GREAT NEWS! The man accused of murdering Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010 was extradited from Mexico to the U.S.
Suspect Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes allegedly used a gun from Operation Fast & Furious, a gun-running scheme established under former Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice. He will face charges of first degree murder and have an arraignment in Tucson, Arizona.
From the DOJ:
Agent Terry was fatally shot on Dec.ember 14, 2010, when he and other U.S. Border Patrol agents encountered Osorio-Arellanes and four other members of a “rip crew” (a criminal gang that attempts to steal from drug and alien smugglers) operating in a rural area north of Nogales, Arizona. Of the six defendants charged along with Osorio-Arellanes in the case, three have pleaded guilty, two were convicted following a jury trial, and one other defendant – Jesus Rosario Favela Astorga (arrested by Mexican authorities in October, 2017) – has not yet been tried. is pending extradition to the United States.
“The Department of Justice is pleased that the suspected killer of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has been successfully extradited to the United States and will now face justice for this terrible crime,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “We are grateful for the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection as well as our law enforcement partners in Mexico. To anyone who would take the life of an American citizen, in particular an American law enforcement officer, this action sends a clear message: Working closely with our international partners, we will hunt you down, we will find you, and we will bring you to justice.”
The indictment against Osorio-Arellanes includes: “first-degree murder, second-degree murder, conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery, attempted interference with commerce by robbery, use and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer.”
This indictment also “alleges that the defendants assaulted U.S. Border Patrol Agents William Castano, Gabriel Fragoza and Timothy Keller, who were with Agent Terry during the firefight with the ‘rip crew.'”
From AZCentral.com:
Two prosecutors from the Southern District of California will try the case against him in Tucson.
“When an agent makes the ultimate sacrifice while serving his country, we must hold all the individuals who played a part in this tragic outcome accountable for their actions,” said Adam Breaverman, U.S. Attorney for California’s Southern District. “This extradition moves that important goal forward.”
Osorio-Arellanes went into Mexican custody on April 12, 2017, when the Mexican Navy arrested him.
Seven defendants, including Osorio-Arellanes, received charges in the murder of Terry. Three pleaded guilty while “a jury convicted two others.” The sixth has yet to face trial:
Out of the five-man rip crew, three are already serving time for Terry’s murder. Manuel Osorio-Arellanes plead guilty in 2014 and is serving a 30-year sentence. Two other men, Jesus Leonel Sanchez Meza and Ivan Soto-Barraza, were convicted by a jury and are serving life-in-prison sentences.
Mexican authorities arrested the fifth member, Jesus Rosario Favela Astorga, on Oct. 14, 2017 in Chihuahua state. He’s awaiting extradition to the United States.
Rosario Rafael Burboa-Alvarez also plead guilty to first-degree murder. He was not present at the shooting, but was accused of assembling the rip crew. He’s serving a 27-year sentence.
A seventh man, Rito Osorio-Arellanes, was also not at the shooting, but he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery. He’s serving an eight-year prison sentence.
Operation Fast & Furious and other gun-running schemes under Holder should have never happened. Not only did America lose Brian Terry, but we also lost ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in February 2011. In July 2017, Jose Manuel Garcia-Sota and Jesus Ivan Quezada-Pina were found guilty of Zapata’s murder.
Zapata’s family filed a lawsuit against the government. From The Washington Times:
Zapata’s parents and Mr. Avila [Zapata’s partner who was injured during the attack] have sued the federal government, ATF agents and ICE supervisors over the attack. In the pending lawsuit, they allege negligence by ICE supervisors who sent the men on a risky trip through a region that the U.S. Embassy in Mexico had warned people to avoid. They also blame ATF agents who supervised the Fast and Furious gun-running operation for developing “high-risk tactics [including allowing firearms dealers to sell to straw buyers] … that made these tragic consequences inevitable.”
Magdalena Villalobos, the lawyer representing Mr. Avila in the case, said Wednesday that she was reviewing the inspector general’s report for any new information that might support her client’s claims. Given the in-depth investigations already conducted by the legal team, she said, she wasn’t anticipating any bombshells but hoped the findings could provide momentum in the case.
Yes, this is great and wonderful news. However, I want people in our government held responsible for these gun-running schemes that led to the deaths of two brave men and numerous citizens in Mexico. Guns from Fast and Furious are still out there.
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Comments
This is good news for the Terry family. It’s also good news in bringing the horrible Holder/0 Fast and Furious back into the light and a reminder of what idiocy the program, and the minds behind it, were/are.
A reminder of the outright Treason and Crimes
of all of the Obama Mis-administration!
Brian Terry was killed by Prohibition.
1920 to 1933 wasn’t enough?
Bullcrap. He was killed by a bad guy with a gun.
Using a gun that was manufactured and sold by alleged ‘good guys’. The transaction was a sting that went wrong. Not a criminal conspiracy by AG Holder.
Had it occurred under Trump, I question whether this would have become a cause celebre.
It is good to note that in a similar vein, the US government has extradited Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa for the shooting death of Sergio Adrian Hernández Guereca who was on Mexican soil and minding his own business. Wait, the agent was not extradited.
I thought Mexico wouldn’t extradite murder suspects to the U.S. because we have the death penalty.
Finally. Good news for Americans. Bad news for the people that ran fast and furious and swept it under the rug when caught. It looks like the President of Mexico is somewhat more pragmatic than the last one.
Do you care about things that are swept under the rug by the Trump Administration? That occurs a couple of times a day.
The nasty un-American MSM keeps exposing them. Then you get busy sweeping. Trump calls the exposes #fake news and you have a Pavlovian reaction.
The ultimate stupid comeback is to deflect with “but he did it too”. So juvenile. Grow up and go post on the threads that you think need attention.
You learned just enough about rhetoric to be dangerous. It doesn’t mean that you correctly identified a deflection.
You specifically mentioned things being ‘swept under the rug’. Why is the killing of Mexicans on Mexican soil by American agents being
in the same manner as F&F? Why don’t we extradite the ill trained, negligent or malicious killers that work for us? Was their training ‘ill-conceived’? Isn’t sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander?
Your next lesson is to learn when something is analogous.
BTW, Trump’s BFF Hannity uses whataboutism all the time. Do you lecture him or cheer loudly?
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Go do the laundry. NOW!
you are so lame.
You are a conservative version of a snowflake. Somehow you got the idea that you could think.
Finished the laundry – Get started on dinner.
“high-risk tactics [including allowing firearms dealers to sell to straw buyers] … that made these tragic consequences inevitable.”
A sale—even an illegal sale—of anything makes a subsequent crime inevitable? What a bizarre proposition.
Note that (as best I can tell) this was said by agent Zapata’s parents, who can describe things any way they like.
if obama was named o’bama with red hair and fair skin +
holder named hallorhan the left would have gone bonkers with what they did (and of course if they were gop)
crickets chirping from the msm.
So we finally have this murderer coming to be tried. What took so long? I thought Obama was beloved by all around the world, so why would it take nearing a decade to extradite him?
But we know Fast and Furious was a perfect operation, totally scandal free, because the MSM said so, many times. I don’t understand how supposedly “brilliant” minds under the Obama regime could even come up with plans as poorly conceived as Fast and Furious. Sure, there are details that weren’t made public, but by their own admission the common sense things you would put in place for such an operation weren’t even considered.
The US needs to be accountable, I hope the law suits against the US government go through and give the victims a hefty settlement, even though I have to fund a small portion of that. It needs to be brought to light again, and in a very big way, how poorly Obama’s people did this operation, and how stupid an idea it was from the very beginning. All his scandals need to be pushed in the open. Though of course the Dems will cry and scream about it being lies, so what. Present it in plain language and the swing voters will see what a poor administration Obama ran.
“I hope the law suits against the US government go through”
Don’t hold your breath.
When will Obama and Holder be charged?
Charged for what? Obama never had any scandals while he was president. I know this because the media tells me this.
They should use this as a springboard to going after corrupt Obama-era personnel.