BEFORE THE ELECTION, DEPUTIES TURN D.W.I.s TO P.I.s

By Juan Montoya

As the end of then early voting period approaches for the party runoffs before the July 14 election, a disturbing pattern of Cameron County Sheriff's Dept. deputies downgrading charges against drunk drivers from DWI to public intoxication has emerged.

This has led some supporters of Sheriff Omar Lucio's opponent to charge that – if not set in place by the sheriff himself – the pattern indicates an unwritten pre-election policy being followed by the department where obviously drunk drivers stagger away with a $480 fine set by a magistrate at the jail.

From June 8 to June 30, three drivers – one of them with extensive damage to her vehicle and one who couldn't remember his name – were arrested by deputies in various parts of the county and, despite having been stopped behind the wheel, were charged with Public Intoxication instead.

One of them – a 26-year-old Brownsville woman stopped in Port Isabel – thought she was in Harlingen on her way to her home in the Galaxia Subdivision after attending a party in Olmito. In two of the cases magistrates Erin Garcia and Fabian Limas went along with the charges and released them after assessing the fine with $100 credit for time served.

June 8: Zaray Garduño

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Late in the night of June 7, 2020, Deputy Roberto Oyervidez was patrolling the Los Fresnos area when he received a report of a black SUV with extensive damage to its left front weaving in and out of traffic and running stop signs at a high rate of speed. He caught sight of it and gave chase, only to lose it. Another report by a motorist indicated that it was seen traveling east on Highway 100 heading toward Port Isabel.

When he caught up with the woman, near Highway 48 and Highway 100, an officer with the Port Isabel Police told him the driver appeared to be drunk. When he questioned her, she told Oyervidez she was in Harlingen and had taken the wrong turn to go to Brownsville after she left a party in Olmito and took a wrong turn on the expressway.

She was arrested and charged with Public Intoxication, assessed a $480 (with credit of $100 for time served by magistrate Garcia the next morning) and set free.

Juan Manuel Garcia

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At about 3:05 a.m. June 23, 2020, Deputy Chris Criszanto received a call of a man in a black Ford Explorer  stopping at houses in Cameron Park. Later, at about 4:47 a.m, another report came in and the deputy spotted a car fitting the description. After the car sped by a stop sign, the deputy turned on his red and blue overhead lights which the driver disregarded and then parked in the driveway of a house just past San Felipe Church on Rancho Viejo Avenue.

The driver, later identified as Juan Manuel Garcia, at first told Criszanto that his name was Juan Mendoza and lived at El Naranjal but that he was visiting a friend at Cameron Park but couldn't remember where he lived. After the department computer did not return information on the fictitious Mendoza, Garcia provided his real name and he was taken into custody. He was charged with PI, fined $480 and released the same day.

Manuel Gonzalez

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On June 30, at about 2:57 a.m., Deputy Rolando Longoria conducted a traffic stop of 30-year-old San Benito resident Manuel Gonzalez at the intersection of FM 331 and FM 732 Sherer Road. Longoria stated in his probable cause affidavit that Gonzalez "showed visible signs of intoxication...displayed red glassy bloodshot eyes, unsteady balance, spoke with slurred speech and I also detected an odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from his breath while in a pubic place to the degree he was endangering himself or another.

He charged Gonzalez with Public Intoxication and that morning magistrate Fabian Limas assessed a fine of $480 with $100 credit for time served and gave him 30 days to pay.

We have heard of the "no tolerance" DWI policy set forth by Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, but if the cases never make it to a formal complaint by them being downgraded to PI, the policy is meaningless. And after seeing the report filed by the deputies, why do magistrates Garcia and Limas go along with the downgraded charges?

And the question that everybody is asking is: Is this a pre-election policy being implemented by the department and adopted by supervisors, or is this the usual custom and practice at the Cameron County Sheriff's Department?