Olivia Hammar of Miami, the mother of the Iraq War veteran, said Mexican authorities had decided to drop all charges against her troubled son, whose case grabbed the US media spotlight and stirred controversy earlier this month, after determining that he never intended to commit a crime in Mexico. The decision to release Hammar was announced in a press release on Friday morning from the office of Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who said he got the news from the Mexican Embassy in Washington.
"We're grateful; this is a good Christmas present," Nelson said. Hammar was heading to Costa Rica to go surfing when he crossed into Matamoros, Mexico, from Brownsville, Texas, in mid-August in a beat-up old Winnebago motor home he and a friend bought especially for the trip. He had registered the shotgun with US Customs and Border Protection officials on the US side of the border, declaring he planned to take it with him into Mexico. Despite being told that the shotgun, a Sear & Roebuck model that once belonged to his great-grandfather, posed no problem, Hammar was arrested as soon as he crossed into Mexico.