10 YEARS OF CLAIMING OTHERS' GLORY: BFD'S CHIEF LENNY PEREZ

By Juan Montoya

In 1969, Joe Rodriguez coached a Brownsville Eagles team that didn't quite make it to state when it was soundly beaten by Seguin like they had caught them stealing chickens. Big Joe went on to make an industry of that loss.
And not long ago, UTB-TSC president Juliet Garcia stood on the sidewalk of the federal courthouse and drew a line on the pavement vowing to fight the Border Wall all the way to Gorgas Hall. The wall, of course, got built anyway, but it was a nice derring-do moment for the embattled "partnership" president.
And 10 years ago, after the collapse of the Queen Isabella causeway, when plaudits rained down upon the firefighters and EMS personnel who rescued the victims from the drink below, Brownsville Fire Department Chief Lenny Perez proudly received recognition from then-U.S. Congressman Solomon Ortiz for and other entities for the gallant rescue of the victims. Perez accepted the congressional resolution for the firefighters and EMS personnel but failed to mention to the assembled crowd that they hadn't been notified of the impending ceremony and he he had decided to accept it in public on their behalf.
Partly as a result of the media coverage, Perez was elevated from interim chief and selected from among four others to head the BFD.
"He said that if they recognized one or two the rest of the firefighters would be resentful so he decided to receive the recognition himself," said a firefighter who was at the rescue scene. "They claimed they couldn't locate them, when in fact some of them were on duty at the time."
Ten years ago today, the firefighters and paramedics arrived to find that a 240-foot section of the causeway had been knocked down by a runaway barge and that several cars were already sunk in the waters below some 80 t0 90 feet into the dark waters of the Laguna Madre.
When the BFD firefighters arrived, there were Port Isabel and Los Fresnos units at the scene. The two EMS personnel from Los Fresnos, a former Marine and a former Navy veteran, were peering into the dark.
"You could see that some of the headlights were still on in the cars underwater," said one. "We could tell that there was nothing we could do for the people in those cars because the cars were piled on top of each other."
Although some of the drivers and passengers in the cars were able to be saved, some by swimming away on their own, firefighters were unable to see whether the driver of a two-door gray sedan that was teetering on a concrete abutment below was still alive.
"We couldn't tell," said one. "He looked like he was dead."
The firefighters were only able to tie several ropes to the car, an unacceptable method to stabilize the car in case of a rescue attempt.
"When we were talking about the man being probably dead, he made a movement to let us know he was still alive," recalls the firefighter. "At that point, neither the ex-Marine nor the Navy veteran volunteered to take the risk of going after the man on the unstable car."
A Brownsville firefighter recalls that one of his company was just getting on the scene when they noticed that J.P. Montoya, then working part-time as a Port Isabel EMS paramedic looked in the car and started making his way to the trapped motorist.
"He didn't think twice about it," the firefighter recalled. "The car wasn't stable with just those ropes but he went in after him anyway."
Montoya reached the sedan and spoke to the man, who was badly injured as a result of the of the impact with the remnants of the bridge above and the plunge to the bottom. The impact had been so great that the motor had become detached form the car and was lying on the side on the concrete separated from the car.
He climbed in through the broken windshield without a life vest or ropes to reach the injured man.
"He was pleading with me not to leave him there to die," Montoya recalled. "He was a big guy and when I went in the car and tried to pull him out his foot was wedged in the wreckage. Try as I might I couldn't get him loose because his foot was smashed and stuck in the wreckage."
With the man pleading with him not to leave him, Montoya opted to take drastic measures.
"I could see his foot was useless and that he was already bleeding profusely and he was going into shock," he said. "So I pulled and pulled and broke his leg until I could pull him free."
Then, using all his strength to pull the dying man out of the car, the firefighter pulled the large victim out and hauled him across his back and then out to a waiting Coast Guard boat which took him to shore and into an ambulance to get him to the hospital. That was Gaspar H. Hinojosa, they later found out.
"Nobody else wanted to go in there and he did," they all agreed.
Hinojosa died on the way to the hospital, but the man's relatives were glad that the firefighters had rescued him from the murky waters of the Laguna.
A few hours later, the concrete base of the causeway where the car had teetered and Montoya had climbed in to retrieve the victim collapsed into the currents below.
At the time Perez was interim chief after Raul Salazar was suspended on suspicions of wrongdoing. He was later convicted of a felony and now works a administrative assistant to Cameron County Precinct 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez.
When the time finally came around and entities began issuing proclamations in recognition of their bravery, Montoya – working for the BFD as a firefighter and with Port Isabel as an EMS paramedic – was unceremoniously handed his congressional resolution by his supervisor at the firehouse. Even though the certificate of congressional recognition singled out Montoya and another firefighter for their bravery, they were not invited to the ceremony and Perez accepted it on their behalf instead.
"We had just finished with a cardiac case and were getting back to the fire house when my supervisor Robert Perez came into the dormitory and handed me the congressional awards," Montoya recalled. "He told me that they had had a big ceremony at City Hall but that the chief had told them that they couldn't find us. All that time the presentations were made we were on duty."
Firefighters also recalled that the Department of Public Safety troopers who were on the shore and the Cameron County Sheriff's Department deputies who answered the call were also awarded the highest recognition awarded to public employees, the equivalent of the congressional medal of honor.
"I really don't understand why they were recognized for basically doing nothing," said a firefighter. "As far as anyone knows, it was Lenny and them that grabbed the headlines while the actual deeds were done by others."
Montoya went on to work in Kosovo and Afghanistan for Halliburton and attempted to return to the BFD, only to have his application for reinstatement blocked by Perez. He has since joined the U.S. Army (that's him on Santa's lap at the USO).
"He has gone to city manager Charlie Cabler to reinstate other firefighters who left on good terms, but he didn't do it for him" said a firefighter union representative. "Lenny doesn't like certain people. I don't think he likes to be reminded that he basked in someone else's glory."
Apparently, things haven't changed much since Big Joe made an industry of a disappointing loss to Seguin in 1969.