Posted on 03/13/2003 8:08:49 AM PST by 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
Click here to return
That would be a first.
I agree. You seem to depend on the opinions of others for what passes for your thoughts, to the exclusion of all else. You haven't the capacity for rational argument so you hide behind gratuitous insults and ad hominems. In other words, you are full of roscoe up to your beady brown eyes and it gives you a roscoe-y outlook on life. You think that everyone else should be as roscoed-up as you are and do as little thinking as you do. Sorry, Roscoe. More and more people are learning to think for themselves, without a need for someone else to tell them what they SHOULD be thinking. A sad day for the average authoritarian who wants a nation full of lock-step, mindless robots. And the lessons of the excesses of your war on Americans are being absorbed in ways that your ilk won't like in the long run (or even the MEDIUM run, the way things are going).
Further, it is hardly "hating America" to be opposed to the direction the FedGoons are trying to take us. Hating America is to hate what she once stood for and can yet again... Hating America is to be willing to trample her Constitution for the sake of control over her people. Hating America is to believe that a bunch of roscoe-headed bureaucraps and politicians know better than we, the People, how to live our lives and spend our earnings and control ourselves. You want to see an America-hater, go to your nearest mirror and see what's looking back at you.
That would be another first.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.