.
One of the more
disturbing aspects of
illegal alien crime anarchy has been the number of
police officers killed by foreigners—and the apparent
lack of concern about the issue at the highest levels of
police departments.
There has been local
outrage from citizens, to be sure. But not much of the
official variety from
leaders in uniform who should regard the safety of
their officers as a top priority—especially any threat
from illegal aliens, who should not be here in the first
place.
Of course, Chief of
Police is a
political position. You attain it by doing the
bidding of powerful people and gaining the support of
influential voting blocs—not necessarily by being an
effective cop.
An ambitious captain
looking for promotion has to demonstrate capacity for
community outreach of a diverse nature while
navigating the obstacle course of alliances that is City
Hall everywhere.
So obedient Chiefs who
want to keep their cushy jobs—San
Francisco top cop
Heather Fong makes $210,000—fall into line with
cop-killer policies like
illegal alien sanctuary zones.
Sanctuary zones are a
force multiplier on the side of the bad guys. If I were
a citizen gangster, say a
Crip or Blood, I would be offended that my criminal
enterprises were being discriminated against. And they
are. A
foreign gangster is practically given a license to
practice in Los Angeles, while
homie lawbreakers get arrest and incarceration.
As a result of pander
politics, we have creatures like the Los Angeles
Chief William Bratton, who continues to
defend his city`s sanctuary policy. In 2003, Bratton
even told a radio listener who objected to LA`s
Special Order 40 that he should
"leave the state".
LA`s growing
list of victims at the hands of foreign gang-bangers
include:
- 15-year-old
Cheryl Green, a black teen murdered for
"trespassing" on
Hispanic turf in her own neighborhood.
- LA County
Deputy David March, murdered by
an illegal
Mexican
gangster in 2002. This tragic
case was made more difficult by the
indifference of LA police hierarchy. It was
family and concerned citizens who worked
together for years to insist that Mexico extradite
killer Armando Garcia—not anyone among top LA
police.
At least LA District
Attorney Steve Cooley created a website,
EscapingJustice.com, dedicated to shining a light on
Mexico`s
corrupt policy of providing a
largely extradition-free safe haven for murderers,
rapists and other violent thugs.
Years of citizen anger
and organizing on the David March case and a few other
high-profile crimes has loosened the logjam in the
Mexican court system. Now at least some of the worst
are sent to America to face US justice.
- Another success was
the December 2005
extradition of Raul
Gomez-Garcia for the murder
of Denver officer Donald Young. That case
caused a lot of anger for many reasons: not only was
the killer an illegal alien gangster, but at the
time of the shooting he was
employed at a restaurant owned by the mayor,
John Hickenlooper.
Officer Young had been working as a
security guard at a private baptism party when he
ejected Gomez-Garcia for misbehavior. The Mexican
returned with a gun and shot Young three times in
the back. Gomez-Garcia was
sentenced to the maximum 80 years in prison last
October.
But to call retrieval
and a middling jail sentence a
"success" is only to note a slight improvement
on the part of our narco-criminal neighbor in terms of
extradition. Officer Young`s murder was a preventable
crime, as are all the
deaths caused by illegal aliens.
Doubly indefensible are
deadly crimes committed by previously arrested illegal
aliens who have not been deported. For example:
 |
Dallas officer Brian Jackson, murdered during a domestic disturbance call. The killer was illegal Mexican Juan Lizcano, who had been previously arrested twice but allowed to remain in the country. |
Needless to say, there
are no federal statistics kept about the number of
police officers (or innocent citizens) killed by illegal
aliens. So there is no definitive list of their names.
The following is a remembrance taken largely from my
website
Immigrations Human Cost, where crime victims of
illegal aliens have been memorialized.
-
Brandon
Winfield
of Marion, Ohio, was killed while checking on
a
disabled van by the roadside. He was found shot in
the head in his patrol car after apparently giving a
lift to the Mexican owner of the vehicle. Just 29
years old when he was murdered, he was the father of
two young sons. In heartland America, hundreds of
local citizens came to his funeral to show their
respect and concern because such crimes are not the
norm there yet.
-
Rodney Johnson, a decorated officer of
the Houston Police
Department, was killed last year
by
Juan Leonardo Quintero, a man previously
deported for sexual indecency with a child. It`s
hard to know whether Houston`s sanctuary policy was
an attraction for Quintero, given his history. At
any rate, the Mexican was pulled over for speeding,
managed to hide a gun while being cuffed and
then
shot Officer Johnson four times in the head from
the back seat of the patrol car. It`s believed
Quintero feared a prison sentence as a previously
deported felon. (He will wish he had a little
10-year sentence after a Texas court gets finished
with a cop-killer.)
Chief of Police Harold
Hurtt actually remarked shortly after the murder that he
supported Houston`s sanctuary policy and it didn`t
cause Officer Johnson`s death because "the subject
was deported and yet he came back". It was not a
shining moment in the
annals of police leadership.
-
Oceanside California
Officer
Tony Zeppetella was a rookie cop
who had
been in the department just over a year, when he was
shot and killed in a credit union parking lot by
Adrian George Camacho, a Mexican illegal alien with
a long criminal record. Officer Zeppetella was
married with a six-month-old child. He was
born in Whittier and enlisted in the navy after
he graduated from high school in 1994. Tony
Zeppetella was 27 years old at the time of his
death. The accused killer had been
deported several times, and his criminal record
lists
drugs, illegal firearms possession and gang
activity. Camacho fled the scene of the shooting to
the home of his ex-wife`s parents, and was taken
into custody only after a four-h
-
It was 1992 when
Oregon State Police Trooper
Bret Clodfelter
was murdered by an
illegal alien, but the crime has not been forgotten.
Trooper Clodfelter of Klamath Falls had arrested
three Mexican men for being drunk and disorderly,
then offered them a ride and was murdered for his
generosity. The prosecutor sought the death penalty,
but one dissenting juror meant Francisco Manzo-Hernandez
got life in prison instead. To add to the tragedy,
Clodfelter`s widow Rene committed suicide a year
after her husband was murdered. The couple had been
married just over a month when the murder occurred.
-
Officer Sheila Herring was lost to a
bullet from an illegal alien
in an early morning
altercation at a Norfolk bar in January 2003. The
accused man, Mario Roberto Keen, a citizen of
Jamaica, had reportedly shot a man in the bar
after which the police were called. When several
officers arrived, Keen opened fire and shot Officer
Herring who died later in surgery. Keen was shot and
killed at the scene. He had been sentenced to five
years in prison in 1990 for selling cocaine and was
later deported. Keen attempted to re-enter the
United States in New York in 1997, but was
reportedly barred from entering. It is not known
when Keen succeeded in entering the U.S. Herring had
been a cop in Detroit for ten years before moving to
Virginia. She was 39 and had an 18-year-old
daughter.
-
Marc Atkinson
was just 28 when he was shot and killed in a
1999
ambush by an illegal alien from Mexico. Officer
Atkinson was a five-year veteran of the Phoenix
Police Force, and was survived by his wife
Karen and infant son. The killer, Felipe Petrona-Cabanas,
had around a pound of cocaine in his car when
apprehended with two other Mexican nationals. The
three came from a farming area in the state of
Guerrero near Acapulco, and said they came to the
United States to work but couldn`t find any.
A notable detail in this
case: an
armed citizen, Rory Vertigan, returned fire against the
three Mexicans after they had ambushed Officer
Atkinson and began shooting at him. He tackled one
Mexican and disabled their car so the others were unable
to escape into their country.
-
Officer Kenneth Collings
of the Phoenix Police Department was
killed in 1988
during the arrest of two robbery suspects at
a local bank when one opened fire. One of the
robbers, Ismael Conde, was quickly arrested but the
other, Rudy Romero, escaped to Mexico. Romero was
caught in southern Mexico in 2000 and brought back
to stand trial. The
Arizona Attorney General`s Office credits help
from the Phoenix Police Department, the FBI, the
Attorney General for the Republic of Mexico, and the
Mexican Federal Agency of Investigation—a rare and
welcome act of extradition from our southern
neighbor. In March 2003, Romero was sentenced to 98
years in state prison.
-
Officer Hugo Arango of the Doraville
(Georgia) Police
Department was murdered by an
illegal alien, Bautista Ramirez, in May 2000. At
trial the admitted cop-killer pleaded self-defense,
alleging he thought Officer Arango would kill him
first. But the jury wasn`t having any and found the
19-year-old Mexican guilty of the murder as well as
aggravated assault against a nightclub manager David
Contreras who was blinded in one eye by the attack.
The jury decided Ramirez should get
life in prison (with the possibility of parole)
plus 20 years for shooting Contreras. According to
the strange math of sentencing, the convicted cop
killer could be out in 46 years or less.
-
Officer Will Seuis
a motorcycle patrolman in Oakland, California,
was
killed on his ride home by an illegal alien.
Fortunately, some witnesses on the highway
immediately phoned 911 and the hit-and-run driver,
Carlos Mares, was quickly caught. A sixteen-year
veteran of the Police Department, Officer Seuis was
remembered at his funeral as a hard-working cop
who had received 33 letters of appreciation from
citizens, including one from a motorist he had
ticketed. He had been in traffic enforcement since
1998, and was a member of the department`s 20-member
precision motorcycle drill team. Seuis left a wife,
Michelle, and two daughters.
-
Officer Michael Gordon lost his life to a
drunk driving illegal
alien. The Chicago policeman
was in the driver`s seat of his squad car when it
was struck by Luis Calle, a Guatemalan whose
blood alcohol level was 0.177, twice the legal
limit. Another officer, John Delcason, sustained
injuries and was in fair condition in the hospital a
few days after the incident. Luis Calle died several
hours after striking the police car. Michael Gordon
is survived by his wife and four children.
Several of his relatives have also been police
officers, including his father, brother, uncle
and cousin. Before entering the police department,
Gordon joined the 82nd Airborne right after high
school, serving in Bosnia and Korea. As a policeman,
he asked to be assigned to
a tough part of Chicago because he wanted to do
more than just write tickets.
-
California Highway
Patrolman
John Bailey was off his shift on
Feb. 25
of last year, riding his motorcycle home when he saw
a dangerous drunk driver and pulled him over. As he
stood on the shoulder of Interstate 15, he was
struck and killed by another drunk driver, illegal
alien Domingo Esqueda, who had a blood alcohol level
three times the legal limit. Esqueda was sentenced
in early August to 10 years in prison for gross
vehicular manslaughter. Officer Bailey was married
with four children. He had just returned from a tour
in Iraq that ended in November 2005.
As a result of
Washington`s policy of No Borders, law enforcement
officers are the only protection we have against a
planet overrun with criminals and terrorists.
Accordingly, police should be remembered and honored as
soldiers used to be—back when we had
sovereignty and the
armed forces defended America.
In other areas of law
enforcement, the
"broken windows" approach of tough
policing on small infractions has been lauded as
successful because it prevents minor situations from
escalating.
But when illegal aliens
are involved, the
world turns upside down and the worst imaginable
behavior is
excused and permitted.
Within that
looking-glass universe, police officers are so much
disposable road kill to elites from City Hall to the
White House.
Just like
the rest of us.
Brenda Walker (email
her) lives in Northern California and publishes
two websites,
LimitsToGrowth.org and
ImmigrationsHumanCost.org. She
admires Mexico for its marvelous tequila, and that`s
about all.
