Well the last time I saw my opponent he had wandered into city hall and there he was on TV looking for a special prosecutor. And since he knows that city hall is not the place to find a special prosecutor, even if you look really, really hard, I have been wondering about my opponent's wanderings. But then there was another sighting. This past Sunday night, he and I serendipitously arrived at the Black El Paso Democrats annual banquet at exactly the very same second. We signed in shoulder to shoulder. I then went inside and started meeting people, passing out my card, shaking hands, introducing myself, taking pictures with attendees, and having a really good time. This campaigning is actually fun.

As to what my opponent was doing I do not know. It is interesting to note that he did not have any members of his staff at his table. He does have 80 something attorneys working for him and at least four of them are black. You would think he would invite one of these young attorneys and promote them. But then again you would only do that if you weren't paranoid and jealous of younger talent. Anyway, it seems my opponent did not fully appreciate my presence and probably was not having very much fun because he did a very, very strange thing. It would be an odd thing for anyone to do but especially for someone who proclaims himself to be a smoooooooth trial attorney. You see, when you are a trial attorney, rule numero uno is never, never, lose your cool, even when they are sticking a fork into your brain.

Now the word is that my opponent, who in his 14 years in office has never once been challenged, is not weathering the news of my candidacy with either grace or aplomb. This would explain why he lost it publicly on Sunday night at the banquet. Stuart Leeds, a supporter of mine, was taking pictures around the banquet. At one point my opponent stood up, visibly shaken, at his table and walked right toward Stuart who was walking back to his own table. He then did a U-turn to end up behind Stuart and snarled into the nape of Stuart's neck, "Did you get a good picture?"

Wooooooweeeeee.

We then saw him walk into the hallway, turn around and wander around a bit and then walk back in. Where was he going? What was he doing? What was he thinking? What's going on in that brain? This rattled behavior could also explain his poor trial record, reversals, hung juries, life sentences when he is seeking the death penalty, etc.

If this is how unnerved we are now, can you imagine what the next 12 months are going to be like?

See below for some of the pictures taken.

Stay tuned for a series of blogs on my opponent's history and bloody pattern of political prosecutions.

This is Part I of my proposals to increase efficiency in the El Paso Police Department:

ITEM #1 MAKE THE PATROL OFFICER’S JOB EASIER

ITEM #2 LOWER CRIME BY IMPROVING EFFICIENCY

ITEM #3 PUSHING FOR INCREASED TECHNOLOGY

ITEM # 4 DO AWAY WITH DIMS


IMPLEMENTATION:

ITEM #1

Currently, officers enter their reports via computers which are located at each of the five main stations. Because of the staffing shortages, it is extremely inefficient for officers to have to leave their patrol areas to go to their respective stations for the purpose of entering a report in the computer. Although their patrol vehicles are equipped with Mobile Data Terminals (MDT’s) these MDT's are primarily used for dispatching purposes. Consequently, officers are consuming a lot of over-time at the end of their shift doing nothing more than writing reports.

Proposal: Install police computer terminals at each fire station. This would allow patrol officers to stop by a fire station and enter their reports and still be available for patrol duties. Fire stations are located throughout our city and are practically in every police patrol area. This would save officers precious travel time back and forth from their command station, and would ultimately save the city TAX-PAYER DOLLARS! As DISTRICT ATTORNEY I WILL PROPOSE TO THE CHIEF OF POLICE THIS PLAN AND ASSIST IN ITS IMPLEMENTATION WITH ASSET FORFEITURE MONEY.

I will also work with the Chief of Police and the Chief of the Fire Department on the issues of access control and sensitivity of the information.

ITEM #2

At the present time, officers can check via the Mobile Data Terminal persons suspected of being wanted on a criminal warrant through the NATIONAL CRIME INFORMATION CENTER, or NCIC… This computerized check is completed very quickly, often less than a minute. However, checking the same person for local warrants, regardless of whether it is for a simple traffic warrant or CRIMINAL WARRANT, can take as long as 30 MINUTES OR LONGER DEPENDING ON TIME OF DAY AND DAY OF WEEK… The wait is so long, that in some cases, the police are simply frustrated and discouraged! Living on an INTERNATIONAL BORDER, it is easy to see what is wrong with this picture. OUR LOCAL CRIMINALS WHO KNOW THE SANCTUARY OF THE BORDER ARE FREE TO ROAM!

Proposal: To fix this problem is not that difficult with today’s technology. It’s simply a matter of the city and the county computer’s “talking” or networking together. AS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY, I WILL TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS AND SIMPLY FIX THIS PROBLEM THAT FOR SOME STRANGE REASON HAS GONE UNRESOLVED!

ITEM #3

El Paso has a medical school. It has been graduating doctors for years. The minute I get into office I will request that THE MEDICAL SCHOOL INCLUDE A PROVISION FOR A STATE OF THE ART FORENSICS LAB! This will increase our ability to do correct and accurate investigations and to nab the real bad guys.

EL PASO COUNTY IS SORELY WITHOUT THE SERVICES OF A STATE OF THE ART FORENSICS LAB. We are very grateful for the OUTSTANDING SERVICES OF THE DPS LAB HERE IN EL PASO, BUT IT IS NOT ENOUGH.

ProposaL: AS DISTRICT ATTORNEY I WILL COMMIT WHATEVER RESOURCES MY OFFICE CAN LEGALLY COMMIT, AND I WILL PERSONALLY COMMIT MY TIME IN SUPPORTING THIS CAUSE.

ITEM #4

DOING AWAY WITH DIMS IMMEDIATELY. This will be my first official act once I am in office. I will do this at 8:00 a.m. on Jaunary 2, 2009. This will result in cost savings to the taxpayer of hundreds of thousands of dollars. No longer will the DA be going to City Council and County Commissioners' Court for them to fund this defunct program. I will work with the budget that the State and County allocate to my office. The City and County can pass this cost savings on to the taxpayer in the form of increased services or much needed tax cuts.

For the police this will result in increased time savings. The police will be able to make an arrest, take the person arrested before a magistrate and then book them in jail. This is the procesdure as set forth in the law. No longer will they have to waste time and resources by taking the person arrested in front of an Assistant District Attorney and wrangle with them for hours over the case. The police can be back out on the street, where they want to be and where we need them, faster. There will no longer be the "unecessary delay" that DIMS creates.

More police proposals later and much more about DIMS later. Stay tuned.

On February 21, 2007, I blogged about a report that had come out saying:
1) Agustin Banda was accused of hitting and killing Schuyler Thomas on the side of U.S. 54 North at Hondo Pass and then failing to stop and render aid.
2) Banda is accused of having fled to Mexico;
3) El Paso DA Esparza has asked the Mexican authorities to prosecute, not extradite but to prosecute, Banda for crimes alleged to have been committed in El Paso against a person in El Paso, Texas (Schuyler Thomas).
4) The Mexican authorities have Banda in custody.

In my blog I discussed how is it that we have a DA who does not think it is important enough to extradite someone who he has accused of killing a member of our community when he has the power to extradite and we pay for him to do so. I raised the question of how much will the Mexicans care about bringing to justice one of their own for a crime he didn't commit in Mexico or against a Mexican. And why should the Mexican D.A. care when the D.A. in El Paso won't even fill out the paperwork to have him extradited? I also asked how Mr. Esparza could justify his personal secretary getting tens of thousands of dollars in supplemental pay and trips to Mexico City ostensibly to "do extraditions."

Many lawyers approached me at the court house yesterday and the day before who had read my blog and were appalled by all this. One lawyer had a brilliant observation. He said think about how the witnesses who are all in El Paso are now going to have to travel to Mexican territory to testify. The witnesses would be the family of the deceased, the police officers who investigated, the medical examiner who did the autopsy... In addition to traveling to Mexican territory and losing that time from protecting the citizens of El Paso, the police officers cannot carry their guns to Mexico. Also keep in mind that Mexico is just now introducing the jury system, an improvement to their legal system, modeled on the American jury system (this is with the help of judges like Alex Gonzalez of County Court Number Four). Will the witnesses from here be facing a jury in Mexico, a jury of Mr. Banda's peers and not their own? Juarez is about twice the size of El Paso City. Its crime rate is higher and its infrastructure more taxed. It is a poor city crushed by migrants moving north. Remember Juarez is a community now known around the world for being the grave site of 400 bodies of dead women and no one knows who killed them or how they got there.

One dead American in the United States vs. 400 dead Mexicans in Mexico. I don't think the Mexican authorities are going to be too worried about our problems. Does Esparza really think they are going to be? Or is he counting on the fact that they won't?

One attorney even asked me, "I wonder who Agustin Banda is related to--Amy Lujan? It's strange how Banda is not getting extradited?"

Other comments were:
1) If that were my family member dead on the side of the road I would be screaming to the press to go after Esparza;
2) How come we have to read on your blog about the importance of this issue? Where is the press outrage?
3) You’re going to do more on Esparza's secretary Amy Lujan getting paid all that money to do extraditions and then she doesn't do them, right?
4) I had no idea Esparza justified paying that Lujan what he does by saying she does extraditions. She is not a lawyer. How come nobody says anything?

Stay tuned.

Did you know that on Sunday, February 18, 2007, it was reported that my opponent, the District Attorney, had asked the Mexican authorities to prosecute, not extradite, but to prosecute a Mexican national accused of killing a man in El Paso, Texas in a hit and run? According to the report written by Darren Meritz, Agustin Banda was driving a vehicle on U.S. 54 Gateway North at Hondo Pass when he hit and killed Schuyler Thomas. Banda is accused of then fleeing to Mexico. We now read that the Mexican authorities have arrested Banda and El Paso DA, Jaime Esparza, is asking them, the Mexican authorities, to go ahead and prosecute Banda for aggravated assault and for failure to stop and render aid, charges that occurred here in El Paso, Texas.

You the reader and voter may want to know that it is Esparza's job to prosecute crimes committed in El Paso County and not the job of Mexican prosecutors. It is also Esparza's job to seek the extradition of individuals whom he has accused of committing crimes in El Paso and who have fled to foreign jurisdictions. We the taxpayer pay for Esparza to do extraditions. Did you know that Jaime Esparza has a personal secretary, Amy Lujan, who receives at least $25,000.00 extra pay above her county pay of $35,000.00? Mr. Esparza becomes irate when questioned about why his personal secretary gets paid like this and how he can justify the extra pay which is almost equal to her salary. One of Esparza's justifications to pay her this kind of money is that she does EXTRADITIONS. We the taxpayer even pay for her to travel to Mexico City, presumably to work on extraditions.

Why is a secretary "doing extraditions" and traveling to foreign countries on our dime? Lawyers should be doing extraditions. If foreign travel is necessary, we should be sending our most highly educated attorneys to deal with foreign governments. What Mexican bureaucrat wants to deal with an American secretary? They wouldn't do it. They would consider it an insult. They would have their secretary deal with our secretary. Can El Pasoans afford to pay to send a secretary to Mexico City to talk to another secretary?

Furthermore, why isn't Esparza seeking the extradition of Agustin Banda who Esparza is accusing of a hit and run that resulted in the death of a human being? If Esparza is too troubled to go through the extradition process when we have a dead body, then what do we pay him and his over-paid secretary for? Why do we have either one of them around?

Lest we forget, Mr. Schuyler Thomas, the deceased, was someone's son, perhaps brother, husband, and father. Does Mr. Thomas deserve his elected DA to throw his death to the unknowns of a foreign country? Why would we expect a Mexican court system to go after one of their own to get to the truth of Mr. Thomas' death (who died here) and not expect our own DA to prosecute the accused? Which community was harmed by this crime? Mexico or the United States? Is this what Mr. Thomas' family deserves? If it were your mother or father or son dead on the side of US 54 and the Mexican authorities had the suspect in custody what would you expect your DA to do? Would you expect your DA to leave the matter to the Mexicans to prosecute like our DA has done? Or would you expect your DA to extradite the suspect, immediately, to the United States to answer to the community he is accused of harming?

Thank God for the Mexicans. So far they have done their job in arresting the suspect. What has our DA done except to ask others to do his work for him?

You can click on right here and now to www.borderobserver.com to read District Attorney Candidate Theresa Caballero's wonderful full page article about why she is running for DA. On the left side of the first page you will see Main Section. Scroll down to "Ethics, Justice and Equality" which is the name of her article and click on it.