Robin Abcarian: Supporters of Ex-Marine Jailed in Mexico Should Get Facts Straight Robin Abcarian - The Los Angeles Times
go to original August 27, 2014

A poster from a May protest attended by about 100 people near the San Ysidro border crossing shows support for Marine reservist Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who is being held in a Mexican jail on weapons charges. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

It's probably nice for the morale of former Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi that some California legislators are trying to take his case directly to the Mexican president, who is visiting Sacramento this week. But I fail to see how their actions will really help Tahmooressi, the former Marine who is on trial in Mexico on gun charges.

Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, the failed gubernatorial candidate, boycotted a luncheon with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday and held a protest outside the Capitol instead. He said he did not wish to dine with Tahmooressi’s “captors,” a charged word that has no place in this discussion.

Andrew Tahmooressi is not, after all, a prisoner of war.

He is a very unlucky young man who crossed the border into Mexico at San Ysidro last spring with three loaded weapons and at least 400 rounds of ammunition, all legal in the U.S. Mexican customs officers pulled him over and arrested him once they discovered the weapons, which are not legal there. Tahmooressi’s defense is that he crossed by accident, having made a wrong turn onto Interstate 5. He is now sitting in a federal prison in Tecate while his case is adjudicated in a Mexican federal court. Here's my take on the case, written after his most recent hearing Aug. 4.

...Many Americans are concerned about Tahmooressi's welfare, but this case has become above all a conservative cause celebre.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly joins the protest to free a U.S. Marine held in Mexico on gun charges. (The Sacramento Bee)

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