Once again, I cannot tell you how grateful I am for Rene Guerra’s Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office. Without even talking to me, somehow one of the Assistant DA’s managed to take a meeting scheduled by the McAllen PD investigator who had been too busy to work on my case or return my phone calls.
Today I had an unexpected and gosh darn pleasant conversation with the aforementioned investigator (he called me!).
My feeling about this meeting was that the investigator (who has not impressed me thus far with gathering evidence, especially anything that I didn’t facilitate) was going to present a half baked file to the Hidalgo County DA and come back to tell me they weren’t going to prosecute for lack of evidence.
I do not know what Rene Guerra’s Felony Intake Asst DA said to that investigator, but thank you! Suddenly, after a year, he sounds excited about the case. He’s enthusiastic and apparently motivated. He did go on a bit about how impressed the DA’s office was with “his” evidence…but I will bask in the reflected glow. I know that my careful curating of the physical evidence until the threshold for criminal charges was met, is why this is a damn good looking case.
After 30 years as Hidalgo County DA, you can’t think that the office isn’t a family. Those people work well together because they’ve grown together. If Ricardo Rodriguez believes he could, in his wildest dreams simply take the patriarchs place, he is deluding himself and the very expensive votes he’s been cultivating.
Obsessions 
Sorry. You are entitled to your own opinions. What about the panama unit scandal? Selective prosecution?
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I – like most people – can’t know all of the details behind that case. I don’t know that the panama unit situation is completely resolved either. In many criminal cases, defendants aren’t always indicted or tried together. If all you can come up with is a case that may not be “over” yet, I think that speaks volumes.
Allowing a man who I personally know to be ignorant of the law and unwilling to acknowledge, apologize for, and correct the chaos and heartache created by his incompetence is something I am unwilling to do.
I prefer to endorse a man who took an office despite it being tainted by his predecessor; a man who has held that office with dignity and integrity for three decades. Not a man who makes illegal rulings from the bench and walks away. Is that the sort of change you are looking for?
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Actually, now that I did a bit of research, it seems that the Panama Unit incident fell under federal, not local or state,prosecutorial jurisdiction.
Rene Guerra’s challenger and his followers have cleverly played upon the voters hearts with promises to prosecute a tragic 50 year old case. They have also tried to paint Rene Guerra as derelict in his duties, insisting that he shoulders some culpability for the corruption of the Panama Units actions or punishment.
An uninformed or misinformed voter, embarrassed by the Rio Grande Valley once again in the national spotlight, can be gently led to choosing a political sacrifice. What they need to be reminded of is how the Valley keeps earning its reputation for corruption:
The Panama Unit scandal, the crimes that brought it to a boil, were cooked up using a time honored local recipe. Some greed, opportunity, and a generous helping of cabal-like families holding too much political power in the small community monarchies of South Texas. Add ego and a dash of entitlement to taste. Leave unattended over an open flame until it blows like a meth lab.
I heard some rhetoric about “change” a few years ago, and I think we didn’t ask enough questions about what exactly that meant.
Now we are hearing that word again. But what kind of change? Ricardo Rodriguez, in my opinion, comes from one of those cabals. How many relatives of his hold, have held, or have been removed from local positions of power?
Rodriguez insisting that Rene Guerra could have or should have overreached his jurisdiction is pretty funny to me.
Ricky Rod certainly had no problem making his own rules when he acted outside his jurisdiction of the 92nd District Court in my divorce.
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