About That Recent Fire in Los Angeles . . . .
Last Monday, a vacant building was intentionally torched in Los Angeles. Some homeless people were in it at the time.
Five of them died.
The police have a suspect in custody: Johnny Sanchez. Authorities believe he intentionally set the fire with intent to kill.
Sanchez is a Honduran citizen. He’s 21 years old.
Sanchez was arrested for illegally crossing the US border in 2012. At the time, Sanchez was released by authorities because he “had no previous criminal history.”
Instead of being immediately deported to Honduras, Sanchez was placed “under supervision” and ordered to report to authorities regularly. He did – for a while. But he stopped doing that in 2014.
In January of this year, Sanchez was arrested again – this time on suspicion of domestic violence. He was arrested again twice afterwards on suspicion of drug possession.
So, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement began deportation proceedings after one of those arrests, right? After all: Sanchez was arrested three times this year for serious crimes, and had also been in violation of the conditions that allowed him to remain in the US (periodic check-in with authorities) for between one and two years.
Well . . . that would be a “no”.
Why not, you ask? When asked here’s what ICE had to say:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement never started the process of deporting him, spokeswoman Virginia Kice said, adding that the reason why was unclear. She told the newspaper it’s ICE policy “to focus on individuals who pose a public safety threat.”
Sanchez reportedly set the arson fire which killed five Monday after a fight with some of those killed. As noted above, authorities think his intent in setting the fire was to kill.
Hmm . . . let’s see. Sanchez quit reporting in to authorities as ordered close to 2 years ago, as was required for him to remain in the US. He’d been arrested for domestic violence, and twice had been arrested for drugs, since the beginning of the year. Based on all of that, I’d certainly say Sanchez that damn well did seem to pose a threat to public safety. But apparently ICE felt he didn’t.
I must have it wrong, though; ICE must have been right about Sanchez not posing a threat to public safety. After all: they apparently didn’t lift a finger when Sanchez was arrested for domestic violence after being “on the lam” for well over a year, then was arrested twice again for serious criminal offenses. But ICE assures us they focus on those illegal immigrants who “pose a public safety threat.” And we know that ICE cares first and foremost about the safety and security of the US public, and that they work tirelessly to protect us.
I have to wonder, though, if the proverbial “man on the street” would would agree with ICE regarding their hands-off treatment of Sanchez. Or what the next-of-kin of those killed in the fire Sanchez started might say concerning the situation.
(Hopefully the sarcasm in the next to last para of the above was obvious. If it wasn’t, you might want to have your sarcasm detector checked by a competent repair shop.)
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Government Incompetence, Illegal Immigrants
What no assault multi-clip gun automatic?
Oh, the CARE with which the ICE do their job! I’m amazed that they have time to pay attention to anything so trivial!
But lest you think that ICE is over-reacting by being negligent, fear not: if you put the wrong thing on a bank transfer or apparently misspell something when you mean to pay the dog walker for walking your dog Dash, your payment will not only be stopped, but your account frozen and you will be on DHS’s shit list!
I kid you not: http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2016/06/18/dude-writes-isis-beer-funds-in-venmo-memo-feds-impound-his-42-transfer/
No, no, no. We are told that ICE is doing a helluva job. It takes a lot of people, using a lot of grease and a lot of time to keep all of the revolving doors turning.
We’re all immigrants.
*sarcasm
Bullshyt…my family met my family at the beach…!
He was just committing the arson that Americans are not willing to do.
Interestingly enough, the building’s owner was apparently in the process of getting a demolition permit to tear down the building when Sanchez allegedly torched it.
I’m guessing the process of getting that permit will be expedited now that the building is a burned-out shell.
Nope.
The building owner will still have to go through the process and pay all the required fees.
True. But since the case is now publicly visible in a big way, maybe now it won’t sit in someone’s in-box at City Hall for a month or two before action is taken.
Maybe, but this is Los Angeles. There is no end to the stupidity that’s possible down thata way.
Wow.
Along with the fine job the FBI did with the Orlando shooter, I see a trend here.
The LA Times story linked to in the Fox piece gives a bit better perspective on things. The problem with Johnny Sanchez in LA is similar to the situation with the Juan Sanchez who shot Kathy Steinle in San Francisco last year. By policy, the LAPD does not routinely cooperate with ICE except in matters apparently involving felony crime or a court order. For relatively minor offenses, this would probably include Johnny Sanchez’s domestic beef and drug charges, it’s a catch-and-release system. Suspects aren’t held, and ICE apparently isn’t notified. Such a policy is determined by the LA City Council, and not by the LAPD itself.
Such a policy is can be rationalized in the following ways:
Police trying investigate serious crimes such as murder have a harder job if they have to turn over to ICE every witness who is an illegal. There are an estimated one million illegals in LA County, population 10 million, and roughly half of the residents are hispanic. Which means there’s also a political component.
Putting a hold on every illegal arrested also means that LA County would be on the hook to feed and house a prisoner while ICE takes its time with the paperwork. Meanwhile, the illegal lawyers up with an immigration attorney, on the public dime or otherwise, who will fight anything ICE wants to do. An additional consideration is that, if memory serves, LA County in the past has been under the gun for jail overcrowding. Fill the jail up too much, and a federal judge is likely to order prisoner releases.
My own experience with LAPD has been both limited–thank God (San Diego County native, will gladly drive 100 miles out of my way to avoid that cesspool)–and universally negative. I’d like to think that LAPD has some honest, hardworking cops somewhere, but if so, it’s been my luck to never deal with any of them. Every single LAPD guy I’ve encountered has been a lazy piece of shit who actively looked for ways to do as little as possible in any situation, and they were all assholes. The example that stands out the most was a couple years ago when my wife and a friend of hers she was visiting there were involved in a t/c in LA. The other guy, who claimed not to speak English, ran a red light, t-boned her friend’s car with my wife in the passenger seat, and then tried to run, but was stopped by bystanders who blocked his car. The other guy is cussing them in Spanish the whole time and throwing out all kinds of racial slurs (my wife is Asian, her friend is black). When a cop shows up, he’s a tremendous asshole to my wife and her friend, ignores the dozen witnesses who saw the fucker run the red, plowed straight into the other vehicle, and then try to get away, and calls it it “mutual fault, minor damage (wife’s friend’s car had major damage to driver-side rear door & wheel well), noninjury (despite obvious mechanism of injury and both my wife and her friend complaining of neck and back pain which wouldn’t go away for months),” cancels the engine and medics, lets the other guy go with a ticket, and also issues one to my wife’s friend. When my wife called bullshit, this asshole’s response is, “Don’t piss me off or I’ll arrest you.” When she called and told me about it afterwards, I wanted to know the dickhead’s name and badge number so that I could start making phone calls and generally make myself a pain in his leadership’s ass over this crap, but her friend (who’s a… Read more »
Just an irrelevant observation:
Isn’t LA a Democrat-run city?
And we all know the Democrats are all about equality and justice.
Why yes, yes it is. I wonder if that could have anything to do with it? /sarc
Pretty much, and the entire state, IMO.
Not the entire state, or even most of it. But unfortunately Sacramento is owned by LA and San Francisco, and those of us who don’t live in those glittering utopias don’t seem to matter.
Pretty much why any cop who can get a job in the burbs does so at first opportunity.
No excuse, PG. A phone call to ICE takes 5 min or less – including writing a memo of the call. If the LAPD can easily call ICE and tell them, “We have XXXX; tell us now if you want them, otherwise we’re releasing them. If you tell us to ‘hold them’, we’ll hold them for 1 hr before we release them as a matter of policy.” Then document the call on a memo of call.
In my book, there’s no excuse for not doing at least that much if a guy/gal arrested turns out to be in the country illegally.
Isn’t L.A. a sanctuary city?
Not if you identify as a straight white male
Best I can tell is ICE knew of these crimes so the sanctuary city status does not explain this.
Yes, which would be a violation of law and should be grounds for impeachment of public officials who willingly and knowingly violate the law. However, one must have prosecutors who are willing to pursue such violations. So, that’s out. These so-called sanctuary cities (and states, such as the Peoples’ Socialist Republic of Maryland) create a culture with the force of the state behind it that contributes mightily to the absence of meaningful enforcement and prosecution of our immigration laws–which is just dandy with the oBaMa regime.
I think Mr Sanchez needs to be released one last time. . .. from 500 feet. . . . without a parachute. . . .over open water (no corpse to find. ever).
It’s shark season!
Why not make it a 1000 foot HANO drop for good measure?
HANO.
That was supposed to say HANO, big grin. But somehow it just didn’t work out.
Noooo….run him into a burning building and keep him there….then holler at him “hurts don’t it”!!
All the families need to sue the city of LA and the federal government. That’s what that family did in san francisco when their daughter was killed. We need to find a way to start directly doing law suits against politicians who violate the constitution too. This needs to end.
The problem, lily, is that although federal law pre-empts state action regarding immigration and enforcement, some cities and states have issued policies effectively directing their police forces not to inquire about an arrestee’s or detainee’s citizenship or immigration status. It’s don’t ask, don’t tell immigration non-enforcement. And this is just fine with the feds who really don’t want anyone’s help identifying persons illegally in the USA. Time was a person could be stopped and asked about his citizenship. That turned into asking only if there were other grounds to stop the person in the first place. Then, that turned into don’t ask at all. So, what to do? Some people down on the border now enforce “No Trespassing” signs with a gun. States that really want to clamp down on illegal aliens coming across the border have been sued or threatened with suit by the federal government. It’s a deliberate and horrible mess and we can thank Congress and the Chief Executive for it.