Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes was convicted in 2020 by a federal court in Arizona for the December 14, 2010, murder of Agent Terry after investigators tied one of the weapons found at the scene of Terry’s murder to the Fast and Furious gun-running program conducted during the Obama administration.
Agent Terry and his team had been tracking Mexican Sinaloa cartel “rip crews,” who cross into the U.S. to attack migrants and drug smugglers. When the agents encountered the crew, crossfire left Terry mortally wounded.
Osorio-Arellanes admitted to the murder. But a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the confession obtained from Osorio-Arellanes, which came while he was in custody in a Mexico City prison, was taken in violation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights and that the Mexican lawyer representing the defendant in Mexico City did not provide effective counsel.
His new trial begins February 3.
Agent Terry’s brother, Kent Terry, recalled the story of Agent Terry’s death and the pain brought upon his family by his own government’s failures.
Kent told Breitbart News his brother’s four-member team had been tracking the rip crew for several months, finally tracking them down in late 2010. One of the agents “stood up and yelled “policia, policia!’ And no sooner he got the second policia out, the rip crew just started firing back at him.
“One of the bullets hit Brian in the back, AK-47 and just ricocheted around inside him, and he died at scene,” Kent said.
Two of the AK-47s found at the crime scene were traced back to Fast and Furious. More than a decade later, no one in the federal government has been held accountable for the program’s failures, causing further uncertainty and pain for the Terry family.
The overturning of Osorio-Arellanes’ conviction was a fresh blow, but Kent is hopeful that under Trump and his nominee for Attorney General, Pam Bondi, his brother will receive justice through the courts as well as investigations into Fast and Furious.
“My only hope right now is Trump,” Kent told Breitbart News. “That’s it. Trump and Bondi.”
Trump has already taken steps to show he is serious about fighting cartels. The president has declared war on drug cartels, designating them as terrorist organizations and invoking the Alien Enemies Act to target them.
Those actions are encouraging for Kent, who met with Trump on the campaign trail in 2016 and remains an ardent supporter of the president.
“He said, ‘you know, it’s a disgrace what they did to your brother,” Kent recalled. “And he goes, he goes, ‘if I become president, I will open up the books into your brother’s death.”
Senate Democrats have delayed votes to confirm Trump’s nominees, including Bondi’s. But Terry, who called Bondi “a strong, honest investigator,” is hopeful she will be confirmed in time to instill a sense of urgency and justice into the government’s prosecution of his brother’s killer, or at least to investigate the government’s own role in his brother’s death.
But the clock is ticking.
“We’ve been lied to since we found out about Fast and Furious,” he told Breitbart News. “We’ve been lied to by everybody. And it’s upsetting because it’s been 14 years and we can’t even close our wound.”
Kent said his message to Bondi is to “give the American hero that fought for his country, that shed blood for his country, an honest investigation and open the documents.”
“It’s time,” he said. “My family’s waited long enough.”
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
Breitbart News
Read the full article .
