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Armando Ramirez, DEA resident-aget=in=charge
Published February 19, 2010
Del Rio native Armando Ramirez Jr. has returned to his roots as the new Resident-Agent-in-Charge (RAC) of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Eagle Pass/Del Rio regional offices.
“Actually, when I first heard of the position/vacancy being announced for the area down here, I thought, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be nice, after being gone 18 years, to have an opportunity to go back to the community where I started my law enforcement career, to go back home’,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez was born in Del Rio, attended Del Rio public schools and graduated from Del Rio High School. He attended college at Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde, earned an Associate’s Degree in Law Enforcement studies, and finished his Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice at Sul Ross State University in Alpine.
He began his law enforcement career in Del Rio in 1981, as a patrol officer with the Del Rio Police Department. Ramirez stayed with the DRPD for 10 years, serving different assignments during his tenure as a patrol officer, detective and narcotics investigator.
Ramirez said he realized he wanted to make drug enforcement his career after serving as the DRPD’s liaison back then with the Del Rio Narcotics Task Force in Del Rio working in conjunction with the DEA in the late 1980s.
“The DEA is a single-mission agency, and I enjoyed working narcotics investigations, which entailed working undercover, traveling abroad and working across the nation with other law enforcement officers and agencies,” Ramirez said.
He formally joined the DEA in November 1991 and was assigned to Laredo, Texas, his first duty station.
Since then he has also served in offices located in Monterrey, Mexico; Brownsville, Texas; and on temporary assignments throughout different parts of Mexico, the Southwest Texas Border/Valley areas, Miami, Florida, Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado. His last two years were spent working as a staff coordinator assigned to the Operations Division at DEA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
But Ramirez said a return to the border was always in the back of his mind. When the opportunity presented itself, he didn’t hesitate.
“I was really thrilled when I heard I had been selected for this assignment. You normally don’t always get the opportunity to return back to the office/station that you were hired out of, to return and work in your hometown. It’s also an opportunity to go back to the community where it all started for me,” he said.
“I’m just happy to be back, and to proudly be able to give back a little bit to the community that has given me so much,” he added.
Ramirez said his family has deep roots on the border as well. Ramirez’s wife, a licensed Realtor in Virginia and Texas, is also a native Del Rioan, and his son, who serves as an FBI Special Agent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his daughter, a Criminal Justice major at Texas A&M University San Antonio, spent some of their growing-up years here.
Ramirez said one of his first priorities will be to cultivate and strengthen the working relationships, liaisons, intelligence sharing and promoting an environment of teamwork that he would like to see between all the areas local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in the aggressive investigation and interdiction of narcotics trafficking and enforcement of Federal Narcotics laws.
“It’s one team, one fight, involving all of the law enforcement agencies working together in our community. That’s the only way we can get the job done, and it’s the only way I know how to get the job done,” he said.
“We are all in this together,” he added, saying he has already paid visits to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Marshal’s Office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Border Patrol, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office, Federal Magistrates Office, and, of course, to the Del Rio Police Department.
Additionally, he has never forgotten the officers who mentored his law enforcement career.
“A lot of credit and thanks go to the my former colleagues at the DRPD that I respected and worked with over the 10 years I was there, and to Charlie Bruce, Keith Fleckenstein, Gus Cuellar, Ramiro Castillo, Tom Romanelli, Raul Arredondo, Abe Paniagua, Robert Garcia, and Herman Schafer to name a few. They’re just a handful of the people that had an influence in the direction my life and career took,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said he has also begun visiting with representatives of numerous other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in the nine county areas he will oversee in the DEA regional office.
“As I said, we’re a single-mission agency. We’re here to investigate, disrupt and dismantle drug trafficking organizations, domestically and abroad, and we can’t do that by ourselves. We need the help of the other law enforcement agencies and the community,” he said.
Ramirez also invited members of the community and the school district to reach to him or his offices when needed.
“If they want to report suspicious activity, request presentations or speakers from our office relative to our mission, or to just talk to me, we’re here to respond as best and as quickly as we can,” Ramirez said.
Anyone who wants to contact Ramirez can do so at by calling one of the main numbers in Eagle Pass, Texas, 830-752-4000.
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