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
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A decoy for who? For what? Her Father? He knew the DEA was outside? How did he know that? Did he have his bags packed? Have a passport handy? Did he run(no)? Where was he going to go? Why did he need a decoy?
The "decoy" angle is the most obvious cover-up accusation I have seen. It doesn't pass the smell test.
"When she hit the car in front of her, she then put the car in reverse and hit the car behind her. She then put the car back into drive and accelerated at officers who had guns drawn."
No facts to support this. Even if this DID happen, again, from her point of view, she was accelerating at PEOPLE with guns drawn - people who she could not have known were officers.
Not often, obviously; however, such a question is irrelevant. In addition, I contest the term "shootout". The term "shootout" implies that both sides:
a) the girl and her uncle
b) the agents
had firearms.
This was a shooting; not a shootout.
Lastly, I wouldn't say that the girl and uncle were under-advantaged (from a self-defense perspective). The girl and the uncle had a car at their disposal, which can just as easily be used as a deadly weapon, if used "effectively".
A simple point that many want to overlook. It totally contradicts the claim that their "lives were in danger". I've seen "boxing in" on doznes of "police shows" like COPS and the person doesn't have room to ram anything. At best, each car would have been maybe 5-6 feet away. That's bumping at best, but not close to ramming.
Irrelevant my butt. You made the claim of:
If you go to the root of the problem, the girl shouldn't have been behind the wheel, in the first place. If this were the case, this never would have happened.
This directly says that none of this would have happened if an underage driver hadn't been driving. So, since altercations with the DEA rarely happen due to an underage driver, your claim that the fact an underage driver was the root of this problem is, well, ludicrous.
You're implying that I said this sort of thing NEVER happens, which I never admitted to. I said it rarely happens. I stand by my original comment that had this 14 year old girl not been behind the wheel illegally that she would be alive today.
I'm pretty sure they could provide photo's of the scene showing the damaged cars and the car she was driving when it came to a stop.
Sadly, we cannot examine things from her point of view. But we can examine the facts. I'll spot you an "if" here, for this statement.
If she hit two cars and then drove at the agents, her Uncle was doing a poor job of teaching her how to drive. He could have stopped her from taking those actions. After all, she was 14, how would she be able to think clearly enough to hit, shift to reverse, hit again, shift to drive, turn the wheel and accelerate. Alot for a 14 year old just pulling the car around to do with her Uncle sitting beside her, isn't it?
Did you read what happened? The DEA was about to move to make an arrest when a vehicle in front of the residence pulls away with it's lights off. The obvious interpretation of those events is the target of the raid is trying to flee. When you then intercept the car, the car rams 2 of your vehicles and then drives at an agent.
This wasn't a Bonny and Clyde ambush where the cops just started shooting. If the car had come to a stop, even after ramming the first car, there wouldn't have been a shooting.
If you're going to introduce an element of complete and total conjecture to your argument, so will I.
The uncle, upon seeing the agents, yells to the girl, "These f*ckers are cops. Ram 'em! Now!". And let's assume she does as the uncle suggests.
What say you?
I dont care if you stand by your idiotic comment or not. Its ludicrous, as all can see.
Why is this so hard for people to understand? Her dad sells drugs. What would be your first thoughts if this happened to you in the same situation?
And the entire incident probably lasted less than ten seconds. Given that two cars obviously come out of nowhere and box her in, guys not wearing police uniforms jump out with guns drawn, could you even think for a second she panicked? She isn't a seasoned driver. Experienced drivers make driving errors under pressure. Her age isn'y why she was killed. Poor judgement by two cops is.
Again, no one has even attempted to explain how she was being used as a "decoy" as the cowardly DEA claim.
What sort of officers or agents would jump out like they did, unless they had reason to believe something fishy was going on? AND THE AGENTS WERE RIGHT!!! There was something fishy going on. Drugs were involved.
This was NOT a simple, innocent "driving with your headlights off" offense, as you suggest. You're conveniently leaving out the drug component.
This would be an unmarked car right?
All too often, yes. I'm not a fan of unmarked cars.
You seem to have a problem understanding relevence and cause and effect.
Why refuse to consider the root cause? A 14 year old girl was illegally operating a car. Now, does this give the agents a reason to fire upon it? If the car tries to ram them, then yes. If not, then no.
I think there are too many people "taking their meds" on this thread. I agree that the DEA has file cabinets full of cases where they over step not only legal lines of conduct but moral lines as well. This is not one of those cases.
This isn't a "14 year old against the DEA" case.
This is a "vehicle attempting to flee the scene and endangering agents" case.
The fact that she was 14 have no bearing on the danger involved in this case. As has been pointed our repeatedly on this thread, "They didn't know who was in the car." Of course those making that claim then try to make her age a factor. But you can't have it both ways. Either they knew she was 14, or they didn't know who was driving. If they didn't know who was driving, then it is reasonable to assume that they believed it was the drug smuggler who was attempting to flee.
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