Thread: U.S. soldier held in Mexico after crossing border with weapo

Posted on Wed, Apr. 23, 2008

U.S. soldier held in Mexico after crossing border with weapons

By ALICIA A. CALDWELLThe Associated Press

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- A teary-eyed American soldier accused of illegally driving guns and ammunition into Mexico said Tuesday that he was just looking for a place to park so he could walk into Mexico for breakfast after a long night of driving.

Instead, Army Spc. Richard R. Medina Torres steered his 1999 Honda Prelude off Interstate 10, over an international bridge, and into Mexico.

"It was just an accident; I didn't mean to drive over here," Torres said Tuesday afternoon standing in a hallway of the Mexican federal building, where he has been jailed since Monday morning.

Torres, an Iraq war veteran who was heading to his mother's house in Fresno, Calif., said that after driving all night from Fort Hood he had planned to park his car at the border and walk into Juarez for breakfast. But he misunderstood directions from an El Paso gas station attendant, took the wrong exit, and wound up in Mexico.

"When I saw where I was, I started asking people at the front gate, 'Where can I turn around at?'" Torres said.

A Mexican border guard told him to make a U-turn several hundred feet past the border, Torres said.

But within seconds of leaving the inspection station, Mexican federal authorities stopped his car.

Torres, who doesn't speak Spanish, said they started asking if he had drugs or guns. He said he immediately told them he was traveling with an AR-15 assault rifle and a .45-caliber handgun.

After searching his car, Mexican authorities took Torres into custody and began questioning him, he said. He has not yet been charged with any crime.

It is illegal to bring guns or ammunition and some types of knives into Mexico, and weapons offenses can result in lengthy prison sentences. Torres also had 171 rounds of ammunition and three knives.

Roads leading to the border are dotted with clearly marked signs directing drivers to Mexico. Many of those signs include a picture with a revolver in a red circle with a line through it.

Other markers are more direct, warning drivers that it is illegal to carry guns or ammunition into Mexico.

"Penalty-Prison" a sign posted above a road leading directly to the border says in bold, red letters.

Torres said he wasn't paying attention to the signs, instead focusing his attention on looking for a parking lot.

"I wasn't even aware I was driving into Mexico" until seeing the sign welcoming him to Mexico, Torres said.

He said he was driving to California to drop off his car before deploying to Honduras for a year.

Torres said he has spoken with U.S. consular officials, and he has met with a lawyer and hopes to see a judge in the next few days.

Officials at Fort Hood did not immediately respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press seeking more information about Medina.

http://www.star-telegram.com/state_news ... 98953.html

Mexico had better step carefully with this American, very carefully!

I can see this turning ugly for them.

Extortion. They knew he had ammo/guns and that's why they told him to drive into Mexico. They were going to make a few bucks off of him.

Leave the our military boy alone, we returned your freaking blackberry theif.

Dixie

Lets tell them that we will make an even trade.....him for about 20,000
illegals.

Dis he lose something because of the war? It baffles me that he would want to go to Juarez for breakfast with all that has been happening in Mexico. I'm sorry, it just seems a little fishy.

His intent is not even relevant. It is the comparative hypocrisy.

This is infuriating. Given the amount of intentional incursions by Mexican Soldiers into US territory with loaded weapons, this is nothing more than bribery! They told him to enter the country to turn around!

I remember some time ago, this would have to be around 1999 or so, when Mexican officials detained El Paso police department vehicles that were pursuing a robbery suspect because they went into Mexico a few inches. The robbery suspect turned out to be a Mexican Cop who was a car theif. They held the cops and vehicles for bribes from the El Paso City Government.

This ambush is evidence that we are dealing with a backwards people, a nation of barbaric theives. What has really aggravated me is the manner in which Mexico likes to tout their policies and laws, then encourage the breaking of laws by their enemy combatants that are here illegally.

My guess is that they are too cowardly to do anything to him and simply know better. I would say that the average Mexican is on par with the folk you might find in the mountains of Yemen, or in an encampment near an oil pipeline in Nigeria. But they know what would happen to them if anything happened to this soldier. The funny paradox of the racist nationalist socialists from Mexico is that they have no problems sticking their machismo chests out when they realize there are to be no reprecussions for their behavior. They will strut around like banty roosters. When their simple minds have an slight shimmer of what would happen to them in a high stakes situation they somehow lose their machismo bravado and come quickly to a realization that they sport nothing but the strength of a 4 year old school girl and the courage of mouse with its spirit broken. I would be beyond shocked if they did anything to him. Because I believe that they are a cowardly people, with a disposition that manifests itself as opportunistic, but bravery and expressions of pure will are notions which one will never find in companionship to a Mexican citizen.

Normally, say, if this were say an American caught by Soviets, one would be in the right to make a plee. But, here I would simply tell them to release him promptly, with no apology for violation of anything that they might consider to be a law. In fact, I would openly dare the mongrel Mexican authorities to even part his hair wrong!

I would further wager that if he had decided to make a resistance to them he would have easily emerged the victor.

Having an American soldier amidst Mexican soldiers is like having the ring in a den of Smeegels from Lord of The Rings.

So openly I would say to Mexico: I dare you to do anything. And, I know you won't because you are a nation of cowards, your military is pathetic and you have no proclivity to exist in the realm of Western nations. I dare them to do something, lol...

This is infuriating. Given the amount of intentional incursions by Mexican Soldiers into US territory with loaded weapons, this is nothing more than bribery! They told him to enter the country to turn around!

You are 100% right on. The barbarians are such cowards; it doesn't take much to make them run away and hide when ever they are caught either raping a small child or stealing from the elderly.

Lieing is their forte and they idolize murders.

To bad Mexico is any where near U.S. it's like a huge ball and chain.

If you stripped away some of the specific identifying characteristics, like language and such and spoke of Mexico in general terms, a person could easily believe that one were talking about a country in the middle east, or some former Soviet Republic northeast of Afghanistan.

I wonder why he was transporting the weapons and ammunition? Was he going to leave those items with his mother too? He definitely couldn't take his personal weapons with him to Honduras. Where's Paul Harvey when you need him - I want the rest of the story.

The whole think sounds like it may have been a setup from the start. There is no reason that he should have been stopped when trying to turn around. I drive these bridges every week for over two years and know them backwards and forwards and have NEVER been stopped. Coincidence? Maybe, but it strains credibility.