Posted on 04/25/2005 11:35:25 AM PDT by StoneColdGOP
This Friday will mark the third anniversary of the murder of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy David W. March.
March was killed in the line of duty sometime around 10:30AM, April 29th, 2002 on Live Oak Ave. in Irwindale, during a traffic stop. The driver of the black Nissan Maxima Deputy March pulled over was Armando Garcia, a twice-deported illegal alien with convictions for meth dealing and wanted by the police in neighboring Baldwin Park on weapons charges.
According to passersby, Deputy March was shot and wounded as he approached Garcia, then Garcia exited his car, walked up to the bleeding and wounded man on the ground, and executed him with shots to the head. Garcia then fled the scene.
Later, investigators learned from Garcia's friends and acquaintences that he had vowed to kill any law enforcement officer he encountered rather than return to prison. These individuals also recommended to Garcia that he flee south to Mexico.
Garcia remains a free man in Mexico. That nation refuses to extradite him objecting to the U.S. death penalty which Los Angeles County District Attorney has refused to rule out seeking in trial. An October 2001 ruling by the Mexican Supreme Court also found that the sentence of life in prison to be akin to "cruel and unusual punishment" and thus illegal to impose, and against Mexican law to extradite a suspect facing such a sentence.
Thus, a known violent criminal murderer escapes justice in the United States and poses a danger to the citizens of Mexico, and Mexico enables both to occur by not handing Armando Garcia over to the U.S. to account for his crimes.
This Friday, April 29th, 2005 supporters of the March family will join Deputy March's parents, John and Barbara, for a candlelight vigil from 5 to 7PM at the Irwindale Speedway in Irwindale, CA (just off the 605 freeway), not far from where Deputy David March's life ended.
They will be joined by featured speakers including Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, Fifth District County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, District Attorney Steve Cooley, Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs President Roy Burns, and U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo. KFI radio hosts John and Ken will be broadcasting their show from the location as well, and will be discussing their trip to Washington, D.C. with the March family to bring their plight and the immigration problem to the attention of lawmakers.
Please join us.
5-7PM, Friday, April 29th, 2005
Irwindale Speedway, Irwindale, California
Directions from Southern California
On the morning of June 8, 1999, seventeen-year-old Olivia Munguia and her cousin, fifteen-year-old Jessica Zavala were shot to death as they walked to school in Lynwood, California. The gunman, twenty-year-old Juan Manuel Casillas, was angry with Olivia Munguia because she had recently broken off their dating relationship. In the days prior to the shooting, Casillas stalked and threatened Olivia Munguia.
The police investigation revealed that Casillas approached the two girls with a gun as they walked down the street. Casillas fired five rounds into Olivia Munguia’s back, and one round into Jessica Zavala’s back. Witnesses observed Casillas flee from the scene. Olivia and Jessica were taken to the hospital where they both died as a result of the gunshot wounds.
After the police investigation, Casillas was charged with two counts of murder. Before officers could arrest him, Casillas, a Mexican national, fled to Mexico. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office waived the death penalty and requested extradition. Mexico denied the request to extradite Casillas because he would face a potential sentence of life without parole. Once extradition was denied, Mexico prosecuted Casillas for the murders.
In 2002, Mexican authorities informed the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department that Casillas was convicted and sentenced to sixty years in prison. The victims’ family was never notified of the trial. They were not provided any opportunity to be heard at Casillas’ sentencing hearing. They doubt the authenticity of the sentence and believe that Casillas will be able to "buy" his freedom. Under current state law California can never prosecute Casillas for these murders because he was already tried in Mexico.
On May 5, 1996 nineteen-year-old Tiffany Rios was gunned down as she sat in Gerardo Fuentes’ car in front of an East Los Angeles apartment complex. Tiffany died immediately as a result of a gunshot wound to her head. Another passenger in the car, thirty-four-year-old David Martinez, was also shot in the head. He was rushed to the hospital where he underwent surgery. David survived the life threatening head injuries.
The police investigation revealed that Tiffany Rios, David Martinez and Gerardo Fuentes were returning to the apartment complex from the store when a car pulled up beside them. A passenger in the car, twenty-one-year-old Angel Jimenez, leaned out a window and fired into Fuentes’ car. Angel Jimenez, a "Lopez Maravilla" gang member fired into Fuentes’ car in retaliation for an earlier drive-by shooting by "Arizona Maravilla" gang members.
After the shooting, Angel Jimenez, a Mexican national, fled to Mexico. The Mexican government arrested and prosecuted Jimenez for these crimes pursuant to Article IV of the Mexican Constitution. On September 30, 2000 Angel Jimenez was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for the murder of Tiffany Rios and the attempted murders of David Martinez and Gerardo Fuentes. The victims’ families could not observe the trial or give any input at the sentencing. If Jimenez had been prosecuted and convicted in California, he would have been sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment. Thanks to AB1432, California prosecutors will now have the ability to leave the warrant in the system and prosecute the defendant should he ever choose to return to the United States.
The above cases are just a few of the others, in addition to that of Deputy David March, in which brutal killers are escaping justice with the willing complicity of Mexico. There are over an estimated 300 in the County of Los Angeles alone.
BTTT.
Deputy Don Willmon, Angelina County Texas Sheriff’s Department
Murdered May 13, 1979
On May 13, 1979, Deputy Willmon approached Alvaro Rodarte and began questioning him about a burglary that had taken place in the area. During the encounter, a struggle ensued and Rodarte stabbed Deputy Willmon numerous times. Rodarte then fled to Mexico where he remained a fugitive for 24 years. On August 29, 2003, Rodarte was arrested in Zacatecas. He will be prosecuted for the murder of Deputy Willmon in Mexico under Article IV of the Mexican Federal Penal Code. If convicted, he could have been sentenced to prison for 2-60 years; however on September 4, 2003 a Mexican court ruled that the statute of limitations had run and Rodarte was acquitted and released.
[Note: If this were a California case, the acquittal would forever bar prosecution and Rodarte would be free to live in either country without fear of arrest or prosecution.]
Officer Collins was shot and killed in an off duty incident as he attempted to thwart a robbery while working as a security guard at Valley National Bank in Phoenix, Arizona. Ismael Conde was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 280 years in prison.
Co-defendant, Rudy Romero fled to Mexico where he remained at large for 12 years before being wounded in a shootout with police. He was then arrested on the outstanding murder warrant. Mexico refused to extradite unless Texas waived the death penalty. The paperwork was begun but before the extradition request was approved, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that any life sentence was unconstitutional and the SRE refused to extradite unless additional assurances of a determinate term were given.
On November 1, 2002, thirteen years after the murder of Officer Collins, Romero was extradited from Mexico. He has since been convicted and sentenced to 98 years in prison. Both the death penalty and life sentences had to be waived in order to secure extradition. Romero is eligible for parole.
Officer Cadena was shot eight times at close range during an undercover drug sting operation. After the shooting a co-defendant reached over Cadena’s body and ripped open his shirt and pants, presumably looking for the drug money. Officer Cadena’s murder was memorialized in the 1990 TV movie "In the Line of Duty".
The shooter, Javier Suarez Medina was a Mexican national who had lived in the United States since he was three years old. In May of 1989, Medina was convicted and sentenced to death. On August 15, 2002, after 13 years on death row, Medina was executed. Among his last words spoken was the phrase "Viva Mexico". Medina was given a hero’s sendoff at his funeral in Mexico which was attended by 6,000 people.
The Mexican government actively fought the conviction and proposed execution arguing that Medina had not been advised of his rights under the Vienna Convention – an issue Medina raised for the first time one week before his execution. Mexican President Vicente Fox canceled a planned trip to meet with President Bush in Crawford, Texas in protest of the execution.
Officer Cadena, was an American citizen of Mexican ancestry. In a letter to President Fox, Cadena’s son Lawrence Rudy Cadena, also a police officer complained "Why is Mexico, the country of my children, defending a man who killed their grandfather?" No one from the Mexican government has ever contacted the Cadena family.
On September 30, 1992, Trooper Clodfelter arrested Francisco Manzo Hernandez for driving under the influence. Rather than leave Manzo’s passengers stranded on the highway, Clodfelter agreed to transport them to their nearby residence. All three men were placed in the back of his patrol car. When the dispatcher could not get an answer on the radio, a car was sent to investigate. Trooper Clodfelter was found seated in his patrol car about four blocks from the scene of the arrest with four bullets to the back of his head.
Manzo-Hernandez was an illegal alien with a long violent history of assault and drug use.
On October 2nd, after one of the largest manhunts undertaken in Oregon history and the offer of a large reward, Hernandez was captured while hiding in a barn on the same street he had shot Clodfelter. Hernandez was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. If Hernandez had made it back to Mexico, and extradition sought today, he could not have been extradited unless assurances of a determinate sentence were given.
A year after Trooper Clodfelter’s death, his wife of one month, unable to overcome her great grief, chose to end her life. Rene was a fellow law enforcement officer.
UPDATE: VASQUEZ-MENDOZA RETURNED TO THE U.S. ON JANUARY 29, 2005 TO STAND TRIAL FOR THE MURDER OF AGENT FASS.
On Saturday, January 29th, Mexico extradited Augustine Vasquez-Mendoza to the United States to face trial for the 1994 murder of DEA Agent Richard Fass. The manhunt lasted six years. Even after his arrest and the granting of extradition (which took 2 1/2 years), it took another 4 1/2 years to get Mexican authorities to release Vasquez-Mendoza to US custody.
On his last day as an undercover officer, after attending a transfer party in his honor, Agent Fass went to a strip mall in Glendale, Arizona to complete a narcotics transaction. The drug dealers had planned a robbery and execution and immediately engaged Fass in a gun battle. Fass fired back, wounding one man, but was then hit by a fusillade of bullets. He was shot six times in the head at point blank range with a .45 caliber handgun. The two shooters were quickly arrested, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole plus 55 years. The mastermind of the plot to kill Agent Fass, Augustin Vasquez Mendoza, fled to Mexico.
An intense manhunt was begun. Police began interrogating members of Vasquez’ family and death threats began flowing. Nine Mexican police officers throughout the area were assassinated, including five who had worked directly on this investigation. During the course of the investigation, DEA agents and local police uncovered the lucrative drug trade of the Sinaloan Cowboys from Michoacan. Drug runners throughout the United States were apprehended.
After more than six years of searching and rewards totaling $2.2 million dollars, Vasquez was arrested in Puebla on July 10, 2000.
In January, 2002, after a year and a half of negotiating, a judge ruled that the recent Mexican Supreme Court decision barred his extradition. The US argued that under the law as it existed in 1994, a life sentence meant 25 years in prison. With all charges stacked, the maximum sentence would be 53 years. In October, 2002, the PGR approved extradition and DEA agents went to the prison where Vasquez-Mendoza was being housed only to be turned away at the jail door. Vazquez-Mendoza had filed an Amparo related to a pending drug charge arguing that he couldn’t have been the subject wanted in the drug case because at that time he was on the run for the murder of Agent Fass. Prison authorities refused to honor the extradition order and release Vazquez-Mendoza to U.S. authorities until the Mexican drug charges were resolved. As of the date of this report, more than nine years after the murder of Agent Fass, Mexico continues to refuse to release Vazquez-Mendoza to the United States. There is some question as to whether or not the extradition process will have to begin anew.
Bernardo Velardez-Lopez, Julio Cesar Arenas-Hernandez, Manuel Gamez, and Juan Manuel Umares-Rivas were stopped by Agent Kirpnick and his partner while transporting marijuana in backpacks across a well-known drug corridor west of Nogales. Agent Kirpnick had defendant Velardez-Lopez on his knees searching him when two of the suspects broke away from his partner and ran. As Kirpnick became temporarily distracted by the escape, Velardez-Lopez removed a concealed gun and shot Agent Kirpnick in the head.
Gamez was arrested almost immediately and provided information as to the whereabouts of the others. The shooter Velardez-Lopez and Arenas-Hernandez were subsequently arrested in Mexico and extradited. All three have since been convicted of the murder and numerous drug offenses and sentenced to life imprison. Velardez-Lopez was extradited from Mexico in late 1998 after the US government agreed to waive the death penalty. He was sentenced in 2000 to two consecutive life terms.
The remaining fugitive, Juan Manuel Umares-Rivas was arrested in Mexico and returned to the United States on March 4, 2004 to stand trial.
Officer Atkinson was working a drug suppression detail, surveilling a white Lincoln Continental when his partners got called away on another detail. Shortly thereafter, three men emerged from the location and entered the vehicle. Officer Atkinson began tailing the vehicle but temporarily lost visual contact. As he turned north in search of the vehicle, 17 year old Felipe Petrona-Cabana emerged from the driver’s side and began filing his .357 caliber revolver. Atkinson was struck twice in the head and died the next day. A security guard on his way home from work observed the shooting and opened fire injuring Petrona-Cabana, who was taken into custody. Petrona-Cabana was an illegal alien who came to the United States seven months earlier from a small farming community near Acapulco in the State of Guerrero. A pound of cocaine was ultimately recovered from the vehicle.
All three suspects were illegal aliens from the same small town and were sentenced to natural life. The shooter, Petrona-Cabana, was represented in part, by an attorney hired by Mexico who successfully argued against the death penalty. Had they made it back across the border, Mexico would have demanded a determinate sentence before extraditing.
Detective Arango was shot and killed after having been flagged down by a club patron who indicated that some men had been breaking into cars outside of a nightclub. Detective Arango located three suspects and detained them. As he searched for weapons, illegal alien Bautista Ramirez shot Arango four times. The first shot took off one of his fingers, the second through his thigh. As Arango lay on the ground helpless, Ramirez intentionally fired one round through his badge and then executed Arango with a shot to his head which severed his brain stem.
Unfortunately for Ramirez, he had left his wallet on the top of the patrol car and was quickly apprehended. The trial was delayed while his defense attorney appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, arguing that Hispanics were under-represented by the grand jury that indicted him. On June 25, 2003, Ramirez was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life plus twenty years.
Officer Dunman was on routine bike patrol in the downtown area when he was struck and killed instantly by an illegal alien, Cruz-Silva. The fugitive was arrested and charged, then released on bail after the Hispanic community claimed discrimination. The defendant fled to Mexico where he is believed to be hiding today.
On September 25, 2000, while on routine patrol, Deputy Schapp and his partner initiated a traffic stop on a full size van. Before either deputy was able to exit the patrol car, the sliding door of the van flew open and illegal alien Emigdio Preciado began firing an assault weapon at the patrol vehicle, striking Deputy Schapp in the forehead. Twenty-one 7.62 shell casings were recovered at the scene.
Preciado remains at large today and is believed to be in Mexico. The three passengers in the van have pled guilty to assault on a police officer.
Deputy Schapp has returned to very limited duty, currently in a training unit giving "sensitivity" training.
On August 9, 2002, Ranger Eggle and three U.S. Border Patrol officers responded after Mexican Police reported that two armed fugitives had fled across the border into the United States at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. A border patrol helicopter gave chase and directed Eggle and the other officers to the location where three suspects had ditched their vehicle. The American officers pursued the fugitives on foot as they ran into nearby bushes. One of the Mexican nationals was caught, and during the attempt to apprehend the other two, Eggle was ambushed and shot by one of the suspects with an AK-47. Eggle was hit below his bullet-proof vest and died at the scene before the emergency helicopter arrived.
The shooter, Panfilio Murillo Aguila, was shot to death by Mexican officers standing on the Mexican side of the border.
Officer Hernandez was conducting a routine traffic stop when Saul Garcia-Morales, aka Javier Durate Chavez fled the scene on foot after a brief vehicle pursuit. Officer Hernandez chased Garcia-Morales into a nearby apartment where Garcia opened fire hitting Hernandez six times. Officer Hernandez was shot in the forearm, chest, hand, side and calf with bullets entering his neck and back. He had been on the force for three months but relied on his extensive survival and tactical training during eight years in the marines to summon the clear thinking and courage that kept him alive. Officer Hernandez was hospitalized for 12 days in critical condition and was unconscious for six of those days. He fought to remain conscious long enough to describe the suspect and the circumstances surrounding the shooting. When he awoke from his coma, doctors told him they were surprised he survived. As of the date of this update, Officer Hernandez has returned to light duty after five surgeries. Although he hopes to return to full duty in the future, he continues to battle significant medical limitations.
Garcia, who had been convicted of auto burglary in 1997 and deported several times between 1998 and 2002, was killed by Las Vegas SWAT officers in the ensuing gun battle. He had just attempted an armed robbery and believed that Officer Hernandez had been summoned by that victim.
On April 12, 2003, Officer Sitek and his partner attempted a traffic stop on the driver of a red truck who cut off the patrol vehicle. The driver had just committed an armed car- jacking. When the officers stopped, the driver began shooting, hitting Officer Sitek four times in his abdomen, leg and hand. Officer Sitek was in cardiac arrest when responding paramedics arrived. He was revived, rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery and coded in the emergency room. Officer Sitek was brought back to life and as of June 3, 2003 had pulled out of his three week coma, is breathing on his own and has been transferred to a rehabilitation hospital. He is still unable to walk.
The shooter, Francisco A. Gallardo, was a Mexican citizen who had recently completed a seven-year prison term for aggravated assault. He had been deported after his release but had returned. Gallardo was shot and killed by Officer Sitek’s partner as he attempted to escape.
On June 13, 2003, Officer Zeppetella stopped Adrien George Camacho for a traffic violation. Camacho pulled out a gun and shot Zeppetella. Camacho then pistol-whipped the injured officer before shooting him again and killing him with the officer’s own gun. Camacho was a documented illegal alien and gang member with a criminal history which included four previous felony convictions. He had been deported several times.
After a four hour standoff with SWAT officers, Camacho surrendered. He has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.
Officer Pavelka was killed and his partner, Gregory Campbell, 41, was seriously injured during a shootout with two suspects who fired nearly 30 rounds at the officers. Officers had stopped the vehicle in a crime infested area and had called for back-up when the gunfire erupted. One of the fugitives, Ramon Aranda was killed by officers during the gun battle. Matthew Pavelka was the son of a 29 year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The second shooter, David Garcia, fled to Mexico when he remained for nearly two weeks before Mexican authorities expelled him as an "undesirable" citing his US citizenship. It’s important to note that Mexico historically refuses to deport, expel or extradite anyone with a Mexican surname. It is believed that this expulsion was accomplished only because of the extremely adverse publicity Mexico has received as it relates to their indicated refusal to extradite Armando Garcia (no relation) for the murder of Deputy David March on April 29, 2002.
Agent Epling disappeared on December 16, 2003 during the pursuit of four suspected illegal aliens. His body was recovered from the Colorado River on December 20, 2003. Agent Epling had been last seen running down the river in pursuit of the suspects after first pulling a woman to safety from the raging river .
A Federal grand jury indicted 22 year old Jose Antonio Vasquez Villasenor for immigrant smuggling in connection with Agent Epling’s death on December 30, 2003.
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