(Ed.s Note: Ah, the good old days when men were men, women remained women, and a lone border sheriff with a M-16 could stave off the marauding drug gangs from across the Rio Grande. We had the opportunity to have been working for the county when Sheriff Alex Perez patrolled the river with his trusty metraca at his side. To think that Perez, who started off as a baker (panadero), and then got himself elected a justice of the peace would one day achieve the heights of greatness that earned him the attention of the national media would have been unimaginable back then.
But stranger things have happened in Cameron County and will probably happen again, and again...and again. Fortunately for Perez (and for us), he retired as sheriff without getting indicted or arrested for the usual sins that border sheriffs have been nabbed such as drug running or taking bribes from drug cartels, although plenty of rumors circulated way back then in 1985.
The caption below the metraca-toting sheriff says that Alex had ordered M-16s and Uzis for his men so they could battle the desperadoes from across. As far as we know, no running gun battles ever ensued when Da Man Alex was on his watch. Note also that the photog credited with Alex's photo is none other then Mickey Torres, a friend of ours who once worked for the Brownsville Herals when it used to be a newspaper. We thank one of our seven readers for sending us this photo from EBay.)