La Linea

State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, convened a group of elected officials Monday at the Texas Capitol to watch a video taken from the helicopter during the DPS sniper shooting last month where two unarmed Guatemalan men were killed and one critically injured.

The Department of Public Safety helicopter was assisting Texas game wardens as they tried to pull over a pickup truck, during a high speed pursuit near La Joya in Hidalgo County. Wardens reportedly thought the truck was carrying a drug load. Instead it was packed with undocumented Guatemalan migrant workers concealed under a tarp.

After the October 25 fatal shooting, survivors said the tarp had come loose during the pursuit. They said they could clearly be seen by the sniper, according to various news reports.

But Burnam said watching the video footage taken from the helicopter it appeared the tarp was fastened throughout the chase. “I could not by watching this video detect anything other than the tarp being secured. And I could easily see why they thought it was a load of drugs.”

Burnam said he and the other legislators could hear the commentary by the troopers in the helicopter as the chase ensued. After the DPS sniper, Miguel Avila, shot at the truck which was traveling at 80 mph on a caliche road, the truck finally skidded to a stop. Three of the tires had been shot out. “People started bailing out of the back of the truck from under the tarp,” Burnam says. The legislators listened as Avila realized he’d shot at a truckload of people, not a drugload. “He said ‘Oh my god.’ He was just appalled,” says Burnam. No drugs were found in the truck. The men were unarmed.

“It was a horrible tragedy from what I could see in the video,” Burnam says. What troubles him most is that Avila was only following DPS policy and training which allows troopers to shoot at moving vehicles to disable them. Avila shot at the truck because it was approaching a school and the safety of the school children was at stake, claims DPS. A 14-year-old boy was driving the truck packed with Guatemalan migrants.

Burnam says he is concerned about a culture within DPS that is militarizing the border. “The relevant question is there anything we can do to avoid this in the future?” he says. “Steve McCraw, the DPS director, says the agency needs helicopter snipers because we are in a war on drugs, and they keep escalating the battle. There’s an arms race on the border.”

At the meeting Monday, Burnam was joined by State Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, State Rep. Borris Miles, D-Houston and staffers from the offices of State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen and Republican House Speaker Joe Straus. Burnam said he’s unsure yet whether there will be legislation to change the policy during the upcoming legislative session.

PHOTO SOURCE: www.facebook.com/pete.gallego

Democrat Pete Gallego won a hotly contested race against Republican Francisco Canseco.

A day after the presidential election, even Republican strategists agree that Mitt Romney blew it with Latino voters and that the GOP has some serious soul searching ahead of it. Deep in the heart of red Texas, Republicans should also see the writing on the wall.

“Clearly, when you look at African-American and Latino voters, they went overwhelmingly for the president,” John Stineman, a Republican strategist from Iowa told Fox News Latino. “And that’s certainly a gap that’s going to require a lot of attention from Republicans.”

Overwhelming is right.  Obama won 71 percent of the Latino vote while Romney won a piddly 27 percent, according to national exit polls. Obama did even better than in 2008 with Latino turnout, when he took 67 percent to Republican John McCain’s 31 percent.

Remember more than a decade ago when George W. Bush won about 40 percent of the Latino vote nationally? The Texas Republican Party and groups like the Hispanic Republicans of Texas, co-founded by George W.’s nephew George P. Bush, want to prove it wasn’t an anomaly.

Republican state Chair Steve Munisteri admitted it was crucial to the party’s survival during a 2011 Observer interview: “The Republican Party is living on borrowed time. If every Latino were to vote today in Texas, the Republican Party would lose all of its statewide seats.”

George P. Bush and others were feeling confident after the 2010 election, with six Hispanic Republicans, including Aaron Peña who switched parties, in the Texas House and two in U.S. Congress.

But last night those numbers plummeted. Republicans may still hold the majority of seats in Texas, but Tuesday’s election showed the party has serious problems for relevancy with the growing Hispanic electorate in Texas.

Of the seven Hispanic Republicans elected in 2010, only two remain: State Rep. Larry Gonzalez of Round Rock and U.S. Rep. Bill Flores.

Sure, there were some wins last night for Hispanic Republicans: State Rep. Jason Villalba in Dallas beat his Democratic opponent; Democrat-turned-Republican J.M. Lozano won his Coastal Bend district; and Ted Cruz trounced his democratic opponent for a U.S. Senate seat.

But there were more bruising defeats than triumphs. The biggest was the loss of Congressional District 23, a rural district that spans from San Antonio to El Paso County. Nationally, both parties see the majority Hispanic district as a bellwether that signals which party can best appeal to the growing number of Latino voters. Both sides combined to pour more than $10 million into the race, making it one of the nation’s most expensive per capita.

Last night, Democratic challenger Pete Gallego won the district with 50.3 percent to Republican Francisco “Quico” Canseco’s 45.3 percent. (Canseco has filed a complaint with the Secretary of State, claiming voting irregularities). It was a resounding loss for Republicans who poured millions into the race.

The 2012 election has forced the national Republican Party to acknowledge reality—America is more diverse than it used to be. In fact, it’s starting to look a lot like Texas. So as the national Republican Party engages in some soul searching, Texas’s GOP should do the same. Last night’s significant losses do not bode well for the party’s future.

PHOTO SOURCE: www.facebook.com/pete.gallego.9

Bill Clinton and Pete Gallego.

By Nov. 6, both political parties and their allies will have poured more than $1 billion into campaigns for just a handful of seats in Congress. One of the most hotly contested races—and one of the costliest—is Texas’ 23rd district, where Democrat Pete Gallego is challenging Republican incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco. And it’s getting nasty. A total of $10 million has been spent so far, about $660 per registered voter, making this congressional race one of the most expensive races per capita in the nation.

That’s a lot of cash for a sparsely populated congressional district that spans two time zones, from South San Antonio to El Paso County. The big spending is not just because the district will help determine who controls the U.S. House, but also because both parties see the majority Hispanic district as a bellwether that signals which party can best appeal to the growing number of Latino voters. Two years  ago, Republicans broke through when Canseco, from San Antonio, rode the tea party wave to victory, ousting Democrat Ciro Rodriguez by five points. For the first time, the GOP had seven Hispanic Republicans in Congress, which was heralded as a sign that Republicans were finally winning over Latinos.

Now Democrats hope to reclaim the district. Gallego, an attorney and former Democratic state representative from Alpine, has set out to prove that Canseco’s win in 2010 was an aberration in an otherwise Democratic-leaning district. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee PAC has spent more than $1.7 million backing Gallego and flew former President Bill Clinton into San Antonio to stump on his behalf. The National Congressional Republican Committee has spent more than $1.6 million supporting Canseco, and the GOP gave the relatively unknown congressman a coveted speaking slot at the convention over the summer.

But the big money in this race is coming from special interests. Outside groups ranging from the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association have already spent more than $7 million on the race, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The outside PAC and super PAC money poured into a blitz of TV ads, mailers and radio spots has given the race a nasty tone. San Antonio, which has the highest concentration of voters in the district, is ground zero for the daily attacks by either side. In his ads, Canseco leans heavily on the term “radical,” claiming that Gallego is backed by “radical environmental groups” and is pro-abortion. He’s also not afraid to use Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary to get himself elected. Both candidates are Catholic and campaigning in a predominantly Catholic district. Recently, Canseco’s campaign sent out Spanish language mailers with a photo of a teen crying next to a doctor’s exam chair draped in Catholic rosaries that says in Spanish “Pete Gallego supports abortion 100 percent.”

Canseco is benefiting from more than $1 million worth of negative ads from a new super PAC called the Congressional Leadership Fund. The latest ad, titled “Hunting,” features an animated rifle shooting down jobs and tax cuts for Texas’s oil and gas industry. The super PACs’ top donors include Chevron Corp., Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino, homebuilder tycoon Bob Perry and reality show millionaire Donald Trump, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics.

Groups supporting Gallego have countered with TV ads by the House Majority PAC and League of Conservation Voters Super PAC, which are spending just under $1 million on media buys. The latest ad claims Canseco was sued by small business clients for deception, and while in Congress he protected corporate tax breaks so jobs could be shipped off shore. Some of the top donors to the super PACs are the Las Vegas workers union, Houston trial layer Amber Mostyn and Fred Eychaner, a Chicago-based media baron and top donor to President Barack Obama.

“There is no doubt in my mind that if every single person in Texas who was eligible to vote registered and voted, this would be a Democratic state,” former President Bill Clinton told a packed auditorium recently during a rally in San Antonio to support Gallego’s campaign. But if Latinos don’t show up at the polls Tuesday, the race could be a narrow victory for Canseco and the Republicans.

Screen grab from a thecraft.com video

I came across this over the top video – complete with heavy metal soundtrack and camo fatigues – by the private security firm called Craft International, which is training DPS troopers to be helicopter snipers. The video looks like a commercial for a “Call of Duty” game and it shows the firm’s founder Chris Kyle training the troopers in “helo-platform shooting.”

Craft International was founded in 2010 by Kyle, a former Navy SEAL and author of “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. History,” about his tours of duty in Iraq. His company’s motto is: “Despite what your mamma told you, violence does solve problems.” Craft’s  video glorifies Texas’ DPS sniper program, and makes it look like the troopers are training for a foray into Fallujah instead of keeping the peace in Texas.

Last week, many were shocked, including some national law enforcement experts, when it was revealed that Texas’ Department of Public Safety has helicopter snipers shooting to disable vehicles during high speed chases along the border.

The DPS program resulted in tragedy after two unarmed men were killed and one was critically injured on October 25th after a DPS sniper shot from a helicopter at a truck during a high speed chase near La Joya in Hidalgo County.

“Texas police officers have made using helicopters a priority, and they take helo-platform shooting very seriously, ” according to a recent article in Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement magazine.  When you see a video like this it makes you wonder what else is DPS up to?