog, I didn't do it with the intention of working solely on the Tiffany Hartley case.

My problem is that I cannot multitask, but I'm sure that if I try, I can work on another case or two that is related to the demonizing of our safe American borders.

In the meantime, back to the Tiffany Hartley case, let me tell you what has been going on so far:

Currently, we are reviewing the decision of the Attorney Generals office in regards to the 911 PIA complaint we sent out.

I will comment further sometime in the next few days as to what their decision was.

I'm not sure what exactly I have stated in the past, but one thing is for sure, we didn't have our stuff organized.

Now that we do, we realize that many of our complaints to the Attorney General were never sent out.

Here is a list of the complaints that we sent out this week to the OAG:

• Public Information Request for ALL Pirate Related incidents on Falcon Lake
• Public Information Request for information on where the Sheriff got the CBP photo (this one also includes the request for information on where the Sheriff got the photo of the white house in Starr County that he claims was shot at by stray bullets from Mexico)
• Public Information Request for information on the bloodstain on Tiffany's life vest, coordinates given, etc.
• Public Information Request for the DPS dashcamera video and other information

We did not submit a FOIA complaint for the CBP request for in information for several reason.


One, we cannot prove they have that photo in existence.


Two, the photo might be in existence, but after the Sheriff's reply stating that he received the CBP photo at his office "around noon", well, noon to me can be anywhere from 12 noon to 2pm.  Our request only covered from 2pm to 6pm, thus, we re-did the FOIA, amended the time to 9am to 6pm to cover every possiblity, and we included a picture this time so they know what picture we are talking about.  We also included references so they know we're not making this up.

And, three, we only had 60 days to appeal, and those 60 days are up.

We found out a little too late, so instead, what we are going to do is re-send them the amended FOIA, and if they insist they don't have it in their possession this time, then we'll take it a step further.

This is the new amended FOIA we sent them:

•  CBP FOIA for information on CBP photo Sigi released to the media of "suspects" on a boat.

Now, this times, if they insist the photo is not in existence, we will make sure not to miss the 60 days deadline, and we will seek further action in order to verify that this photo does not exist.

In the meantime, I have been watching all the Tiffany Hartley updates on the news lately, and I have a couple of choice words I'd like to share, but, I'll leave that for my next blog because I want to accompany it with a video or something and right now all my trial software has expired, so...

Until next time, please don't forget to stay tuned for more...

Falcon Lake Murder: Falcon Lake Phishing?

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ok, so I thought that was a catching title, but I also thought it was appropriate as well.

Maybe I'm the only one that finds humor in that?

Whatever the case, I believe that we have all heard of people "phishing" for information on the internet.  Usually phishing is associated with some form of scam in which a person tries to obtain personal information from another by making them believe they are a legitimate website or a legitimate company.

In this case, I believe phishing is the appropriate term to use when referring to what the Sheriff of Zapata County is trying to do.

While he may not be trying to scam people to obtain their personal information, he is trying to scam them into believing something untrue, and very likely trying to scam legislators into giving him more "border security" monies.

Why do I say this?

It all goes back to our public information requests.

Here is what has been going on:

Back on May 13, 2011, we sent the Zapata County Sheriff a Public Information request for more information in regards to all the pirate related attacks he claims have occurred on Falcon Lake.

Personally, I have never bought into the claim that so many incidents have occurred.  While I believe but one of the incidents, there are some that I just don't buy.  I talked about this in my blog back in March.

But it is pretty hard to let go of the fact that it might be possible that these claims aren't coming from Sigi alone.  After all, the reports claim to come from the people who have been attacked, but I do believe in conspiracies, and so I sought out to find out more about these stories and try to see if there is more to it, if they actually happened, or if it might be possible these are just part of a bigger plan.

Yes, I am talking about a conspiracy!

I very much have every reason to believe that a conspiracy is at play.

I have lived on the border long enough to know fact from fiction, and obviously, or I wouldn't be writing about it, the stories coming out of Zapata County are not ringing like facts to me.

And like I said before, this wouldn't be the first time someone tries to make up a story for political reasons.

But the reason these stories work is because most people don't have the experience of living on the border like others.  They rely on the news to tell them how things are going here, and frankly, I've noticed, the news really likes to make things interesting, and the only way to make things interesting is to fabricate a little and make things sound outrageous.

In short, it is a publicity stunt.

They want to keep their viewers entertained, and they are not going to be actively watching the news if there is nothing on there to report about, or at least nothing interesting to report about.

So people fall for it, mainly because they don't have the time or the education to actively seek out information to get down to the facts.

And frankly, I think that is what the Sheriff of Zapata County wasn't expecting, that someone who has the time and the education to seek out information would do so.

He probably thought he'd wave his badge around and people would buy his bull shit.

Sadly for him, that is not the case and I strongly believe that that is why now he is cowering and trying to hide in the shadows and trying to wiggle around the hard questions we are asking him that the media should have been asking of him and Tiffany from day one.

So back to the nitty gritty of our May 13th PIA request.  Our May 13th PIA request was this:

However, we never got a response back from Sigi, even after the 10 days required for him to respond, so we called his office and tried to get information, but he was never there.

So we emailed him instead.  Here is our complete conversation via email:
First request:

Sigi's response:

Notice, here is where my phishing comment comes into play.  The Sheriff is basically using the, "I heard it from a friend of a friend of a friend" excuse.  He is trying to be sly and wiggle through undetected, and I admit, I almost fell for it if my coworkers on this case hadn't pointed out to me the obvious...

"How does he verify any of his claims?"

It took me a while to get what they meant, but finally, I got it.

So we wrote him back with the tough questions that he has never been asked before, and as expected, he never responded back.  Here was one of the last emails we sent him that he never responded to:

To date we have not heard a response from Sigi, but it's not like he's been busy.  He's obviously had time to respond to criticism of his claims on the Zapata Times.  In response to this interview, Renato Ramirez from Zapata Texas (President of IBC Bank) fires a fiery criticism of Sheriff Sigi.  Here is what he has to say:

Renato Ramirez's fiery response to Sheriff Sigi
http://issuu.com/lmtonline/docs/thezapatatimes070211

Miffed, the Sheriff responds back in a childish way.  Here is what he has to say back:

What ensues, is a battle of wits as Renato responds to his letter the following week:

Not wanting to stay behind, Sigi offers one final reply:

Renato never replies back, and I don't blame him.  Sigi never answered his questions about what has Sigi done for Zapata County.  The most Sigi does is take credit for our safe communities making it sound like he's the reason they are safe, but never admitting that they have always been safe, with or without him.

I decided to contact Renato Ramirez and was glad when he responded back.

What he had to say about Sigi's final response was appropriate and just what I was thinking.

This is the most important part, in my opinion, of what Mr. Ramirez had to say:

"Sigi claims he made Zapata safe--the reality is that the law enforcement officers in the Zapata County Sheriff's department amount to 10% of all law enforcement in Zapata County. FBI, CBP, ICE, DEA task force, TPW agents, TABC, ATF, etc.--more than twelve state and federal agencies are protecting Zapata. He stated in the Presencia News that these agents cover up crime. He is really not thinking very logically."

No, he is not.

Sigi refers to the 700 comments in this article instead.

I think Sigi didn't sort out the comments from newest to oldest, because for the first couple of pages, it is border residents speaking up and thanking USA Today for finally telling the truth about the borders, and not all that media hype.

But, our request for information for the CBP photo wasn't the last request we sent.  There was one more important request we made to which he has not responded to either.

That request was in regards to the blood stain evidence on Tiffany Hartley's life jacket.

This was the request:

We have not heard from Sheriff Sigi since he received this letter, and it was sent to him via email, pasted and as an attachment to ensure that he received it.

We are currently working on another complaint to send to the Attorney General.

In the mean time, we have already spoken with the person in charge of our case at the Attorney General's office, Mr. Sterner.

Mr. Sterner says that Sigi did file a request for ruling on July 6th, something that we never got.

However, he stated that the July 6 letter was Sigi complaining that the Pirate PIA had already been requested when we sent out the first PIA related to Tiffany Hartley. 

Remember in that PIA we requested all information related to the Tiffany Hartley case? 

Well, the Pirate PIA would have included the Tiffany Hartley case, so in short, we requested the same information twice, or so that's what Sigi was trying to tell the AOG, to which I explained to them that it was not the same thing, although we did admit that we did not know how to phrase it to where they could exclude the Tiffany Hartley case because we had already requested for that. 

But then, he (Sigi) tried using that as an excuse to not release information on our first PIA, which Sterner clearly said he did not see that happening unless he could provide a better reason. 

So, basically, what happened is that Sigi started off complaining about the Pirate PIA and tried using that as an excuse to not release the Full 911 call and the rest of the information related to the Hartley case. 

Isn't that something?

Mr. Sterner then said that they (OAG) have 45 business days from the day they request a ruling to issue a ruling so in this case the 45 business dead line is September 14th, so they will issue a formal attorney generals opinion on whether they have to release this information to us then. 

Then he asks me if I got a copy of a July 6th letter from Sigi's office, and I said no. 

So he noted it on the file that we didn't receive it. 

He also said that what happens when they missed their dead line (which Sigi was way past the 10 days to respond) is that they wave all discretionary exceptions so the only information that can be withheld from them is confidential. 

They can't claim litigary exception or anything like that, which is a good thing I believe.

I still need to call Mr. Sterner back and ask him a few more questions, like does the 45 business days deadline also include our May 13th request for information, or the 911 call PIA which had been our first complaint letter we sent, because in my opinion, those are long over due, and the 45 business days should only include the requests for information that were sent out in June.

I will keep you posted as to what is going on as soon as we receive more information.

Take care, and until next time....

Falcon Lake Murder: "If you ever touch me again, I will kill you!"

I have no idea how to start this blog off.
 
I mean, it's not that I don't have anything to say, but I just don't know how to go about saying it.

In the past few weeks we have received various information that seems to amount to nothing and everything at the same time.


Quite frankly, I'm very frustrated.


Frustrated because even though we have received some information, there is more still missing, but as usual, the Sheriff of Zapata County is stalling once again.

This time, he hasn't even responded to our PIA request and we are fixing to, once again, file a complaint with the Attorney General.

In my opinion, the only people who stall this information that should be readily available to the public are those who have something to hide, so...what are you hiding Sheriff Sigi?

Let me begin by letting you know what we have asked for so far.

We wrote the Texas Department of Public Safety to request the full video of David Hartley being stopped in Rio Grande City with a time stamp on it, all the stops made that day, the name of the officers involved in the stop, and other information.

While they told us they would be taking a while with the police stop video, they did submit to us some information that seemed to only confuse the matter more.

One paper had all of the stops made that day by the officers, but it did not include the stop of David Michael Hartley.  Here is that document:

Notice that the stop of David Michael Hartley is missing on this report, but now we have an explanation as to why there were three officers present for one stop:  One was in training.

Later we received more information.  This time, the stopping of David Hartley is shown, but there seems to be some inconsistencies with the report.

The report is several pages long, but here are the parts of the report that are of interest:

I was going to detail the call log for a better understanding of what it tells is going on, but I found it too tedious.

For one, it is evident that there is information redacted, naturally, as PIA allows for them to withhold information such as drivers license numbers and such.

Lastly, without those numbers, there is no telling exactly what vehicle it is they are checking, but it is obvious they are checking at one point a Colorado drivers license and a Mexican drivers license at the time when David Hartley was stopped.

The coordinates for the stop also coordinate with where David Hartley was last stopped in Rio Grande City, Texas.

Having said that, the information does not coordinate with what we see and hear in the video on YouTube.

Mind you, we are still waiting, past the required time allotted for a PIA request, for the full video of the stopping of David Michael Hartley.

Therefore, we cannot comment further with confidence that the information they have given us is contrary to what we see and hear on the YouTube video of the DPS stop.

What I can say, however, is that it is very odd that the Hartley's is the only stop made that day in which they had to communicate through a DEL (Direct Exchange Line or private line).

Also of interest is the fact that when we called to find out why the Hartley's were not listed in the first report, they claim it is because that report only includes those stops that resulted in a ticket, but the second report clearly shows that the stops that they DID list on the first report, from what I could tell, some of them did NOT result in a ticket.  I do not see what the significance in that could be other than it is very odd.

However, that information is secondary.

Our main point, even though we had other points to check, was that we just wanted to verify for ourselves that the Hartley's were stopped that day and at that time.

That point is confirmed with those reports.

On the other hand, there was also one more bit of information that DPS sent us, and that is an audio that they titled "Multiple recordings.wav", a name that was misleading as there was only one recording in that file that lasted a total of 52 seconds.  The audio is just the recording of the officer calling in to check Tiffany Hartley's jet ski, and that in itself, is odd.

Why only one jet ski?  Why only Tiffany's jet ski?  Why not David's jet ski as well?

Here is the audio recording they sent us, and I'd like to thank a friend who is working with me on this for making this audio into a small clip:

How do I know it's Tiffany's jet ski?

Well, with the help of my wonderful friends who are helping me with this case we were able to verify that the jet ski in which Tiffany came back in is hers.

Here is what we did:  We compared pictures and with a little back ground checking online, we were able to obtain information about the jet skis.  

Well, I shouldn't include myself in that "we" since my friends did the hard digging.  I just compared these pictures:

From the inquiry results on the jet skis, we were able to note that the Jet ski with the TX Number 3671AX has a serial number of ZZN48962E404, which is what the officer is running in the audio clip in the above video (in police talk that's : Zero Zero Nora 4 8 9 6 2 Edward 4 0 4).

In the YouTube video provided online, it is the only jet ski they run also, hence, it seems, they only run Tiffany Hartley's jet ski.



I will let this information simmer for a while as we await more information that has been requested.

We have also received a response from Customs and Border Protection in which, it seems, they are claiming that they do not have any records in regards to the following photograph:

Their response was odd as well because we were fixing to call them to find out what was taking them so long to respond when we received two letters from them on the same day.

One letter saying that they needed more time because they were contacting their field offices to gather the information we requested.  Here is the letter:

The very next letter stating they could not find anything that we requested.  Here is that letter:

Normally, you get one letter stating they need time to find the information, and then a few weeks later the other letter claiming they found nothing, but both on the same day?

It's almost like they didn't even look, if you ask me.

With that said, it begs the question: Who is lying?

I mean, if it's Sheriff Sigi, then why has CBP not stepped in to say that the Sheriff is lying?

Then again, the Sheriff has lied on other occasions and no one has stepped in to call him out on his lies.

What am I talking about?

Here's a read so that you may understand: http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/commit/c640/wtpdf/1108-SigifredoGonzalez-1.pdf

On page 10, Sigi claims the following:

A single mother living in Starr County, Texas, has to hide under her bed, along with her young daughters, every time she hears gunshots in Mexico. Bullets from gun battles in Mexico have struck her home. Figure 7 below shows the bullet indentations to her home.

He follows it up with this picture:

And then pictures of the bullet indentations on the walls.

Being from Starr County myself, I found this story odd.

For one, there are few places in Starr County where this could be possible because the houses are just a block away or less from the border.  One of those places is Rio Grande City, which would be kind of ridiculous considering that most of the battles in Camargo, Mexico (Rio Grande City's Mexican border neighbor) take place in the city or away from it.  The city of Camargo is about 5 miles away from the houses on this side, so unless a bullet can travel 5 miles, wavering around trees and brush, then it is possible.  It would also be possible if they have a battle right by the river, an incident that is very rare except to U.S. law enforcement.

About a year or so ago there was one incident on the international bridge in Rio Grande City where residents on this side could hear a gun battle that took place ON THE MEXICAN side, but no buildings on this side were struck, and it was the last known event in Rio Grande City where one could actually say we heard the gunshots.  This was back when the drug wars were barely starting and things started to get serious in Mexico.  I was the one that called the news station to report on the incident, and it is not the first time that the news has misquoted what I said.  People were not rushing back into the store to "seek shelter from the gunfire".  It was the workers who work in the back of the H-E-B building and they rushed inside because the sounds of the gunfire could be heard and they had no idea where it was coming from until someone came in to tell them the gunshots were being fired at the customs facility in Mexico.  The customs facility in Camargo is about 3 blocks away from H-E-B, so the shots sounded very close.

The reason I called the news station was because this was around the time people were starting to panic, and I admit that with all the rumors going on, I started to panic as well.  When I heard the gunshots, someone who had just come back from where the incident took place came in claiming the Mexican cartel were shooting at OUR customs facility and that they were trying to gain access into the US because they were chasing another cartel.  While I defend the border from malicious rumors, I also love our border patrol and law enforcement officers and won't stand for any of them getting attacked by drug cartels, so I wanted the news to investigate and find out what happened.  Instead, they just reported on the news with the usual exaggeration.

Anyways, for the most part, the houses on this side are protected by miles of fields and/or woods on either side of the border.

Another place where this might be possible is Roma, Texas, but they'd have to either be shooting at buildings intentionally or they'd have to be lousy shooters, as Roma, Texas is at a much higher elevation than it's Mexican neighbor city, Miguel Aleman, Mexico.  To see what I mean, check out my diary entry titled "Violence on the Border?" and watch the video towards the end of the entry so you can see the difference in elevation between the two border cities.

Another place where this might be possible is Fronton, Texas, but also, highly unlikely because of the farm fields that separate the two neighboring border cities.

I set out to look for this house anyways.

I drove up and down the border covering miles and miles, through vacant and populated places, for almost two weeks, and all to no avail.

I became frustrated because I had covered almost every inch of the border where this could be possible, not only traveling the areas by car, but also looking for this house via google map through street view from home.

In the end, I decided to dig deeper.

I called the Starr County Sheriff's department and spoke to Chief Pena and asked him if he knew of any such incident in which a house was struck by stray bullets from Mexico in Starr County.

Immediately one could tell that he was not aware of any such incident occurring, and after our brief interview, he down right plainly stated that to his knowledge, no such incident ever occurred, but I should call the Roma Police Department and see if they knew anything about this incident.  He did state that every once in a while they get called out to Fronton, Texas to check up on calls where a citizen is worried because they can hear gunshots in Mexico, "but hitting houses [on this side]?  I had never heard of that."

Asked if he believed the story that houses were getting shot at on this side by stray bullets from Mexico, he states, "I honestly say...I don't believe that."

So I called Roma Police Department and spoke with Captain Francisco Garcia who also stated that he was not aware of such an incident ever occurring in his jurisdiction in Starr County.

"I think he was talking about some houses, but they were over there in Zapata County", Captain Garcia states.

Really?  But Sheriff Sigi is from Zapata County and I'm sure he'd be using his bragging rights if that were the case, not to mention that he not only wrote about it, but he also talked about it as well.

So I set out to talk to the Zapata County Sheriff to find out exactly where this house was at and where he got this information from, but unfortunately, and as always, Sigi was not in his office.

I was first told he wasn't going to be there until Thursday, but then I asked to speak to the second in command, or the person who is in charge during Sigi's absence.

That's when I was transferred over to Captain Sanchez who now told me that Sigi was going to be in and out of the office because his mother-in-law was ill and she "had taken a turn for the worse".

He was not able to help me, so I let him know to tell Sigi I was sending him an email and if he could respond to it.  If not, I'd be calling back on Thursday.

I called Thursday only to be told that Sigi was now out of town, "but he was here yesterday" said the lady!

Naturally, I was upset.  I don't like being put through the run around, and I told them so too, so after giving them a piece of my mind, I told them what they needed to do, which was take down my questions, get some answers, and when I call back on Tuesday, there should be NO EXCUSE for me not receive those answers.

I checked my email to see if Sigi had responded, and have been checking it ever since, but no response from him.  I'm positive he has already seen my email, and you know what?

While I understand that Sheriff's are politicians and sometimes can be busy, the questions are not too complicated and don't require a lengthy amount of time to research.  All I wanted to know was the location of that white house in Starr County (what city?), the date and time if possible that the house was shot at, where was our "All pirate attack related incident" PIA, and who gave him that CBP photo of the "suspects" on the boat?  He should have information readily available if he is telling the truth.  The fact that he doesn't is very suspicious that he is lying because only liars buy time.

I honestly hope that Tuesday will bring us some answer, and if not, then it is time to take stricter action.

Yet, this scenario is very reminiscent of our last one when we couldn't seem to catch Sigi in his office.

We suspected then that he was trying to come up with something to distract from the facts we were finding, and sure enough, he came up with the picture of the "suspects" on a boat.

Now I have to wonder what he's planning.  What "new evidence" will he produce for us this time?


Or worse, what travesty will befall our peaceful borders to "prove" his point?

It's not like the Sheriff is a patient man, or an honorable one at that.

What do I mean? 

During our research, we came across this lawsuit in which Sheriff Sigi viciously attacks not only a helpless patient that is restrained to a stretcher, but a firefighter who tried to stop him from hurting the patient that was restrained!

Here is the details to that lawsuit:  http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/03/23/TexasLaw.pdf

E. FACTS

6. On or about March 20, 2009, BUTTERFIELD suffered personal injury resulting from a blow to the face. Mr. Butterfield was pushed and was struck in the mouth by Defendant GONZALEZ’ closed fist.

7. The SHERIFF of Zapata County, Texas, in uniform, during working hours, and most importantly while acting as the Sheriff of Zapata County struck Mr. Butterfield. Additionally, the SHERIFF proceeded to immediately threaten Mr. Butterfield by stating that “if you ever touch me again I WILL KILL YOU!”

8. The incident arose when Mr. Butterfield along with another firefighter, Miguel Sosa, were assisting with an aggressive patient. The patient was handcuffed to a stretcher. The SHERIFF appeared and started striking the helpless man in the stretcher.

9. Mr. Butterfield witnessed the incident and intervened by putting himself in between the patient and the SHERIFF, which was for the protection of the patient who was defenseless. The SHERIFF then pushed and struck Mr. Butterfield in the mouth and threatened Mr. Butterfield with imminent bodily injury. Several people witnessed the incident.

Wohow!!!

The report goes on to say that Mr. Butterfield later approaches Sigi when he believes Sigi has already been calmed down, only for Sigi to continue with his threat that if Mr. Butterfield ever touches him again, he will kill him!

Oh, the agony of this report that it leaves out so many questions in need of answers.

Who was this patient that Sigi unleashed his anger on, and why?  What business did this man have with Sigi that he would provoke such anger on a Sheriff?  Where did this incident occur?  Was it at the Sheriff's department, on the street, or at the fire department?  Was the patient a jailbird, a mental patient, or someone who got hurt committing a violent act?

We tried to contact Mr. Butterfield, but it was no surprise to us when he refused to answer our letter.  With Sheriff Sigi on the loose, I would fear for my safety too.  I just hope that me digging up this information does not put him in harms way, but then again, this was public information.  It was just hidden away in the spider web of the Internet, which makes me wonder:

Why hasn't the media reported on this incident either?

What powers are being wielded in Zapata County that are stonewalling our efforts to find answers?

It's not like we are asking Sigi to bring down the moon and the stars for us.  The information we are requesting should be readily available.

So why isn't it?

The only comfort we have right now is that the Attorney General has already responded to our appeal.

The problem is waiting to find out if Sigi will snub his nose at the Attorney General as well.

Here is the letter the AG sent us:

Let's just hope that from here until then we can find the answers we are looking for before Sigi's temper gets the best of him and he takes it upon himself to respond to our "touching" for information.

Surely if he has no respect for a fire fighter colleague, then what respect will he have for a regular citizen?

In the mean time, he'll continue to prance around like a banshee claiming that our borders are not secure, and he'll be right this time.

Our borders are not secure because he is the corruption that disgraces us all.

In the meantime, stay tuned for more information we are gathering.

Until next time...