Slain girl's mom files $30M lawsuit against DEA

San Antonio Express News ^ | 3/13/2003 | maro. robbins

[wildbill]

Slain girl's mom files $30 million lawsuit

Claiming federal agents had no reason to use deadly force against her daughter, the mother of a slain 14-year-old girl filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the two agents who she claims fired at Ashley Villarreal. The complaint seeks $30 million and potentially offers the most public review of the Feb. 9 encounter between the teenager and agents who were waiting to arrest her father, cocaine-trafficking suspect Joey Villarreal.

The case was filed in federal court a day after authorities asserted that Joey Villarreal knew about the stakeout and that his daughter was acting as a decoy when she drove along the street with her headlights off.

When investigators tried to stop her sedan, officials said, she rammed their unmarked vehicles and accelerated toward agents, who opened fire without being able to see who was at the wheel.

A lawyer for the girl's mother, Deborah De Luna Villarreal, dismissed this account as "the government laying out an alternate reality."

"I think there is a grave danger that reality is going to be distorted dramatically," said the attorney, Marynell Maloney. "How is a 14-year-old girl responsible to such a degree that she should be killed?"

The lawsuit is directed at two agents who, it asserts, are believed to have fired at the car: Bill Swierc and Jeff Kinnaman. The agents could not be reached for comment.

Authorities have not said who fired the fatal shot.

Maloney said a similar complaint against the agents' employer, the Drug Enforcement Administration, is in the works. Lawyers for Joey Villarreal have indicated they are preparing their own civil suit.

Should the case go to trial, it would offer possibly the most public review of the shooting at the intersection of South San Joaquin and Motes streets.

While the DEA and the San Antonio Police Department are separately examining the incident, it is unclear whether their findings will be released in detail.

A DEA spokesman, noting that the reviews still are under way, said it would be inappropriate for the agency to comment on the lawsuit.

The narrative described in the lawsuit says Ashley believed the agents were gang members. It also faults investigators for not seeing the girl climb into the car, emphasizing that minutes earlier she and a friend had put garbage cans on the stoop.

"This is a girl who's carrying out the trash, standing out there in the streetlight, and they're shooting her dead moments later," Maloney said. "It doesn't add up."

Described by Maloney as traumatized and grieving, Ashley's mother wasn't at a news conference held at the lawyer's office Wednesday.

Maloney said that, while the lawsuit seeks $10 million in actual damages and $20 million in punitive damages, what Ashley's mom wants most is to prove that her daughter was a victim.

"The numbers are really difficult to determine. What is the worth of human life?" Maloney said. "The main point is this thing shouldn't have happened."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- mrobbins@express-news.net

03/13/2003

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[dcwusmc]

When it's needful I will... when you start addressing actual issues and knock off the FedGoon bs then I will start showing my cards. But that can't happen because you can't knock off your bs. It's outside your programming. Meanwhile, A Navy Vet can vouch for my bona fides... and if that won't do for you, tough. Suck it up.

[dcwusmc]

We had some touches of it last night... about a quarter inch or so. Maybe it'll wash the roscoe off the streets there for you.

[FITZ]

the mother of a slain 14-year-old girl filed

Allowing her child to live in the home of a cocaine trafficker was completely stupid in the first place. Rival drug gangs will go and shoot up each other's homes and families. Anyone involved in drug trafficking doesn't much care about their kids.

[Roscoe]

actual issues

Screeds versus facts. Pesky old facts.

[Gianni]

Pesky old facts

"The facts" -- for Roscoe:

1. Unmarked cars attempted to make a stop by 'boxing in'
2. In the attempt, the suspect attempted to flee.
3. The agents shot the driver.
4. The driver is dead.
5. The driver was a 14 year old girl.

Information from news reports (not necessarily confirmed):

6. The house was under surveillance.
7. Agents were dressed in plainclothes at the time of the shooting.
8. The girl tried to 'run them over'
9. The father was nowhere nearby.
10. The girl lived with her grandmother, not her father.

Given #1 and #3, I would have reacted exactly as the girl did, especially if I was in a bad neighborhood and someone in my family dealt drugs.

Is the father responsible for endangering her? Yes. I don't think that anyone really disputes this. The question which logically follows is, "Were the actions and tactics of the agents appropriate?"

[Roscoe]

"Federal officials say the car pulled away from the house at high speed with the headlights off. When agents tried to box the car in, they say, the girl kept coming toward them and crashed into their vehicle, then threw the car into reverse and rammed the DEA vehicle behind her."

http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:L7tR7b85VJoC:www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1780133

[Gianni]

Your post is not an undisputed fact, and you failed to answer the question.

[Roscoe]

Your assertion:

1. Unmarked cars attempted to make a stop by 'boxing in'
2. In the attempt, the suspect attempted to flee.

Law enforcement report:

"Federal officials say the car pulled away from the house at high speed with the headlights off. When agents tried to box the car in, they say, the girl kept coming toward them and crashed into their vehicle, then threw the car into reverse and rammed the DEA vehicle behind her."

So actually:

1. The suspect attempted to flee.
2. Unmarked police vehicles blocked the attempt by 'boxing in'

Your assertion had things backwards.

[dcwusmc]

You have to keep in mind that when Roscoe posts his roscoe, it comes from his FedGoon superiors. He is not allowed to stray from the current party line. You will notice that he posts his cut-n-paste (tm), he posts all FedGov sources as if somehow that lends authority and truthfullness to his roscoe. He seems genuinely convinced that FedGov cannot be wrong... much as a Christian is convinced of the infallibility of God, but with far, FAR less reason. Without slamming Catholics, I understand they believe in the infallibility of the Pope. I cannot, for he is human, but in that, Roscoe is like a Catholic, and his God is FedGov; his Pope is Dubya or almost any FedGov "official."

[Roscoe]

Those who invent "facts" hate sources.

[dcwusmc]

That is the first thing you have said with which I can agree 100%. You and your masters invent "facts" and use those to get legislation passed which contravenes the Constitution, then use that as precedent to get MORE legislation passed which further rapes the Constitution. You are so right on!

[Roscoe]

your masters invent "facts"

Sourceless paranoia.

[dcwusmc]

Here's SHEER FANTASY passed off as legal "thought":

This title may be cited as the 'Controlled Substances Act'.

§ 801. Congressional findings and declarations: controlled substances.

The Congress makes the following findings and declarations:

* (1) Many of the drugs included within this subchapter have a useful and legitimate medical purpose and are necessary to maintain the health and general welfare of the American people.
* (2) The illegal importation, manufacture, distribution, and possession and improper use of controlled substances have a substantial and detrimental effect on the health and general welfare of the American people.
* (3) A major portion of the traffic in controlled substances flows through interstate and foreign commerce. Incidents of the traffic which are not an integral part of the interstate or foreign flow, such as manufacture, local distribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and direct effect upon interstate commerce because -
o (A) after manufacture, many controlled substances are transported in interstate commerce,
o (B) controlled substances distributed locally usually have been transported in interstate commerce immediately before their distribution, and
o (C) controlled substances possessed commonly flow through interstate commerce immediately prior to such possession.
* (4) Local distribution and possession of controlled substances contribute to swelling the interstate traffic in such substances.
* (5) Controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate cannot be differentiated from controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate. Thus, it is not feasible to distinguish, in terms of controls, between controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate and controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate.
* (6) Federal control of the intrastate incidents of the traffic in controlled substances is essential to the effective control of the interstate incidents of such traffic.
* (7) The United States is a party to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, and other international conventions designed to establish effective control over international and domestic traffic in controlled substances.


Lies wrapped in lies, cloaked in untruths.

[Roscoe]

Here's SHEER FANTASY

A major portion of the traffic in controlled substances doesn't flow through interstate and foreign commerce? I don't suppose you have a source?

[dcwusmc]

Perhaps the substances DO flow through interstate commerce. So what? So does frozen orange juice. So do Computers. So do books. In other words, the SOLE LEGITIMATE function of the Federal Government, as clearly stated by the Founding Dads, was to ensure that each state treated trade with other states the same. No tariffs on goods coming to California from Arizona, for example. The founders did NOT intend that the ICC become a club in the hands of FedGov to beat up both the States and the Citizenry. You KNOW this, yet you keep beating the drums for the LIES that pass themselves off as political "thought" which is probably the most despicable and evil thing you can do... which is why you do it. You are evil personified. How unsurprising.

(By the way, we got some rain last night. Washed all the roscoe right off the streets. It was great to have clean streets this morning!)

[Roscoe]

Perhaps the substances DO flow through interstate commerce.

Your "sheer fantasy" accusation didn't stand long once your bluff was called.

[tpaine]

Your sheer denial of the facts are the 'bluff' roscoe. - A pitiful little bit of bluster on your part.

[dcwusmc]

The fantasy involved here is the tortured, twisted logic-substitute that started the whole War on Americans in the first place. You have YET to refute THAT. You have yet to provide any source outside the self-serving roscoe from the CSA which can point to the specific enumeration of the Constitutional authority for your War on Americans. Nor can you, because there is ZERO authority granted by the Constitution for the United States for the Federal Government to declare war on its own citizens, in the name of protecting them from themselves or any other such "justification." You know this, you know the history of this war and yet you keep blathering on and on about the CSA as if it means anything besides more of a power-grab by fed gov for fedgoons.

[Gianni]

Sorry bud, I wasn't trying to give them chronolocical ordering, only indexing so that I could refer back to the ones that would cause me to crap my drawers and ram "police" cars and run over "cops."

That is, "police" cars that look like ordinary cars, and "cops" who are dressed in plainclothes pointing guns at me and shouting.

Sorry for the confusion about ordering. By the way, what you stated was not an undisputed fact in this case. Nobody, the cops or the family, has claimed that the girl was 'trying to flee' as you have chosen to phrase it. Unless that's Roscoespeak for "drive a car."

[Gianni]

Yes, of course - and as much as the 'cut n paste' annoys me, the snide one-liners that make no sense are much, much worse.

It's what I imagine a conversation with a tourets(sp?) sufferer would be like.