Darren Hunt, car crash reporter for Channel 7 news, KVIA, was arrested by El Paso Police Department Sgt. Raul Ramirez this week. Hunt was arrested but not charged. There was KVIA videotape of the arrest which documented Darren Hunt on the side of the freeway in the emergency lane trying to get the story on, you guessed it, a car crash, being told by Ramirez to leave. While Hunt was moving toward his vehicle, he was mouthy and verbally challenging to Ramirez. Ramirez was then rough with Hunt, pushing him against the chain link fence, cuffing and arresting him. Police Chief Allen said today that the station commander let Hunt go; thereby allowing Hunt to avoid the booking process (prints, mug shot, permanent arrest record, etc.). The videotape of the arrest has been played and the community has taken sides. Some are for the cop and some are for the reporter. Chief Allen has placed Ramirez on desk duty.

This case shows what is wrong with the press in El Paso and what is wrong with the police department. It is a perfect confluence of events that shows what happens when two boobs not doing their jobs properly, each one thinking he is above the law, meet up on the side of the freeway.

Today there was a forum at Kinley's Coffee House. Invited to participate were former 2nd in command of the El Paso Police George DeAngelis, KVIA news director Brenda Swann aka Brenda DeAnda, El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen and Police Spokesperson Javier Zambrano. KFOX news anchor Israel Balderas was the moderator. Members of the audience got to ask questions.

At the meeting, much discussion focused on the behavior of the police sgt. and the fact that he has a history and was suspended last year. What the media, especially Brenda DeAnda, were unwilling to discuss is the behavior of car crash reporter Darren Hunt and that he too has a history of being abusive with the public. In fact, Darren Hunt's behavior is a matter of public talk. El Pasoan Gerald Miller, who organized a petition to place on the May election ballot the initiative to move the Storm Water District from out under the PSB to the city, called the Barbara Perez 1150 am talk show on Wednesday, April 23, 2009, to talk about how he, as citizen, was publically, and verbally accosted by Darren Hunt at City Hall. He said that Hunt was so verbally abusive toward him that he was stunned. Miller says that the police witnessed Hunt's behavior and told Miller that it is not the first time Hunt has behaved this way. Miller's crime: Apparently Hunt did not like the fact that Miller was petitioning his own government and criticizing City Hall.

Gerald Miller complained to KVIA management Kevin Levell who said that he would take care of it. Miller was willing to leave it at that until another person told him some weeks later that Hunt was "cussing" him (Miller) in public. (Note how Hunt wasn't "cussing" members of city counsel, or Ed Archuleta at the PSB who wants complete control of all the public land in El Paso and draws a salary as a govt. employee of $508,000 per year.) Miller then pulled his $10,000/month advertising account with KVIA. To make matters worse, Hunt went on to do a slam piece about Miller's petition. So much for Hunt acting as a watch dog for the community.

What has also been noted publicly are Hunt's very slanted interviews. Publicly discussed is Hunt's friendliness toward PSB supporters City reps. Steve Ortega and Suzie Byrd who vehemently oppose Miller and his citizen petition. Byrd has even threatened Miller with criminal charges as she has done to other critics of her policies.

For the record, Darren Hunt once came to my office ostensibly to interview me. He was so hostile I was taken aback. When he did not like my answers, he started yelling at me and creating a scene. He could be heard down the hallway which is a public space. I told him he was to leave and that he was under no circumstances ever to step foot in my office again. That is the way Hunt's behaves when he is on the job.

Yesterday, in the courthouse, a woman discussing the video tape said the following, "Hunt is an asshole. He has always behaved like this." She then had some other choice things to say about him that if not true would be deemed slander per se.

What was also completely lacking from this morning's discussion is the need for the media to be introspective about its behavior in public, its view of its role in what led up to these events and what it can do better to prevent what happened from happening again. The culture of corruption and violence at the El Paso Police Department is a long one and well documented. The New York Times did a huge story on it on June 4, 2004. This culture at the police department has been allowed to flourish because the El Paso media has turned a blind eye to it. Citizens have taken to going to city counsel to directly inform their reps during public counsel meetings what the police have done to them. The complaints include the following: Rape, beatings, death, brutal illegal searches of homes without warrants or permission. One man appeared who had been placed in a wheel chair permanently by the cops. He was pulled over by the police and at that moment had had a stroke. When he was unable to obey the police commands, i.e. put your hands on the steering wheel, they threw him out of the car and put his arms behind his back and cuffed him. They then picked him up by the cuffs and kept dropping him on the ground. After kicking him around the side of the freeway for a while, they took him to the hospital when it became apparent that he was ill. While at the hospital the police STILL tried to charge him with "Resisting." Darren Hunt did no story on that horrible case. Perhaps he was busy chasing a car crash story on the freeway. Nor did Darren Hunt do a story about the man whom the police sodomized with a nightstick. The city paid out a $250,000 settlement and then promoted one of the cops to be a trainer on the Westside.

Nor has Hunt done a story on the millions the City pays out on lawsuits because of police abuse or on the millions in lawyers' fees spent by the city on these cases.

What I did hear a lot of at the meeting is that the media believes that it should be treated differently from the rest of the population by its government, i.e. police. Brenda DeAnda did not want to discuss why or how it is that Hunt's case did not follow the arrest procedure. She did not want to discuss the much debated DIMS arrest procedure that Hunt was able to bypass.

The media said that the meeting was to discuss media access to the police and what is reasonable force to be used by the Police Department. The El Paso police have used the kind of force we saw used against Hunt for years against the average citizen. Judging by Hunt's silence on the abusive force I assume as long as it was not directed toward him it was "reasonable."Now that the same force was used against him it is a matter of discussion as to whether it was "reasonable." Where were the discussion and the outrage by Hunt when that same police force was used against the thousands upon thousands of Joe Blows out there? Answer: There was none. And therein lies the answer as to why cops in El Paso feel they can treat people the way the cop treated Hunt. It is SOP. Hunt and Ramirez are a perfect match. It was love at first sight.

April 15, 2009


Senator John Cornyn
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson
President Barak Obama

Re: El Paso, Texas District Attorney Jaime Esparza

Dear Madam and Sirs:

It is our understanding that El Paso District Attorney Jaime E. Esparza may be applying or being considered for a federal appointment to include but not be limited to the positions of US District Court Judge, US Attorney and Federal Magistrate.

Any appointing authority considering Mr. Esparza should be aware that the El Paso Police Department and the El Paso Sheriff’s Office have referred criminal complaints regarding Mr. Esparza to theTexas Attorney General, one as recently as yesterday. These complaints range from allegations of violation of an expunction order by Mr. Esparza as the District Attorney to the alleged cover up of an alleged aggravated sexual assault of a six year old girl by Mr. Esparza as the District Attorney.

It has also been reported in the El Paso Times in the last two years that Mr. Esparza is being investigated by the federal government for possible padding of bills submitted to the Federal government for prosecutions he has handled. Also covered in the press is the fact that Mr. Esparza refuses to investigate or prosecute public corruption. In his almost 17 years as District Attorney, Mr. Esparza can only point to his having prosecuted two public corruption cases. One was only a misdemeanor which he managed to lose at trial. The accused was former El Paso County Commissioner Betty Flores who the Federal government later indicted for corruption. She has pled guilty to these charges. Mr. Esparza's do-nothing position toward those abusing their public office has recently appeared in bas-relief. This being due to the US Attorney for the Western District of Texas and the FBI having conducted investigations and lodged indictments against multiple members of the local El Paso ruling elite.

Any background check of Mr. Esparza should include, at a minimum, interviews with the following individuals:

Theresa Caballero, Attorney, 300 E. Main St., Suite 1136, El Paso, TX 79901, 915.565.3550
Stuart L. Leeds, Attorney, 303 Texas Ave., El Paso, TX 79901, 915.577.0880
Sam Snoddy, Attorney, 1518 Montana Ave. El Paso, TX 79902, 915.542.4287
Nancy Hollebeke, Jaxson’s Restaurant, 4799 N. Mesa, El Paso, TX 79912, 915.544.1188

Any appointing authority should also read the website www.theresacaballero.com where Jaime Esparza’s conduct is well documented.

Sincerely,


Theresa Caballero and Stuart L. Leeds

This is very important. It is one of the most important topics I will ever have covered in a blog. I am writing to let all of my readers know that the largest power grab in my lifetime in the state of Texas is about to land in your lap. It is an assault facing our Texas democracy. If the assault is successful, and your children ask you how it is that we watched the ramparts of our democracy and justice system be destroyed, you will be able to tell them. Senator Robert Duncan (R) of Lubbock, Texas is trying hard to destroy 150 years of an independent court system accountable directly to the People. Here is what is going on.

Senator Robert Duncan is the state senator from Lubbock, Texas. For the past three sessions he has worked very hard to take away the right of the People of Texas to vote for their judges. He wants to take that right away from the People and vest it in the the governor. The Governor will then appoint a “committee” made up of his friends (biggest donors) who will then select the judges who will sit in your courts and determine your fates. These judges will owe their positions not to you, but to the Governor and his friends. The instruments of this power handover are S.B. 782 and S.B. 992, both authored by Sen. Robert Duncan.

S.B. 782 is called “Appointment and Retention of Justices and Judges.” In short, the bill stands for the proposition that there will no longer be judicial races between competing candidates. Instead of running and being voted in by the People, the Governor will select and appoint the judges. At the end of the judge's term, the judge will go on the ballot and the voters will ONLY be able to vote to “retain” or "not retain" the judge. If the voters choose to not retain the judge, the judge is released and the position is again filled by the Governor.

The law now provides that if there is a vacancy in a district court between elections, the governor appoints the judge. That judge then has to run, against others if others throw in their hats, to keep his seat at the next election. In the case of a vacancy at the county court level between elections, commissioner’s court makes the appointment and again, the judge must run, against others if others join the race, to keep his seat at the next election.

Senator Duncan has made sure that he is going to close the gap of having any local body, i.e. commissioner's court, control who gets a bench not only by eliminating elections but by converting county courts to district courts thereby making almost all courts subject to appointment by the Governor. Senator Duncan is striving to achieve this conversion through S.B. 922, which he also penned. At the very end of the bill (it is 57 pages long), the language addresses the conversion of county courts to district courts. Sec. 9 says that there shall be studies which will generate reports regarding “…converting to district court those statutory county courts...”

The Governor these days is Republican Rick Perry. This bill is obviously a ploy by certain members of the Republican Party to consolidate power by conferring on the Republican governor’s office the immense power to select judges.

I hope my Republican readers do not lose themselves in the stupidity and short sightedness of party politics on this one. Today it is the Republicans who are in power but tomorrow it could be the Democrats. The result is the same. You as the voter will have lost forever your right to control your judges, who are now accountable to you, and by extension, limit your access to your own courts.--You NEVER get lost rights back. Don not forfeit your children's rights by letting Duncan and his cronies take away your power.

Interestingly, I called Senator Duncan’s Lubbock office this morning to get his contact information. A simple matter one would think. A female answered the phone. I told her that I was writing a blog about the Senator and that I needed the address of his office. She told me that she would transfer me to the press secretary. I told her that I just needed the address and “if you could please give me that information.” She told me “no.” I said that I would be sure to include that in my blog. She then hung up on me. Click.

Stuart Leeds then called Senator Duncan’s office about thirty minutes later and got a female on the phone. He asked for her name and she refused to give it. He then asked to speak to her supervisor and she hung up on him. Click.

Senator Duncan wants to take away your right to choose your own judges. If his senate office secretary in the district hangs up on the public (who pays her salary), won’t even give her own name to a member of the public or the physical address of the senator’s office, can you imagine that any person Senator Duncan helps select to be judge will be any better than the secretary?

Here is Senator Robert Duncan’s number, 806-762-1122. And while his rude secretary, whose salary you are paying, is hanging up on the public, the senator is in Austin stripping you bare of your rights. Keep in mind that for 150 years, long before Senator Duncan and his ilk were ever on the scene, Texans made sure that the People chose almost every official in office by popular elections. Traditionally, the Governor of Texas has been one of the weakest governors in the country. Why? Because almost every official in the state is elected and therefore owes the governor nothing. Texans, however poor, bedraggled by the hardships of frontier life, hostile Indians, economic ups and downs, depressions, recessions, have always, up until the last 6 years, understood that there are three branches of government: The judiciary, the executive and the legislative. They have always understood, even back in the days of one room school houses, that those branches must be separate but equal and that the more separate they are, the more equal they are. Texans have always understood how priceless it is to be able to boot out a bad judge at the next round of elections and choose the next one. Texans have always understood the value of being able to have a jury trial for everything from complex litigation to a divorce suit where property division and child custody matters are at issue to a traffic ticket for speeding. It is a check and balances by the People those other less sage states such as California, Colorado, New Mexico, et. al., have taken away from their own populations.—You should hear the moans from lawyers and citizens who find themselves in court in those jurisdictions. I have had California lawyers tell me how wonderful it is that in Texas the PEOPLE choose their own judges. I have heard lawyers talk about how bad it is that they in their states can’t have a jury trial on many matters and that they are stuck with the decision of the judge who is often bad and beholden to others, how they can’t get rid of these bad judges because they have the appointment-retention system. And now we’re next, thanks to Senator Robert Duncan and his cronies. There will be more on this.

Attached is a letter candidate for city rep Trini Munoz has written to District 7 Voters. I think it is succinct, well written and packed full of very important information if you intend to vote in the city elections being held in May.--The El Paso Times and the people who run it have yet to write an article, and nor will they, outlining who is who and what the voting records are of the incumbents.

City Rep Steve Ortega is the one term incumbent in district seven. He is part of the Ray Caballero, Eliot Shapleigh, Jose Rodriguez click. As a result, he will be favored by the El Paso Times which will continue to ply you with the usual pabulum that Rep. Ortega is "progressive," etc. and therefore deserving of your vote.

Who exactly is Steve Ortega? He is an attorney. He is the nephew of Evelina Ortega, the law partner of Ray Caballero. I do not know if he is a practicing attorney as I have only seen him at the El Paso County Court house one time and never in any other court house.-- When Ray Caballero was mayor he tried very hard to seize by eminent domain private property around Thomason with the plan to turn around and give the property to private individuals. The Thomason neighborhood rose up against Ray Caballero and went to City Counsel almost every Tuesday to complain about the attempted taking of their land by the city under the name of a TIF. Out of this citizen group arose a leader, Vivian Rojas, whose grandmother's house was in jeopardy of being seized. Ms. Rojas was adamant that private property should only be taken for a worthy public cause and she soon became a thorn in Ray Caballero's side. Caballero would, as the mayor, frequently point Ms. Rojas out of a crowd and viciously, verbally attack her and accuse her of being against the "progress of the city." Ray Caballero would tell crowds of people that Vivian Rojas and her ilk were what ailed El Paso and kept it back. Ray Caballero's attacks on Vivian Rojas, who was a mere citizen speaking out and protecting her grandmother's property, were brutal and relentless.

Vivian Rojas stood up to Ray Caballero. She devised a campaign platform, collected money and gathered supporters and went out and ran for city rep and won in District 7. In the meantime, Ray Caballero lost his second bid for mayor to a nobody and a not very smart nobody, Joe Wardy, in a landslide defeat. Why did Caballero lose so badly? Because the people were tired of Caballero's taxing, spending, lying and property taking ways. Ray Caballero was very angry with Vivian Rojas and he has a long memory.

The next time Vivian Rojas came up for re-election, Ray Caballero put his law partner's nephew, Steve Ortega, up to run against Vivian. She lost to Steve Ortega by approximately 20 votes. During Vivian Rojas' term, she held the line on the tax rate and voted to undo the damage of Caballero's TIFS and was a huge proponent of individual property rights. She was even featured in People magazine as being part of the national movement fighting the tide of legalized theft by the government under the guise of Eminent Domain.

Also elected with the help of the El Paso Times and then editor Dionicio Flores (who abruptly disappeared from the scene last year) were Susie Byrd (Ray Caballero's campaign manager), and Robert O'Rourke, (Ray Caballero sycophant). Byrd, O'Rourke and Ortega along with Lilly Anne Morgan, who appears to be asleep half the time, have voted consistently to forward Ray Caballero's policies that the voters had so decisively shunned earlier. This of course includes continuing Caballero's policy of moving the power of the city to the hidden Public Service Board (PSB-Water Utility). Byrd and Ortega have been especially aggressive regarding keeping the PSB safe as well as hiking up taxes and fees on the citizenry. They are on a mission. They have also voted to condemn as blighted whole regions of town thereby starting the taking of private property by the eminent domain process.

Steve Ortega, et. al. are so arrogant with other people's money it makes your head swim. They do not hear the cries of the citizens who are being forced from their homes monthly in droves due to their inability to pay their property taxes which are the second highest in ENTIRE STATE OF TEXAS!

Let Steve Ortega defend his tax the people to death and let them eat cake attitude. Mr. Munoz' letter is interesting and should be read carefully.

Yesterday, February 19, 2009, the El Paso Times, under the byline of Gustavo Reveles Acosta, reported that my client Abraham Lopez was facing "two counts of giving federal investigators false statements..." I called the newspaper to tell them that was absolutely incorrect. Armando Durazo, whom I spoke to before 6:00 p.m. last night, told me that he was not going to correct the record. Today Mr. Durazo, who is the editor of the Borderland section, ran yet another incorrect story on the case saying the jury was still out. The truth is the jury had come back yesterday at 2:30 pm deadlocked and a mistrial was declared right then and there. The jury was out of the building before 3:00 pm. And yet when the El Paso Times went to press last night Mr. Durazo printed that the jury was out "deliberating." Here are the details of Mr. Durazo and Mr. Shugert's attitude regarding the truth.

When I called the El Paso Times yesterday in the morning at around 10:00 a.m. I got an answering machine telling me to press "0" for an operator. I did and I got another message saying that that mailbox had not been set up yet. I called back and asked for the newsroom and told the lady who answered that I wanted a correction to be run. She sent me to the food critic who was very nice but unable to help. I called back and again I got a series of messages. It appears that the few employees who are left on the rolls have to take unpaid vacation so that the paper can make ends meet.

I did finally get a Mr. Ed Shugert who is the editor of the "Business" section. He told me that he was in charge. I told him that my client was not charged with "gun smuggling" as the title said but that he was charged with "illegal exportation" (smuggling is in fact another statute that the government chose not to proceed under.) He laughed into the phone. He thought that was very funny. I then told him that my client was not charged with lying to federal investigators as also stated in the article. He started talking over me and telling me that he would not help me and that I could just call Armando Durazo when he got in at two. I told him that I did not know if I would be out of a courtroom at two to make the call and that if it wasn't over his head I would like to leave the corrections with him. He told me, "It is over my head." I left the corrections with him anyway.

I told Mr. Shugert that my client was under no circumstances facing counts of lying to federal agents. He told me in a sneering, mocking tone that "the article was not a legal document." He was proud of that, whatever he meant by it. Did he mean that the article did not have to be accurate? What did he mean by that inane statement?

I called Mr. Durazo in the afternoon and left him a message. He called me back before six and told me that he was NOT going to make the corrections. He said that the article did not say my client was "charged" with lying to federal agents but rather he was facing "counts" of lying to federal agents. I told him that "counts" are the same as "charges." He said that it did not matter and that he would not run the corrections.

So for those of you who believed Mr. Durazo, the editor, when he published that Mr. Lopez has two counts of lying to federal investigators, you have been misled and that that is a lie. And when I called to tell Mr. Durazo that his published information was incorrect he said he would not correct it.

And what I thought was even more telling about Mr. Durazo's sloth as a newspaper man was that he had me, the defense attorney, on the phone and he never asked me what happened with the jury. I would have told him that the jury had been deadlocked and dismissed and that the trial was over. Oh no, Mr. Durazo did not have enough intellectual honesty or curiosity to ask the simplest of questions and today he ran another yet incorrect story telling his readers that the jury was still out. Some of those twelve men and women on the jury read that this morning and laughed at poor Mr. Durazo thinking what stale and incorrect information he was passing on to the few readers he has left.--On the other hand, Channel 26 ran the news before six las night that the jury was dismissed and the trial declared a mistrial. Mr. Durazo ought to watch channel 26 for the news.

Mr. Durazo and the laughing Mr. Shugert don't know the difference between facing counts of lying to federal agents and not facing counts of lying to federal agents. It is no wonder that they don't think it is wrong to tell their readers that a man is facing counts he is not facing. Nor is Mr. Durazo embarrassed when he tells an Ivy League educated, 14 year trial veteran attorney that counts are NOT the same as charges. Mr. Durazo, that mental giant, was not the least bit embarrassed to argue to me that in fact counts are different from charges. Yes siree, that is what the man actually stated. Nor is Mr. Durazo embarrassed to tell his readers that the jury is out when the thousands of channel 26 viewers knew before they sat down to dinner last night that the jury was back and the trial was over.

Do you think Mr. Durazo and the laughing Mr. Shugert are going to be laughing and haughty all the way to the unemployment line that is long with stupid newspaper reporters? Do you think when they are at home on their unpaid furloughs because their paper has a history of hiring stupid reporters and is now going down the tubes that the thought might cross their minds that maybe they shouldn't be laughing and running incorrect stories about a person when the person's freedom hangs in the balance and that just maybe they should run correct stories and that maybe because they are the way they are is why their paper can't pay them anymore? Or do they think even when their paycheck is smaller they still can't figure it all out.

In the event that Mr. Durazo and the laughing Mr. Shugert, as limited as they are, have figured out that maybe they should be sending out resumes, I hope that whatever poor sucker is tasked with checking them out for possible employment, does a Google search on them and sees that Mr. Durazo thinks NOTHING whatsoever of publishing that a man is facing counts that he is not facing and Mr. Shugert actually states that, "it is over my head" while he laughs into the phone. And between the two of them they never ask, "Hey, by the way, has the jury come back?" Nope, not those two winners. Would you hire them?