Renegade Agents at Border Outpost : Misconduct: Tucson sector has drawn the scrutiny of federal and local authorities. Morale is very low, one veteran says.

By PATRICK J. McDONNELL

April 23, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

TUCSON — If the U.S. Border Patrol is a rogue agency as its detractors insist, the most renegade branch is based here along the northern expanses of the Sonoran desert.

Within the last six months, an agent and a former agent were convicted in separate cases of smuggling drugs while on duty. Another agent was tried on charges of murder and assault, and a veteran investigator was locked up for perjury.

Then there is the head mechanic indicted last year for bilking the government, the chief jailer serving probation for robbing prisoners, and the raging internecine tensions that have cast a pall over station-house life.

“Morale is about as low as whale dung,” said one veteran Tucson agent, expressing a sentiment common among officers here.

The tableau of corruption and misconduct at the Border Patrol’s vast Tucson sector--responsible for most of Arizona--has drawn scrutiny from the FBI, Justice Department internal affairs investigators, federal prosecutors and local law enforcement. This month, U.S. authorities investigating possible civil rights violations summoned 11 agents to a police lineup.

“The Border Patrol needs an overhaul of policies and operating procedures from the top on down,” said Jose Luis Machado, the former Santa Cruz County attorney who prosecuted a Nogales-based agent on murder charges last year.

Border Patrol officials say the turmoil is not as pervasive as it may seem. “There’s no agency that doesn’t have its problems and its bad apples,” Assistant Tucson Chief James R. Olech said. “We’re not a rogue agency. We’re doing as professional a job as we can.”

Still, he acknowledged, “it’s not a good time for the Border Patrol.”

In Nogales, Border Patrol records show, a confrontation with a supervisor prompted Agent Christopher L. Truty to summon police to the station last year. Two years ago, the agents’ union accused Floyd Braxton Mohler, the Tucson station chief, of having “encouraged physical violence between employees” by suggesting that officers find out who played a prank on a subordinate and “kick his ass,” according to an internal memo.

“Many agents have developed an attitude of: Why should I care anymore? No one else does!” one officer responded to an official morale questionnaire circulated by Border Patrol supervisors last year.

Drugs figure prominently in much of the Tucson turmoil, as agents take on an expanding role as front-line grunts in the nation’s drug interdiction campaign.

The lure of easy profits has proved all too tantalizing for some. Douglas Agent Ronald Michael Backues ferried marijuana in his pale green service Bronco and spent the proceeds on jewels, boats, motorcycles, a lakeside home and other extravagances--even steroids for himself and breast implants for his wife. In December, Backues began serving a 12-year prison sentence.

Former Agent Gary Patrick Callahan, a marksman who once trained with a crack South African battalion, faces life behind bars after his conviction in February for trafficking in cocaine stolen from smugglers. Callahan was extradited to Arizona from New Zealand, where he had fled with a phony passport and purchased a yacht.

In both instances, Border Patrol superiors did not act on indications that the crooked lawmen lived well beyond their means. Backues told inquisitive co-workers of a supposed inheritance from Mexican in-laws, while Callahan cited winnings from the California Lottery.

“There was a lot of suspicion about Callahan that was given to the Border Patrol,” said Jimmy Judd, former sheriff of Cochise County, Ariz., who said deputies noted trouble signs--including Callahan’s lavish Bisbee home, complete with an Olympic-size swimming pool. “You just can’t afford that kind of house on a cop’s salary.”

Veteran Border Patrol Investigator Willie Garcia went to prison in December for lying in court about an accused heroin smuggler--a longtime informant with whom Garcia had once had an intimate relationship, court records show. Enraged prosecutors say the former agent’s perjured testimony may have cost a conviction.

Some agents complain that commanders place so much emphasis on amassing drug seizures--thus impressing top brass and lawmakers in Washington--that supervisors turn a blind eye to evidence of wrongdoing by agents.

“Management will let you do whatever you need to do to get the job done to stop drug smuggling,” said Thomas A. Watson, a five-year Nogales veteran who was fired this month for complicity in the cover-up of a fellow agent’s fatal shooting of a suspected trafficker. “Drugs are what the chief wanted. Drugs made the headlines.”

Ronald J. Dowdy, Tucson chief agent for almost six years, vehemently denies condoning wrongdoing. “Yes, we’re on the leading edge . . . of narcotics interdiction . . . but that’s because in southern Arizona there’s an awful lot of drugs crossing the border,” he said.

Many agents admit that they prefer drug duty--waiting in remote canyons with automatic weapons to waylay traffickers along backcountry trails--to the more prosaic task of apprehending illegal immigrants.

“You get a real adrenaline rush from catching dopers,” one agent said. “You get horseback riders carrying dope. Shootouts. It’s like the Wild West out there.”

Excessive exuberance has its downside, however.

Commanders discovered last year that a team of Nogales agents, apparently eager to intercept “loads” and impress supervisors, had been switching the agency’s electronic sensors to other trafficking paths--and not informing co-workers who rely on the sensors. But nothing exposed excesses more than the sensational case of Nogales Agent Michael Andrew Elmer, who was acquitted last year of murdering a suspected drug scout who was unarmed.

At his trial, Elmer admitted to numerous violations: using an unauthorized assault rifle, firing when not threatened, failing to report gunplay, dragging the dead man’s body into brush to conceal the remains, and not telling superiors that he had killed someone.

In a civil suit, relatives of the dead man, Dario Miranda Valenzuela--who was shot twice in the back as he ran away--allege that the Border Patrol “encouraged and condoned a systematic pattern of unconstitutional use of deadly force against Mexican citizens.”

Elmer still faces assault charges stemming from an unrelated on-duty shooting, while Justice Department civil rights prosecutors are also investigating his activities.

Unresolved are allegations by Elmer’s ex-wife, Tina Marie James, who told federal investigators that Elmer and another agent skimmed five kilos of cocaine from a Border Patrol seizure and that Elmer later became a heavy user. Elmer denied the accusation through his attorney.

The climate of lawlessness and discord is not all drug-related.

Armando C. Garcia, Tucson’s former chief detention officer, was placed on three years probation in late 1991 after admitting that he stole money from immigrants in the Border Patrol lockup. The former garage foreman, Richard Gerald Lofing, was indicted on charges of fraud and embezzlement last year in connection with an alleged scheme to rip off the government for auto parts and repairs. He denied the charges and is awaiting trial.

“Management can’t keep their hands out of the cookie jar,” one exasperated agent complained in last year’s morale questionnaire. “Everyone seems to be suspect in some sort of underhanded dealings.”