The credibility issue with so-called independent investigators of Border Patrol use of force.

The system is heavily rigged.

I just came back from Tucson, Arizona this week. I was fortunate to be able to spend a few hours with a group of humanitarians in the Green Valley area. We passed through Arivaca’s tiny Border Patrol checkpoint. I was surprised to see it open. Last I’d heard, years of protesting had shut it down. Now, it was back.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked two CBP officers in blue and one Border Patrol agent in green.

“Nothing much today. Everyone a US citizen?” the Border Patrol agent asked.

“Yup.”

Yes, we happened to be all white presenting that day. In the agent’s and officers’ defense, they see Humane Borders all the time. They were all polite and professional, sure to ask our immigration status first.

“No, I mean what’s up with Customs being here?”

They all smiled.

“Got the boys and girls in blue from the port at this little checkpoint?”

“Yeah, yeah they do.”

“When did that start?” They looked at me unsure. I knew they were trying to judge, friend or foe. “I’m an old Campo agent.”

“Ahh, no shit ma’am!”

“Just curious from that standpoint.”

“A lot of our guys are in the cities. So, manpower.”

“Makes sense. Y’all be safe.”

I don’t like to give agents in the field any shit. I’d be lying if I said I did not still identify with them on some level. I remember what it feels like to wear the uniform and stand out in the hot sun, out in the middle of nowhere. And I recall knowing that many people hated us for what I believed at the time was just serving my country.

It is not a good feeling.

Within a few days of being home, already there is another Border Patrol shooting. This time in the place I’d just left, Arivaca. The exact same roads I had just driven down with Humane Borders to check on their water barrels.

This shooting sounded like a different type though, meaning there were reports that the victim was a known smuggler with an extensive criminal history. He was being pursued by agents in a vehicle when he got out and ran. That’s when he allegedly shot at a Border Patrol/CBP helicopter and then at the agents on foot. The man was airlifted to a hospital and reportedly has major injuries.

My immediate thought was to those officers and the agent I met that day. Shootings are highly traumatic and often cause mental health issues unrecognized years later. Whether or not the man is a criminal, I don’t like to see anyone injured or killed over migration.

Step one of controlling the narrative was already hard at work. Border Patrol, FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Office were not lying this time. The shooting victim, Patrick Gary Schlegal is a convicted human smuggler. He does have a previous record.

Schlegal’s first smuggling conviction.

Here is the current criminal complaint and a warrant for escaping a halfway house in 2025:

Schlegal criminal complaint for shooting at Border Patrol and smuggling.

Schlegal seems to be a pretty bad dude. He has a prior history of human smuggling. That case had evidence from Border Patrol surveillance cameras that captured people getting into the bed of a truck and a tarp being placed over them. Once Border Patrol caught up to the truck, Schlegal reportedly drove off into the desert, stopped and began throwing rocks at the agents as twelve people ran from the scene and were later apprehended.

Easy peasy right? A convicted smuggler, in an area known for smuggling, prior assaults of agents with rocks, escape from custody, surveillance video.

Not so fast.

Something caught my eye. The signature on the complaint by FBI Special Agent Michelle Terwilliger. I know that name well. She was the independent investigator in the Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez killing of October 2012. Please see my analysis of this monumental case.

Terwilliger testified in court that she was in charge of identifying and collecting all evidence in the Jose Antonio case personally herself. Upon cross-examination, Agent Terwilliger had to admit she had not identified and collected all of the evidence but that the illegal and secret Border Patrol Critical Incident Team (CIT) of Tucson Sector had done most of the evidence identification and collection that night. She had misled the jury.

FBI Special Agent Terwilliger had to admit that she failed to get the videos from the illegal CIT unit and that it caused the evidence to be lost. She further was forced to admit that whenever she responded to Border Patrol use of force events, she did not use the FBI’s professional and independent evidence collection team, but instead “always” used the illegal CIT unit.

“Always,” she testified.

FBI Special Agent Michelle Terwilliger testimony.

In fact, the relationship FBI Agent Terwilliger had with the illegal Tucson Sector Border Patrol CIT was so good that she had their phone numbers and told them to go ahead and start processing the Jose Antonio scene before she arrived hours later. Way after the CIT unit arrived. CIT agents testified that the agents involved in the shooting had piled all the rocks they claimed were thrown at them in a pile. They also were seen on video driving over the evidence and running through it leaving spent rounds crushed. According to federal court certified forensics expert Gary Rini, FBI Agent Terwilliger and the Border Patrol CIT:

• failed to look under cars for rocks or shell casings

• failed to stop people and cars from destroying evidence

• did not do any DNA testing on the rocks or marijuana bales and packaging

• failed to interview those operating the cameras until much later resulting in faded memories

• failed to secure the original videos

• failed to test for gunshot residue on the fence that would have enabled them to determine exactly where Agent Swartz was standing when he

• failed to help determine bullet trajectories and distance

• failed to operate the Total Station 3D scene imaging system correctly… “they screwed it up”

• failed to document and interview witnesses other than Border Patrol agents

And here she is again, twelve years later at the same job. Probably working with the same Border Patrol agents from the illegal CIT unit that got Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Swartz acquitted twice because the jury stated their evidence collection was poor and contaminated. I say that because the Border Patrol CIT agents were allowed by the Biden Administration to resign Border Patrol and were rehired under CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility (CBP-OPR). No one was ever held accountable for the illegal teams and coverups. Certainly not FBI agent Michelle Terwilliger who has a history of misleading juries until cross-examined in Border Patrol use of force cases.

I want to believe these agents. I want to believe Schlegal did what they are accusing him of and that the shoot was a good shoot as we say. I want to believe CBP-OPR and the FBI did an independent investigation. But I can’t say that when the same agents who covered up all the bad shoots are still at it.

It’s hard to serve your country when the system you are working in is so damn corrupt.