My Dad and Candelario Ramos

One very first time my mother met my fathers family back during Christmastime 1983, she was embarrased beyond belief one particular night.

You see, my dad's brother, my tio Angel, had a black Trans Am. He also liked to drink a lot. So he was a typical 80's dude, drinking and driving his Trans Am really fast up and down Calle Constitucion which was Ameca's main street.

Pretty soon an Ameca municipal police truck tried to pull him over. Tio Angel decided he really didnt want to go to jail so he stepped on it. So he drove up and down Constitucion and by the house all the time the Police truck was behind him.

He finally pulled over and the cops arrested his drunk ass.

My father was also drunk. Upon hearing his brother was arrested he thought he was gonna go kick the asses of every single municipal cop at La Presidencia (Town Hall). Angry and running on beer and machismo he goes up to La Presidencia and to the jail where he is met by Ameca's police chief, Comandante Candelario Ramos.

"Hijo de tu chingada madre, quitate o te quito cabron! Deja salir a mi hermano" my dad, in a drunken angry slur yells at Comandante Ramos.

Ramos tells my dad to calm down but that his brother needs to sleep it off in the drunk tank. My dad is advised to calm down as well or he will be thrown in jail as well. My dad continues to be beligerent so he is arrested.

My dad was lucky. Unknown to him Comandante Candelario Ramos is a bad ass. He was an ex pistolero and hitman. He had a reputation for beating the shit out of people when he worked as a bodyguard for Jalisco state governor and Ameca native Flavio Romero de Velasco. Soon he became an agent for Mexico's Directorate of Federal Security, a shady organization with ties to organized crime. He was then made Comandante of Ameca.

On this night, Comandante Ramos is polite and understanding. He tells my dad to take off his jewelry but my dad snaps back "take it off me, you asshole".

"Fine keep your jewelry" says Ramos.

My mother when she finds out hes in jail, is now crying and embarrased. My dad is by this time asleep on a bench in the cell.

Comandante Ramos politely explains to her that he will be released in the morning. My mom asks if she can deliver him orange juice she bought him at the market, Ramos says yes.

By morning my dad my tio Angel are let free. They dont get their asses beat by Ramos and his men for being drunk assholes who talk too much shit, by some miracle.

2 years later Comandante Ramos is accused of participating the the kidnapping and murder of Agent Enrique Camarena of the DEA in Guadalajara.

Famous Sinaloa drug kingpin Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, a mastermind of Camarena's murder is found to be hiding in Ramos' luxury villa in Puerto Vallarta on April 9, 1985. Comandante Ramos is imprisoned with his friend, marijuana kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero but Ramos is free on lack of evidence in the crime.

On July 13, 1989, Comandante Ramos is driving his truck to Guadalajara when he is rear ended by a truck. He pulls over to inspect the damage and a young man descends the truck.

The young man pulls out a .9 millimeter handgun and shoots Ramos twice in the face and drives off. He was Jose de Jesus Uribe, the son of a man Ramos had killed 20 years previous when he was a hitman for the well known Zuno Arce family of Jalisco.

His shady past had finally caught up with him. Comandante Candelario Ramos, famous pistolero and Comandante of the Federal Judicial Police, friend of drug kingpins and Army Generals, died shot twice in the face on the side of a lonely road in Tequila, Jalisco.

His AR 15 was in the backseat. He never had time to use it.

Famous and Ruthless Comandante Candelario Ramos lies dead on the Guadalajara-Ameca Hwy on July 13, 1989.