QUESTIONS ABOUT OLIVEIRA AND ZAMORA'S ROLE IN DWI ACCIDENT JUST WON'T GO AWAY

By Juan Montoya

Everybody in State Rep. Rene Oliveira's reelection camp was hoping that the DWI case involving girlfriend Lupita Molina who was driving his uninsured car when she struck a van with a couple inside from behind would just disappear.

Instead, the questions that it spawned continue to be the topic of the day in coffeehouse circles as the Texas Representative District 37 race heats up. We understand that after we published the details of the Nov. 9 incident and these hit the blogosphere, there was hell to pay in the representative's office with damage control turned on to high.

Yet, unanswered are the questions regarding the representative's whereabouts at the time of the incident as well as the role of City of Brownsville Melissa Zamora and her intervention in the arrest of her "bestie" Molina, going as far as getting warned (and disregarding) police officers at the site not to talk to the woman already in custody.

Accident and arrest reports filed on by arresting officer Everardo Longoria (city commissioner Rick Longoria's brother) indicate that at about 9:48 p.m. police were called to a serious accident involving two cars on the frontage road next to Charlie Clarks' Nissan.

The reports indicate that a 1999 Ford Windstar van with two passengers was struck from behind at a high rate of speed by a 2009 Chrysler PT cruiser operated by one Guadalupe Molina, identified as an employee at the college media department.

When officers arrived at the accident scene, they found the van with heavy damage to the rear parked in the grassy area between the expressway far right lane and the frontage road in front of the Nissan dealership. A woman passenger complained that she was hurting as a result of the impact, but did not require ambulance transport. After ascertaining that the passengers in the van were not seriously hurt, officers walked over to the Chrysler and found an the driver was uncooperative and refusing to emerge from the car merely stating that she "knew her rights."

After getting her license information, officers bodily removed her from the wrecked car which had traveled over the curb, knocked down a fenced at the dealership and almost struck a demonstration car on a ramp inside the car dealer's.

A check of the vehicle's VIN indicated that the car belonged to State rep. Rene Oliveira, who was not in the vehicle. Additionally, on the box corresponding to "proof of financial responsibility" (auto insurance) the "no" box is crossed out. Apparently, it was not insured at the time of the accident.

We understand that Molina is now tooling around town in a new car – a Caddy at that  – that she uses for her personal transportation. Quien pompo and in return for what, her silence?

As the officers investigated the crime scene and attempted to elicit information from the obviously intoxicated driver, a woman identifying herself as a "city commissioner" showed up on the scene.

Longoria wrote in his report that: "As I was documenting my report I heard officer (Alfonso) Garcia yell to someone outside my patrol unit. I then heard a female voice yell out 'I'm a city commissioner.' I then observed that there was a female dressed in gray sweat pants standing next to my police unit by the back door where Ms. Molina was. I heard officer Garcia tell her that the female was in custody and that she could not talk to her. The female walked away onto the grass of the Nisssan dealership," Longoria's report reads.

Despite the verbal warning that she was not to speak with Molina and being informed that the woman was being very uncooperative and highly intoxicated, Zamora merely answered that "I know," and went back to her car to speak with someone on her cell phone. However, that was not the end of her involvement in the Molina arrest.

Longoria writes that: "I informed her (Zamora) that the minimum confinement was four hours because it was an intoxication charge and she told me she was already arranging (to take care of) that. She then walked away and got back on her phone...I walked down the road to the van and heard yelling coming from the area of my patrol unit. I then observed the same female standing by the back door of my patrol car unit yelling at Ms. Molina through the closed door. Officer Garcia then stepped towards her once again but I was not able to hear what was said."

Now, the interesting thing about this incident is that having disregarded the orders of a police officer and identifying herself as a city commissioner, the woman is never identified by name in the Longoria report. In fact, Zamora herself confirmed her presence there in a Facebook posting defending her actions saying that she would do the same thing again for her "bestie."

Further, in the case of a DWI accident, police have the authority to draw a blood sample by force if necessary is the suspect refuses to subject himself/herself to a breath test. Longoria did not press the issue, did not cite Zamora, and did not issue a citation for her (or Oliveira) for failure to operate a vehicle without insurance.

Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos recently stated that his office was investigating the domestic voilence incidents involving City Commissioner Jessica Kalifa-Tetreau. With Mando having announced his candidacy for Congressional District 27, we doubt that he will take any personal interest in prosecuting the darling of the Cheezmoso clan.

It will doubtless be handed off to a "special prosecutor" who will – as experience in these cases has shown us –  allow it to die a quiet death and let bygone be bygones.

Traditional democratic tenets state that "the political leader is an elected official answerable in a popular assembly and the popular courts for the conduct of his office. The citizens he leads are not inferior in legal status or rank but equal and alike."

This leads us to the core of the issue here: Does democracy exist in Cameron County? Would you and I have been treated the same as them? Or is there a double standard for politicians (and their cohorts) and the rest of us lesser mortals?