Free Republic

PHARR — An illegal immigrant faces federal charges after he was found with a stolen handgun and ammunition Friday. Pharr police arrested Mexican national Jose Wilmer Naranjo Aguilar, 25, about 2 a.m. Friday at Value Place, 1207 W. Expressway 83, after a report of shots fired at the motel. Police recovered a stolen .40-caliber Beretta pistol, 48 rounds of .40-caliber ammunition and 29 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, according to a complaint filed Saturday in U.S. District Court. Pharr police encountered Naranjo after the motel clerk reported a suspicious masked male running inside the building. Naranjo told Immigration and Customs...

PHARR — Federal authorities arrested a 21-year-old Pharr man who allegedly tried to smuggle a machine gun into Mexico. A Pharr police officer stopped Julio Cesar Ramirez's in a white 2006 Hummer H3 as he attempted enter the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, according to a criminal complaint. The officer said he noticed a black gun case in the back seat of the Hummer and called U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to the scene. Ramirez claimed he had no guns inside the vehicle, but when officers opened the case, they found a Browning .30-caliber machine gun with a tripod inside, the...

The family of a Pharr man is in mourning after their loved one was killed south of the border in Reynosa. The El Universal newspaper is reporting that 35-year-old Ricardo Hugarin Garcia was killed over the weekend. El Universal reported that Garcia went missing on Thursday, December 30th. The newspaper reported that Garcia's body was found in Reynosa's Colonia Francisco Villa on Sunday. El Universal reported that Garcia's body was found in a bag. He had been strangled with a chord that was still tied around his neck. The Tamaulipas Attorney General's Office (PGJE) told El Universal that Garcia lived...

PHARR - Three men are behind bars after authorities raided their residence Wednesday in a failed search for explosives linked to an attack at a nearby bar last month. Aldo Avendano, 27, Adrian Loredo, 20, and David Sanchez, 28, were all given felony drug charges Thursday afternoon in Pharr Municipal Court. Several area law enforcement agencies raided the trio's Pharr residence at 1023 E. Bell St. on Wednesday looking for more explosives linked to a failed grenade attack the night of Jan. 31 at El Booty Lounge in the 3700 block of North "I" Road. The attack stemmed from a...

Grenades used in three recent attacks in Monterrey, Mexico, and Pharr, Texas, all originated from the same lot delivered from South Korea... That the grenade used in the third attack reportedly came from Mexico indicates that in addition to the well-known path of weapons flowing from the United States into Mexico, arms also are flowing from Mexico into the United States. The first of the three attacks targeted the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico. In the second incident, again in Monterrey, gunmen attacked a local TV station on Jan. 12 in an attempt to intimidate the news agency into cutting...

McALLEN — In other parts of the state, transportation officials try to allay property owners' fears that a superhighway from Laredo north to Texarkana will result in a massive land grab. But in the lower Rio Grande Valley, the state's road builders spend more time assuring local leaders that they have a shot at being included. People in the fast-growing border area between Brownsville and McAllen have developed something of an inferiority complex about being the state's largest metropolitan area without an interstate highway. One after another, Valley leaders stepped to a microphone at public meetings last week and made...

RIO BRAVO - A Pharr resident was in a Mexican prison Tuesday, accused of involvement in a deadly shootout Monday on the streets of downtown Rio Bravo, a family member said. The family member said Esteban Valdez de los Santos, 30, was visiting his mother’s house near the site of the shootout between the Mexican military and suspected drug cartel members. The firefight left three suspected cartel members dead and five Mexican federal officers and five soldiers injured. Curious what was happening, Valdez was watching the violence unfold when police dragged him into the street, threw him to the ground...

HIDALGO — A bomb threat shut down the bridges to and from Reynosa in both Hidalgo and Pharr for more than an hour Friday night. "We don’t know if (the threat came from) the bridge in Texas or Reynosa; we are reviewing both," said Carlos Hernández Gallardo of the Reynosa fire and rescue team. Shortly after 8:30 p.m., when the anonymous phone threat was made to both bridges, port officials decided to close the bridges and the surrounding area as a precaution, said Rick Pauza, a Laredo-based spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Officials at the bridge said they...

PHARR — Once a powerful and militant organization in the Chicano Liberation Movement, the Brown Berets made it known Wednesday that they will oppose the Minuteman border watch group with physical force if necessary. "We want to send the message ‘think twice before you come here,’" said Pablo Delgado, a Brown Beret leader, at a press conference at the Hidalgo County Democratic Party headquarters. The Minutemen have said they will come to Texas in October, although it is still unclear whether South Texas is in their outreach plans. Hidalgo County Democratic Party chairman Juan Maldonado said the party does not...

PHARR — Just like a hangover, the morning after an FBI raid can be an unpleasant one. But it was business as usual Friday for the administrative offices of the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district and the Pharr Housing Authority. Just 24 hours after FBI agents raided those locations and left with about 100 document boxes, employees at the PSJA administrative office were smiling and going about their work. Superintendent Arturo Guajardo, whose white Chevy Suburban was parked just outside the front door, said Friday morning he has no idea what the FBI could be looking for. "They took a lot...

PHARR — FBI agents descended upon the entire framework of the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district Thursday, searching offices and homes and toting away boxes of documents. At the administrative building on the corner of Gumwood Street and U.S. Business 83, agents were holed up all day searching the central offices. District officials were not allowed into the building. Locked doors and signs saying business would resume today were the only explanations offered to district employees and other visitors for what was going on inside. "The FBI told us we would not work today, go home and come back tomorrow," said...

The last of my grandparents just passed away. We had been keeping a vigil over my grandmother for the last couple of weeks knowing that her time was near. About 2 months ago she fell and broke her hip and leg as well as fracturing several vertebrae in her back. Since that time she had progressively deteriorated to the point we knew her death was inevitable. Interestingly enough - apparently this morning my uncle was sitting with my Grandmother and she sat up and asked him 'why won't you let me die?' He responded with 'mother, if that's what you...

Teens' discontent turned deadly 3 charged in grandmother's strangulation blame each other06/15/2003 By DAVID McLEMORE / The Dallas Morning News PHARR, Texas – It was never much of a plan. What Meghan Adams, 16, really wanted was to get to Louisiana and reunite with her mother. Stealing her grandmother's car was simply a means so that she and two other self-styled outcasts at school could make the trip and leave behind the rules and the aimlessness of their lives. On the night of March 6, Meghan and her friends, Frank Macias and Chris Lozano, both 15, decided to make...