Did Tahmooressi Intentionally Bring Guns Into Mexico?
I have not discussed the Andrew Tahmooressi case here on the ROK Drop because of how little information there is out there about it. The usual suspects have been using it to bash the Obama administration, but now people need to seriously consider if he intentionally drove into Mexico with those weapons:
If the judge throws the case out on technical grounds, we’ll probably never know for sure whether Tahmooressi was telling the truth when he claimed that he crossed the border by accident after making a wrong turn out of a parking lot in San Ysidro.
But if the trial goes on, that question will be very much at issue. To find Tahmooressi guilty, the judge will have to determine that he intended to break the law by bringing military-style weapons and ammunition into Mexico, which has strict anti-gun laws.
In May, sources showed the arrest video to a reporter for Tijuana’s fearless weekly magazine Zeta.
In a story headlined “Ex-Marine did not enter Mexico by mistake,” Ines Garcia Ramos reported that around 10:30 p.m. on March 31, as Tahmooressi began to drive into Mexico, border officers who noticed a mattress and other large items in his truck waved him over to an inspection area, where his weapons were discovered during a search. Contrary to his assertion that he stopped to ask how to return to the U.S., she wrote, he appeared to be driving away from the border. (After his guns were discovered, he called 911, telling an American operator he had crossed the border “by accident … and they’re trying to take my guns from me.”) (LA Times)
You can read more at the link, but before Tahmooressi drove into Mexico he walked across the border earlier in the day and checked into a hotel. So if he had no intention of driving into Mexico then why did he check into a hotel and then go back to get his truck?
GI KOREA,
“So if he had no intention of driving into Mexico then why did he check into a hotel and then go back to get his truck?”
The answer is…
“…he walked into Mexico, checked into Tijuana’s Hotel Nelson, then CHECKED OUT and walked back to the U.S. hours later.”
This sound suspiciously like a teeny-tiny bit of prostitution might just have been involved… something that is not relative to the issue at hand… but something that would quickly be the focal point for his detractors and defenders of Mexican “justice”. It is somewhat understandable that his mother isn’t making an issue of this. Can you imagine?
“My little Andy just wanted to watch a donkey show and beanhole a little Nahuatl hooker for a couple hours before walking back to his truck and making a wrong turn.”
Let’s see what the internet says about “Tijuana’s Hotel Nelson”.
“At the Hotel Nelson, you are a few steps from the red zone area of street prostitutes and brothel bars along Coahuila and Constitution”
Uh-huh.
I would bet little Andy went and got himself a little Mesoamerica tail for a couple hours and then went back to his truck, parked right across the border, with no intention of going back into Mexico.
Based on all information available, this still looks like an accident rather than an intentional criminal act.
I am open to other clever interpretations if anyone case to offer them.
If this is true, it only proves Obammy set the lad up because he hates Marines (have you seen him salute?); he needs to distract the public from his Kenyan birth and Benghazi, and he’s the half-white-mooslum-anti-Christ.
Off to infowars!
Chickenhead, good point. I still have a hard time believing though that there were no signs or turnaround points before crossing the border. Has anyone seen this exit before?
Seek and ye shall find.
I can’t say it makes a exact case either way.
He COULD have intended to go to Mexico.
But he certainly could have been caught up in a typical unintuitive can-of-worm interchange… which, according to Google Map and Google Street View, it certainly is.
He left the parking lot and turned north. On Google Street View, there is no sign saying “Mexico This Way, America That Way” at the intersection. North is a good guess. The road going north then curves around and goes south to Mexico. There is a limited amount of time to cross 6 lanes of traffic and make the last (only) u-turn marked on the picture. For much of that way, there are concrete barriers between lanes to assist the automated license plate reading cameras.
On Google Street View, the “last u-turn” marked on the picture appears to be blocked by concrete barriers. Maybe you can make an illegal and unmarked u-turn onto a service road or staff parking lot a few meters before the border building… or maybe that is also a one-way Mexico-bound road. It is very unclear when studying Google Street View… probably more-so when driving it at the speed limit.
This map picture is not good but it shows the key points of his route.
http://anavgamericanconservative.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/tahmooressi.jpg
Go to Google Map/Street View and drive it yourself. You will be cursing the civil engineers who cobbled this all together with no thought of how traffic works and what information people need to make informed decisions.
Based on the available information, circumstantial evidence, and knowing how people operate, it seems he did not have any criminal intent in Mexico.
After looking at his driving route, I feel a whole new level of sorry for him… as this is not just an easy mistake to make, it is almost inevitable to the point it seems to have been set up that way to intentionally funnel people to the border… perhaps so that those lurking around near the border and up to no good could be tricked into going through an inspection point or forced to make a panicked illegal u-turn and go up a one-way road where someone is waiting to pull them over and manufacture some probable cause for a vehicle search. There is a great deal of precedent in this type of maneuver by American law enforcement.
So… he COULD have intended to go to Mexico for some nefarious reason (such as sell his guns)… or he could very easily have made a very easy mistake.
A few interviews with those close to him, the border guards, and maybe the hotel staff would pretty easily solve the mystery of his motivation for all these actions.
I don’t know about California, but I almost drove into Juarez by accident a couple of times on the way to the airport in El Paso.
Liz, it is possible to make that wrong turn to Juarez in El Paso but there are signs clearly telling drivers the border is coming up and there is a turn around area for those who made the wrong turn. I would find it odd if the crossing Tahmooressi crossed had no signs or turn around point at the border.
GI Korea,
Go to Google Street View and spend 5 minutes to drive it for yourself and then let’s discuss what he should have done.
You’ve never seen me drive, GI Korea.
I’d miss the signs entirely if I didn’t have my sons there, already instructed to tell me, “Mommy Dearest! There’s a sign! Don’t go to Juarez!”
Chickenhead, I do not think he had criminal intent in crossing the border. He was driving with a lot of his possessions and maybe he decided to bum around Mexico for a while and wanted the guns for protection?
Anyway I drove the route using Google Street view like you suggested and there is a sign that points out to take a right at the intersection to go to the Interstate and to go straight to go to Mexico. So he would have had to have missed that sign that was pretty obvious to see. It looks like there maybe another sign on the street light that points out Mexico is straight ahead, but I can’t make it out. Then once on the highway to the border there is a huge international border sign. Considering that he has crossed into Mexico before you would think he would be more familiar with the area.
So missing the signs is plausible, but he would have to have been oblivious to what he was doing to miss the signs. So if he did miss the signs he would have saw the border crossing up ahead. He would have had to fight through the lanes of traffic to get to the U-turn lane on the left since he exited on to the freeway on the right side. The concrete barriers would have made this more difficult. The u-turn lane sign is small, but if he saw the border in front of him he should have been looking for it. So it seems instead of fighting through the traffic to get to the left he just continued forward across the border.
If this is how it all went down this is pretty stupid on this part. So either he intentionally drove into Mexico or he is extremely stupid. Does anyone disagree?
He may have been too proud to stop on the US side and look like an idiot. But frankly, I don’t credit the USMC with making idiots into NCOs. LTs, maybe. But NCOs typically not.
The rumor mill is saying it looks like Tahmooressi is on the verge of getting released:
http://www.onemarinesview.com/one_marines_view/2014/10/the-release-of-sgt-tahmooressi-could-happen-soon.html