Marine Survives Two Tours in Iraq, SWAT Kills Him

[Contumacious]

This is from Arizona Daily Star reporter Fernanda Echavarri's effort to piece together the death of Jose Guerena, 26, at the hands of a Pima County, Arizona SWAT team. Guerena, who joined the Marines in 2002 and served two tours in Iraq, was killed just after 9 a.m. May 5. Guerera had just gone to bed after working a 12-hour shift at a local mine when his home was invaded as part of a multi-house crackdown by sheriff's deputies.

Like enemy of the state Osama bin Laden, Guerena died with his wife close by. Widow Vanessa Guerena, who hid with her four-year-old son when sheriff's deputies raided the home....the SWAT team prevented paramedics from going to work on Guerena for one hour and fourteen minutes.

Another unnecessary victim of the US civil war against drug users........

.

[troung]

Yawn...

Tucson SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Vet 60 Times
Police Have Yet to Say If Any Drugs Found in the Home of the Ex-Marine
by ELLEN TUMPOSKY
Tucson SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Marine Veteran 60 Times - ABC News
May 20, 2011

A Tucson, Ariz., SWAT team defends shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, although it declines to say whether it found any drugs in the house and has had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first.

And the Pima County sheriff scolded the media for "questioning the legality" of the shooting.

Jose Guerena, 26, died the morning of May 5. He was asleep in his Tucson home after working a night shift at the Asarco copper mine when his wife, Vanessa, saw the armed SWAT team outside her youngest son's bedroom window.

"She saw a man pointing at her with a gun," said Reyna Ortiz, 29, a relative who is caring for Vanessa and her children. Ortiz said Vanessa Guerena yelled, "Don't shoot! I have a baby!"

Vanessa Guerena thought the gunman might be part of a home invasion -- especially because two members of her sister-in-law's family, Cynthia and Manny Orozco, were killed last year in their Tucson home, her lawyer, Chris Scileppi, said. She shouted for her husband in the next room, and he woke up and told his wife to hide in the closet with the child, Joel, 4.

Guerena grabbed his assault rifle and was pointing it at the SWAT team, which was trying to serve a narcotics search warrant as part of a multi-house drug crackdown, when the team broke down the door. At first the Pima County Sheriff's Office said that Guerena fired first, but on Wednesday officials backtracked and said he had not. "The safety was on and he could not fire," according to the sheriff's statement.

Tucson SWAT Team Shot Iraq War Vet 60 Times

SWAT team members fired 71 times and hit Guerena 60 times, police said.

In a frantic 911 call, Vanessa Guerena begged for medical help for her husband. "He's on the floor!" she said, crying, to the 911 operator. "Can you please hurry up?"

Asked if law enforcement was inside or outside the house, she told the operator, according to a transcript of the call, that they were inside. "They were ... going to shoot me. And I put my kid in front of me."

A report by ABC News affiliate KGUN found that more than an hour had passed before the SWAT team let the paramedics work on Guerena. By then he was dead.

A spokesman for Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said he could not discuss whether any drugs had been found at the home or make any other comment. "We're waiting for the investigation to be complete," he said.

In a statement, the sheriff's office criticized the media, saying that while questions will inevitably be raised, "It is unacceptable and irresponsible to couch those questions with implications of secrecy and a coverup, not to mention questioning the legality of actions that could not have been taken without the approval of an impartial judge."

Mike Storie, a lawyer for the SWAT team, said at a press conference Thursday that weapons and body armor were found in the home as well as a photo of Jesus Malverde, who Storie called a "patron saint drug runner," according to KGUN.

Storie defended the long delay in allowing paramedics to enter the home, saying of the SWAT team, "They still don't know how many shooters are inside, how many guns are inside and they still have to assume that they will be ambushed if they walk in this house."

But Scileppi, Vanessa Guerena's lawyer, said officers were "circling their wagons."

Tucson SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Vet 60 Times

"They found nothing in the house that was illegal," he said. Framing the delay in providing medical attention as a tactical decision is "nonsense," Scileppi said. "There was an ambulance there in two minutes and they were never allowed in."

He pointed out that when Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson, law enforcement let paramedics have access to victims in a far more volatile situation.

"The pieces don't fit. I think it was poor planning, overreaction and now they're trying to CYA," Scileppi said.

Guerena served two tours of duty in Iraq until he left the Marines in 2006.

"Every time he was under my command, he definitely pulled his weight," said Leo Verdugo, his master sergeant in Iraq, who helped arrange for Guerena to be buried in his Marine dress blue uniform. "I have a hard time grasping how something so tragic could happen."

He speculated that perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity. "At the wrong place at the wrong time in his own home," he said.

Vanessa Guerena is "devastated and distraught" and seeking justice for her husband and two sons, said her lawyer. "The main thing she wants is her husband's name cleared and his honor restored."

The oldest boy, Jose, turns 6 on Tuesday. "He went to school, came back and never saw his daddy again," said Ortiz. As for Joel, "He's asking, 'Why did the police kill my daddy?'

"We were so worried when he was over there fighting terrorism, but he gets shot in his own home," Ortiz said. "The government killed one of their own."

Copyright © 2011 ABC News Internet Ventures


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Sheriffs: Slain Jose Guerena Linked to "Home-Invasion Crew"
Sheriffs: Slain Jose Guerena Linked to "Home-Invasion Crew" - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
Tim Cavanaugh | May 20, 2011

Maybe they were arresting him for not cutting his lawn? A very different version of the May 5 killing of Marine Iraq veteran Jose Guerena has emerged from the Pima County, Arizona Sheriff’s Department and a lawyer for the five SWAT team members who shot Guerena 60 times.

The Arizona Daily Star’s Fernanda Echávarri reports that the sheriff’s department has complained of media reports that “spread misinformation and encouraged speculation.” However, the department did not provide any additional information about the shooting, which took place during a mid-morning raid on Guerena’s home, where he was apparently asleep with his wife and four-year-old child. Nor did the sheriff offer to unseal the search warrant and court documents specifying what police were looking for in the home and what they seized.

But Michael Storie, the attorney for the SWAT officers, said the raid turned up rifles, hand guns, body armor and a piece of a “law enforcement uniform” inside Guerena’s house. (Guerena family attorney Christopher Scileppi, tells Echávarri none of the seized items were illegal.) From the Daily Star:

“Everything they think they’re going to find in there they find,” said Storie in a news conference called a day after the Sheriff’s Department complained media reports on the incident spread misinformation and encouraged speculation about events surrounding the shooting…

All statements made by Storie on Thursday morning came from the five SWAT officers he is representing, he said.

The five officers had “no choice but to shoot” when they breached the front door of the house in the 7100 block of South Redwater Drive and saw Guerena holding a rifle, Storie said.

The house was targeted as part of an investigation into home invasions and drug rip offs. The Guerena house was among homes that “were identified as locations where these activities were being carried out from.”

Whole article. Storie has revived the detail that Guerena shouted “I’ve got something for you, I’ve got something for you guys” before he was shot (which Guerena's widow denies). He says that Guerena’s name was not in any of the search documents, and uses some intriguing phrasing to tell Echávarri that “if SWAT members had been let in to the home, those inside ‘probably they wouldn’t have been arrested.’”

Storie also speculates that police officers casing Guerena’s house a few days before the shooting were spied on by parties unknown, and he says a portrait of Jesus Malverde, “believed to be a ‘narco saint’” was found under Guerena’s bed.

It was either Patrick Henry or Rooster Cogburn who observed that states and railroads will lie to you quicker than a man will. While the sheriff has been quiet about the case’s details (including the dispatcher’s apparent confusion over the raid during Vanessa Guerena’s 911 call), Storie’s claims are almost perfect examples of lawyerly pettifogging. Having a picture of a “narco saint” is evidence of nothing; in 1975, my wife’s grandmother was killed by one Lebanese militia because while raiding her home they found a magazine published by a rival militia. Finding a uniform in a private residence was one of the KGB’s favorite pieces of flimflammery when they wanted to arrest somebody. Possession of firearms is, for the time being, legal in the United States, and the fact that Guerena had an AR-15 has been part of this narrative since the beginning.

It’s certainly important to hear the authorities’ side of this misadventure, which has resulted in no arrests. It’s also important to avoid misinformation and wild speculation. But the solution to that problem is for the authorities to release the warrants and court records and to put out a coherent narrative that doesn’t keep changing. They’ve had plenty of time to do that in the two weeks since Jose Guerena was killed.

[wabpilot]

Did the warrant identify this man's home?

Was there a mistake in the warrant?

Did the police raid the wrong home?

Once he was shot and disarmed, why did the police keep EMS from treating him?

Too many questions, not enough answers yet from Tucson.

[zraver]

Did the warrant identify this man's home?

Yes, it was named as part of a multi-home raid.

Was there a mistake in the warrant?

Yes, the lawyer for the swat members admitted nothing illegal was found.

Did the police raid the wrong home?

Yes- nothing illegal was found ergo they had bad intel, and No- it was the right adress.

Once he was shot and disarmed, why did the police keep EMS from treating him?

Deadmen tale no tales. His death creates a single narrative. Not exactly an uncommon occurance in police shootings of an innocent man. If the cops are going to shoot you, be quilty you have a better chance of survival since they want to put you in jail.

T]

[Contumacious]

Yawn... A Tucson, Ariz., SWAT team defends shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, although it declines to say whether it found any drugs in the house and has had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first.

Fourth Amendment? What Fourth Amendment?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Stupid Founding Fathers, they had too much time on their hands!!!!!!!!!!!



.

[USSWisconsin]

I find the mention of a picture found under his bed to be particularly disturbing - my own thoughts - SO WHAT! I find this story very disturbing - will the police be prosecuted for murder? I doubt that. Are they guilty of murder? This appears to be the case, though I have only the stories presented by the media to form my opinion with. It sounds like he intended to defend his family against home invaders, my sympathies to his family.

[Chogy]

Things began to go downhill in this regard when every police department from LA to Boston decided they needed their own elite paramilitary force armed with automatic weapons, sniper rifles, and "tactics" to boot.

When heavily armed men storm houses in the wee morning hours, very bad things are going to happen, that wouldn't happen with regular daytime knock-and-announce warrants.

[Red Seven]

I don't have a very high regard for police tactical teams in general. Some are just gear-wrapped aggression, Navy SEAL wannabes. And keep in mind, this fiasco took place in the TAOR of the famous Sheriff Dupnik, who blamed Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh for the mad gunman shoot-up in Tucson. Incompetence can be contagious.

[Dreadnought]

In a word...disasterous.

[dalem]

Once he was shot and disarmed, why did the police keep EMS from treating him?

Not your point, I know, but if they really did hit him with 60 rounds, I don't think treatment was really an option.

-dale

[gunnut]

Pima county sheriff was the one who said (paraphrasing here) Sarah Palin and the conservatives were the motivation behind the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.

SWAT originally meant "special weapons attack team" when Darryl Gates of LAPD created the concept. His boss said that name would never fly. Come up with a less "warlike" name. Hence we have "special weapons and tactics" now.

I have low opinion of police in general.

And where is Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton to turn this into a race issue?

[dave lukins]

Not your point, I know, but if they really did hit him with 60 rounds, I don't think treatment was really an option.

-dale

My thoughts when I read the initial report. I don't know how the police can explain why they needed to use such force, and to an outsider from a country where the use of firearms is a rare occurrence, sixty rounds at one person seems excessive.

[wabpilot]

My thoughts when I read the initial report. I don't know how the police can explain why they needed to use such force, and to an outsider from a country where the use of firearms is a rare occurrence, sixty rounds at one person seems excessive.

Certainly, no fire discipline. I was taught on the rifle range many years ago to fire a three round burst, even with an automatic weapon.

[Blademaster]

That is what happens if you knock down the rule of "Knock and announce." Now how do you feel, Mr. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy? Feeling not so good, mr. smartypants.

I hope the SWAT doesn't get the police union involved. If it ever so much try to get the union involved, I am going to be very pissed off and will be one of the firsts to ban a police union.

[Roosveltrepub]

That is what happens if you knock down the rule of "Knock and announce." Now how do you feel, Mr. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy? Feeling not so good, mr. smartypants.

I hope the SWAT doesn't get the police union involved. If it ever so much try to get the union involved, I am going to be very pissed off and will be one of the firsts to ban a police union.

I imagine he feels like scalia, roberts, thomas and alito who joined him in shooting down the opinion of the democrat appointed justices