Watchdog Agencies Asleep at the House of Death

[chlamor]

Watchdog agencies asleep at the House of Death
By Bill Conroy,
Posted on Sat Mar 26th, 2005 at 11:06:53 PM EST

Following is an excerpt from Gonzalez’ OSC complaint as well as the agency’s response -- both of which were included with the FOIA records obtained by Narco News. (Again, redacted material has been reconstructed and included in parentheses.)

<snip>

I believe that I’m being punished for speaking the truth about a serious matter of public concern that is not publicly known. When I made this known to the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas (by sending a copy of the letter to his office in San Antonio), rather than take corrective action, he attacked my professionalism. DEA officials that are fully familiar and upset with the issue of the murders, as well as the obstruction of the investigation of the threat against the life of a DEA agent and his family, and admitted this to me, are now following the political and personal agenda of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas (Johnny Sutton) by retaliating against me with a negative performance appraisal. In addition to all of the above, there is also a First Amendment violation here.

<snip>

To date, the known murder toll in the House of Death horror story stands at 15:
• A dozen people tortured, murdered and buried in the backyard of a house in Ciudad Juárez – including at least one U.S. citizen, 29-year-old Luis Padilla, who left behind a wife and three small kids.
• Two more people murdered by a House of Death operative (a corrupt state police commandant); they were killed in broad daylight the day after a DEA agent and his family were pulled over in a bogus traffic stop in Ciudad Juárez and threatened by corrupt Mexican cops on the payroll of the Juárez drug organization.
• A 27-year-old father of a two-week old baby who was shot dead in El Paso after thugs mistook him for the informant, Jesus Contreras, who is at the center of the House of Death murders.

<snip>

In recent weeks, the nation has been injected through the TV feeding tube with daily doses of the Terri Schiavo case. The coverage, not unlike a jackal pack waiting on its prey to die, is marked by well-heeled talking heads expressing their moral outrage over the decision to pull the plug on the tragically brain-dead woman. Given the national media attention focused on the Schiavo case in Florida, one has to wonder where the outrage is over the House of Death murders along the Texas border.

<snip>

Maybe the cover-up is an easier path for most – the government, the media, the “moral majority” -- to follow, much easier than confronting the grim reality that once we know the truth, we too become complicit in its consequences. Maybe the informant, the narco-traffickers, and the federal agents and prosecutors at the center of the House of Death are not that much different than those in the media, the Congress, the White House or others in positions of power who are seeking, at all costs, to advance their careers. They choose to look the other way, even in the face of human horror, when it is the expedient career course to take.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/3/26/23653/8069