The past of one of the Oregon firefighters detained while fighting the Bear Gulch Fire makes his situation more complicated, his brother acknowledged.
INDEPENDENCE, Oregon — Oscar Cruz Estrada says he’s struggling to understand why his older brother, who was fighting the Bear Gulch Fire in Washington, is now sitting in federal custody.
Jose Bertin Cruz Estrada was among two firefighters arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents Wednesday during an identity check requested by the Bureau of Land Management. Jose, who works for ASI Arden Solutions, had been called up a week earlier to help on the fire lines as a sawyer, cutting through logs and clearing brush.
Oscar said he got the call around 2 p.m. that his brother had been detained.
“They just showed up, demanded papers,” he said he was told.
Jose’s past complicates his case. He was born in Mexico and moved to the U.S. in 2003. In 2013, he was arrested and charged with racketeering, delivery of methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit a felony. He was deported to Mexico, tried to return through Texas, and after being detained for 7 months, was deported again.
Oscar said his brother stayed in Mexico until 2019, when he returned to Oregon. Since then, he said Jose has turned his life around, starting a lawn maintenance business in Independence, raising his son and working steady jobs.
“I’m not going to sit here and defend and say my brother was perfect. No, he wasn’t. He got in trouble. He paid his dues. He had a sentence. I feel like he suffered two different jails: being locked up and essentially being locked out from his own family,” Oscar said.
He said Jose’s most recent arrest has shaken both their family and the firefighting community.
“I’ve been firefighting since I got out of high school; I’ve never heard of anything like that happening at all. To me, it doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
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Oscar said he fears his brother could be deported again, leaving behind his son and his business in Oregon.
“For me personally, my biggest fear is my brother going back and not having any of us there,” he said.
As of this week, Oscar said the family hasn’t been given answers: “I guess we’re all just waiting to see what happens next. He hasn’t really heard much; we haven’t really heard much other than they’re just holding him there.”
The family says it is trying to raise enough money to hire a lawyer to get to Tacoma to help Jose.
A military judge sentenced Pvt. Deron Gordon to over six years in prison for sexually assaulting a college student.
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier who sexually assaulted a college student in the barracks in 2024 was sentenced to more than six years in prison Friday.
A military judge sentenced Pvt. Deron Gordon, 20, to six years and three months in prison after he pleaded guilty to one specification each of sexual assault, abusive sexual contact and as a principal to indecent recording.
Gordon was previously charged with additional crimes, but those were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
Gordon is one of four soldiers who were charged in in connection to the sexual assault of a college student, who is now a commissioned Army officer, in October 2024.
When Gordon pleaded guilty, he said that he and another soldier followed the college student into a bedroom after she had been drinking with them. He said she was unstable walking into the room and when they went inside she was on the bed and not responsive.
Gordon said he and the other soldier each proceeded to have sex with her and they filmed each other sexually assaulting her on Snapchat.
As part of his sentencing, Gordon will be reduced in rank to E-1 and dishonorably discharged from the Army.
Gordon will serve the remainder of his sentencing at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Once he is released, Gordon must register as a sex offender.
The three other soldiers who were charged in the incident are at different points in the legal process, and their cases are being treated separately.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Additional resources are available on the Washington State Department of Health's website.
KING 5’s Conner Board contributed to this report.
