WILL VOTERS CHANGE THE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT TODAY?

By Juan Montoya

No sooner had the Democratic Party primary results left incumbent Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio facing off former District Clerk Eric Garza in a runoff than the insinuations of alleged ties of the challenger with drug cartels, money laundering, and inexperience began to be floated in local blogs.

The writers (often anonymously) questioned the appearance of the challenger at a local upscale nightclub allegedly owned by cartel money, and hinted broadly that the cartels were supporting Garza because they wanted to get even with Lucio for taking their drugs and confiscating their money.

They referred to Garza as a "paper pusher" and said "the Gulf Cartel wants another Conrado Cantu who as sheriff escorted drug shipments north."

"Why elect an uppity yuppie with no law enforcement experience? Really, do you believe our undercover agents are going to trust Eric Garza to lead them?"

"Why does the Gulf Cartel want Sheriff Omar Lucio out and Eric Garza in?"

"It is a simple choice between a highly skilled law enforcement officer who has already confiscated millions from the Gulf Cartel or a yuppie with no law enforcement experience? The Gulf Cartel wants Garza to win because they have a score to settle with the sheriff."

Aside from what they considered a couple of questionable campaign contributions to the Garza campaign from his former staff at the district clerk's office, there was scant documented proof of the alleged ties to Mexican organized crime. In fact, his supporters point out, one of Garza's staunchest supporters is a retired DEA agent and another a retired Border patrol and federal officer. Would they support Garza and place their reputations on the line if the allegations had any merit, they asked?

In contrast, Garza's media onslaught on Lucio includes charges that after 19 years in office the 84-year-old incumbent had grown complacent and had demonstrated an apparent disdain to adopt to new methods and technologies. The sheriff only began to install dash and body cameras in the last days of the campaign, and then only in two units.

He hammered Lucio on his chronic failure to maintain the jails up to state standards, pointed out that there had been 18 inmates dying in his custody over the last 10 years, that three deputies had been arrested for various crimes, including soliciting prostitutes, promoted a deputy to sergeant who had been an Army deserter, and in a span of a month in June three deputies arrested three drunk drivers in the wee hours of the morning and then ended up charging them with Public Intoxication instead of DWI. Why?

One of them had extensive damage to the front end of her car indicating she had crashed and told the arresting officer that she thought she was in Harlingen when she was stopped in Port Isabel. Another could not remember his correct name. They got credit for a day served ($100), paid a $380 fine, and walked out clean.

Garza's supporters say that the runoff is really a referendum on the top administrative staff headed by Chief Deputy Gus Reyna and his brother Capt. Javier who they claim really run the department with the 84-year-old Lucio as a figurehead.

To hold a job in the department and get ahead, you must please the Reynas, they say.  Gus Reyna, who has been involved in alcohol-related scrapes including rear-ending a car after he was seen drinking at a local restaurant, has somehow survived the controversies and remained as Lucio's right-hand man.

And with more than 500 employees in the department, they charge that it has become a hotbed of patronage, with the Reynas able to call in favors in the form of votes for Lucio in return for secure employment. Still, Lucio has said he does not have enough personnel to fulfill his duties.

Who can forget when a time when a jail transportation guard ignored Lucio's orders that two guards should be used when transporting violent criminals to medical appointments outside the jail and the prisoner ended up slashing his throat, overpowering him and taking his gun, invaded a home, shot and killed a man in front of his wife and friends, and then stole his car only to be shot down in San Benito as he tried to escape?

But that wasn't all.

Outraged at Lucio supporters' allegations that their candidate cavorted with drug runners and bad people and likened him to disgraced former sheriff Conrado Cantu,  they dug up a photograph of Lucio posing with a crooked former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and his wife in happier times.

That's Lucio in the middle of the couple with dirty DPS trooper Jesus Rafael Larrazolo before he was caught in a parking lot of of a business located on the 2700 block of Pablo Kisel Blvd., in Brownsville, retrieving two suitcases with 26 kilos of cocaine from a parked vehicle and load them into the rear seat of his truck. https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/sanantonio/press-releases/2009/sa111009.htm

The two candidates have played hardball the entire campaign since they emerged as the top vote getters in the Democratic Party primary in March and now await the voters' decision. Lucio is hoping they'll stay the course as they have for the last 19 years, but Garza is banking that they've had enough and opt for a fresh change of direction.