ZAPATA KNEW: PLAY THE GAME, TAKE YOUR CHANCES

By Juan Montoya

We have named a street after him, a boat ramp on the way to Padre Island, and his family has received the highest honors a nation gives its slain warriors, including a call from the commander-in-chief and that of his boss, the secretary of Homeland Security.

And, without even knowing for sure, we're confident that his family has received the financial benefits usually afforded to the survivors of one of its slain agents.

But apparently, that isn't enough for the family and the attorneys representing the survivors of Jaime Zapata, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent killed in Mexico and have filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the U.S. government.

Other cities and towns around Texas and the rest of the country have also honored the memory of the young agent.
His family says officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) knew that the men who bought the guns used in Zapata's murder were buying weapons bound for Mexico, but did nothing to stop them.
Zapata, of Brownsville, was serving as U.S. adviser in Mexico when he and Agent Victor Avila were gunned down on a highway in Mexico between Mexico City and San Luis Potosi by members of Los Zetas drug cartel. Avila survived and has joined the case.
Zapata’s parents and Avila retained attorneys to pursue claims against the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI “arising out of their wrongdoing.”The attorneys are Benigno “Trey” Martinez of Martinez, Barrera & Martinez of Brownsville; Raymond L. Thomas of Kittleman, Thomas & Gonzales of McAllen; and Magdalena A. Villalobos of the Rad Law Firm of Fort Worth. Jaime Zapata was killed February 2011 in a roadside attack.

In the lawsuit, the family maintain that a Texas-based operation similar to Operation Fast and Furious is responsible for allowing the weapons that killed Zapata and injured Avila to get into the hands of known killers.
That gun sale plan, known as Operation Fast and Furious has been widely criticized by lawmakers.
Those of us who have served in the military or other law-enforcement occupations with the government know that once you pin on the badge and take the oath, you voluntarily enter a world where danger is at every turn. Bad guys all around the world see you as the representative of their worse enemy. It comes with the territory.

Certain political factions in the U.S. have made it nearly impossible to halt the sale of assault weapons at gun shows with the minimal identification on the part of the purchaser. The Fast and Furious programs were undertaken by the government to try to track the illegal "gunwalking" of these weapons to cartels and organized crime groups in Mexico.

Zapata and Avila knew this. In fact, news reports indicate that Zapata had actually participated in operations that detected such sales. In fact, he described such an operation in an ICE Report of Investigation (ROI) from August 2010 describing 80 weapons seized in an arms smuggling interdiction between Phoenix, Arizona and San Antonio, Texas. 

Of these weapons, the majority (approximately 50) were noted to have come from Operation Fast and Furious in Arizona, purchased by Uriel Patino and Jacob Chambers. The ROI was written and signed by Zapata. In other words, when he agreed to wok in Mexico, he knew what he was getting into.
For his family now to sue the federal government equates to a U.S. soldier suing the government for the Taliban killing Americans using weapons originally provided clandestinely to the mujahdeen to fight the Russians.
What's next from these lawyers? Will they find Mexican victims killed with these weapons and sue the government again?
We wish the Zapata family the best in their quest to get money from the government. But there is a gnawing sense among some of us that this is more of a lawyers' ambulance-chasing effort than any crusade to right a wrong or to honor the memory of someone who died in service of his country.