Denver’s Mexican consul general, who for the past two years forged trade and political relations with Colorado while being instrumental in the extradition of cop killer Raul Gomez-Garcia, will leave office next week.
Juan Marcos Gutierrez-Gonzalez, 37, will take a high-ranking position in the Ministry of Public Administration in Mexico City. The ministry is a government agency focused on fighting corruption and developing social services, but Gutierrez- Gonzalez would not disclose details of his new job.
Local officials praised the work he did in Denver.
“He was able to handle some very sensitive issues very effectively,” Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said Wednesday. “Certainly when we had the issues on the shooting of (Denver police) Detective Donnie Young, the pursuit of Gomez- Garcia into Mexico and the extradition, he was willing to really lobby on behalf of Denver with the Mexican government to help accelerate that extradition.”
The Mexican consulate will be run by a deputy until Mexico’s new president, Felipe Calderón, makes an appointment, which the Mexican Senate will have to ratify. Gutierrez-Gonzalez, whose last day is Tuesday, took office in February 2004 as one of 16 consul generals representing Mexico’s economic and citizen interests in the United States.
“I am grateful for the progress made in strengthening the relations between Coloradans and Mexicans,” he said.
Corruption fighter
Gutierrez-Gonzalez was nearly killed when he was kidnapped several years ago in Mexico City and forced a car crash to escape.
Gutierrez-Gonzalez has prior experience in rooting out corruption. Seven years ago, he was almost killed when, as a congressman from Tijuana, he chaired a committee that investigated Mexico’s tourism director for corruption. He was kidnapped at gunpoint from a Mexico City street. He struggled with the gunman and forced the abductor’s car off the road, and the car crashed into a concrete embankment. The crash shattered Gutierrez-Gonzalez’s right leg, and he suffered a severe head injury.
“When I realized he wasn’t just there to rob me – things were turning uglier than that – that’s when I fought back at him,” Gutierrez-Gonzalez said.
Gutierrez-Gonzalez served as chief of advisers to the Mexican Senate and also was general director of a national think tank focused on public finance. He had just co-authored a book on constitutions of foreign countries when President Vicente Fox selected him to take over for Leticia Calzada Gómez in Denver.
Government officials had said Calzada’s reassignment was part of a routine shift, but she had fallen out of favor with some Colorado politicians, namely Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo after she supported an Aurora honors student, who was in Colorado illegally, in his bid to attend the University of Colorado at Denver.
Gutierrez-Gonzalez has been lauded by Colorado business and government leaders for fostering trade relations with Mexico, Colorado’s second-largest trading partner.
“He has been able to represent the Mexican government without letting the controversy of the illegal immigration problem interfere with business partnerships,” said Jim Reis, president of the World Trade Center in Denver.
He was also key in the case of Gomez-Garcia, who was being held by Mexican authorities and was potentially facing death for the May 8, 2005, shooting death of Donnie Young and the wounding of police Detective John “Jack” Bishop. Mexican authorities wouldn’t extradite Gomez- Garcia if he faced the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors charged Gomez- Garcia with second-degree murder in Young’s death and attempted first-degree murder for Bishop. By December 2005, he was extradited, and after a trial, Gomez-Garcia received a maximum of 80 years in prison.
“That was probably the toughest thing I had to face in this office,” Gutierrez-Gonzalez said. “At the end, justice was done.”
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-954-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
