By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer
BROWNSVILLE, TX - He is the butt of too many jokes to list here, but Brownsville City Commissioner Charlie Atkinson, it turns out, is not a murderer. Atkinson was cleared yesterday by his federal employer of any connection with a mysterious case centered on the supposed killing of a local schoolteacher.
Juicy as it sounds, the city's police chief is wondering what the crazy noise is all about, sounding as if someone is trying to pull a fast one on him.
An employee of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Atkinson unfolded a letter given to him by the agency telling him he has been exonerated of any participation in the strange 2007 murder no one in town knows anything about, not even the fuzz.
The Feb. 9 letter is signed by Michael Freeman, the agency's director for the Brownsville Port of Entry, and advises Atkinson (shown in photo) that, "based on the evidence provided in the investigation, management has decided that the allegation (of his involvement in a 2007 murder) is unfounded and no action is warranted. Please consider this matter closed."
No other details - about the alleged victim or the alleged murder - are given.
Atkinson claims it is simply part of a vicious serpentine conspiracy of harrassment that sprouted after he won election to the city commission in 2006, when agency officials sought to push him out of his federal job using its "conflict of interest" policy.
"They (CBP) chose not to believe me," Atkinson told story-hungry reporters, categorizing the accusation as being "ridiculous." Asked about the victim, believed to be a teacher with the Brownsville Independent School District, the commissioner said, "(The CBP) didn’t know (if the victim) was male or female. They really didn’t know anything about it."
As for the easily-annoyed local cops, no-nonsense Chief Carlos Garcia said it's all news to him, explaining that neither CBP nor Internal Affairs contacted his office to report either the crime or the investigation. The chief explained there were several murders that year, and it was his feeling that all of them had been solved.
"As far as anyone (federal officers) advising us of a possible murder involving Charlie Atkinson, none whatsoever," Garcia told the rabid press.
Atkinson vowed to keep pissing-off his bosses by keeping his elected position on the town council. "They will use any little thing to get me to either quit CBP or quit the city commission. I am not going to do either," he declared boldly.
A spokeswoman for the BISD said all teachers had been accounted for that year, and that an absence due to murder would have been noticed...
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