Category: The Guerena Killing

We spent a lot of time in late-2011 writing about the SWAT attack on Marine corporal Jose Guereña in which the young former Marine was shot 22 times by Pima County officers. An internal investigation found that the officers weren’t culpable in the killing despite the fact that more than 70 rounds were fired at Guereña, some striking the door frame through which a crowd of officers were firing like amateurs.

Well, it seems that there may be a measure of justice for Jose’s widow. Eggs sends us a link to an article which reports that the family has won in a civil judgement against the department;

“The amount reached is a clear indication that the defendants in this case take responsibility, assume liability for their bad acts that day,” said Guerena family attorney Christopher Scileppi.

The exact figure isn’t public yet, but Scileppi says the money will help a family move forward.

“She can truly begin the healing process,” said Scileppi.

More importantly, Scileppi believes the settlement will show the public Guerena isn’t the criminal law enforcement made him out to be.

“He isn’t going to be looked at as a drug trafficker, but as a decorated [M]arine who came back and became a great family man, ” said Scileppi.

Yes, the money comes out of public funds, but the voters of Pima County, AZ should punish Sheriff Dupnik at the polls.

I know that this is mostly old news to regular readers who remember the spate of posts that Operator Dan and I wrote about the murder of Jose Guerena in Tucxon last Summer by the Pima County SWAT Association, but several of you have sent us links indicating that the media is finally getting interested in the incident.

In case you missed the story, an Iraq veteran Marine and married father of two sons awoke when his wife saw a man with a gun outside their bedroom window right after Jose got off of his shift at the local mine. Guerena grabbed his legally owned rifle and confronted the intruders when they smashed down his front door. It turned out that those intruders were a cobbled-together “team” (and I use that word in the loosest sense) of SWAT who fired 71 rounds into the house, 22 of which struck Guerena…other rounds struck neighbors’ houses and the door frame through they were firing.

One clumsy oaf on the “team” tripped and fell over his own stupid feet which caused the other officers to think he was shot which only added to the confusion.

Of course, the department investigated itself and the officers’ actions and cleared itself of any wrong-doing. But anyone can look at the video (linked above) and see the amateurish “team” make several mistakes which cost Guerena his life, and his family their father.

If ever there was a case that should be investigated by Federal prosecutors, it’s this one. But because Pima County Sheriff Dupnik is an Obama ally, and a moonbat in his own right, that will never happen and the Guerena family will never get justice.

The last four paragraphs in the Associated Press article linked above are the most telling.

Ponsdorf sends us a link to a Pima County local TV station which reports that Vanessa Guerena has filed a twenty million dollar lawsuit against Pima County agencies. ms. Guerena is the widow of former Marine and Iraq veteran, Jose Guerena who was murdered by police while they attempted to serve a warrant in early morning hours.

Chris Scileppi says he is filing the lawsuit to send a strong message to law enforcement officers everywhere. Was a SWAT team warranted to issue this search warrant? “We are not living in a police state here. There is still a bill of rights. There is still a constitution. Under certain circumstances of course it’s warranted to send a SWAT team in, but not this,” said Scileppi. He said the eight seconds officers gave Guerena was not enough time for anyone who was asleep, to respond. Scileppi also said, Guerena was armed with a rifle because he believed someone was trying to break into his home, and was not aware it was police officers outside.

This is video of the aftermath of the killing when Pima County’s SWAT Association took Ms. Guerena into custody after she had to step over the body of her husband’s bullet riddled body;

This is the most damaging evidence against the SWAT Association, in my opinion. It’s the door frame of the Guerena house which shows conclusively that members of the SWAT club were firing indiscriminately into the house like it was some grand mad-minute event at the county fair;

From Ponsdorf and Streetsweeper comes this link to KGUN9 announcing the release of the autopsy of Corporal Guerena. Nothing surprising – but it does list the places the young Marine was struck;

The report goes on to note in detail the entrance location and trajectory of each wound, most of which were on the victim’s extremities. The medical examiner listed, in order, these entrance wounds:
— one wound to the head, which the report describes as a graze;
— one wound to the right upper chest;
— one to the right lower chest;
— one to the left upper abdomen;
— three to the right upper arm;
— one to the right elbow;
— one to the right hand;
— one to the left upper arm;
— one to the left elbow;
— one to the left forearm;
— one to the left hand;
— two to the right thigh;
— one to the right calf,
— one to the right foot;
— four to the left thigh;
— and one to the left foot.

I guess that about covers it all. 71 rounds, and 20 hits on the target. Pima County doesn’t have a range? Like I said in my initial post, they’re damn lucky they didn’t kill any of the neighbors.

Oh, another important point;

The toxicology report included with the autopsy found no drugs in Guerena’s system. It did find a low level of alcohol, measuring 0.024%. The report notes that some or all of that low amount could have been the result of “postmortem production” — in other words, caused by natural decay after death.

Oh, so he’s like the one drug dealer ever with no drugs in his body.

I’ve been negligent on following the Cpl. Guerena story the last couple of weeks due to some crises that have popped up in my life.  Jonn, as he always does, has been picking up the slack. There are however a couple of things I would like to discuss now that I have some time.

First of all, I saw this article today on the KGUN website that makes this statement:

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik revealed to 9 On Your Side on Thursday that Jose Guerena was part of a violent drug ring.

Notice there is no “possibly” or any other qualifier. They take Sheriff Dupnik’s word as fact, despite his office’s record of distorting the truth in this case. I guess whatever crackerjack journalism school that the reporter who wrote this article attended taught their students to write speculation as fact. The real facts are of course that there is no solid evidence definitively proving that Guerena was part of a violent drug ring. At the worst, it seems Cpl. Guerena was related to some shitty people who were possibly themselves involved in a violent drug ring, but even then those people haven’t been tried or convicted.  The rest of the article discusses how the Pima County GOP Chairman (Brian Miller, who is a Paultard I might add) is calling for SWAT to change its tactics and I am glad to see the Arizona Republican Party is starting to go after Dupnik in regards to this story.

Secondly, I want to discuss the arrest of Cpl. Guerena in 2009. Sheriff Dupnik and his minions are using this arrest as definitive proof of Cpl. Guerena’s involvement with a drug ring. This is complete nonsense for obvious reasons and I suspect most TAH readers expect nothing less than grade-A bullshit from Dupnik’s office by this point. It is important to note he was ARRESTED but not CHARGED with any crime. He didn’t receive probation, he didn’t receive a reduced sentence, and he wasn’t sent to a diversion class because HE WAS NEVER CHARGED. I am sure we have readers who have been arrested or simply detained by cops. In 2008, I was detained, handcuffed, and searched by Scottsdale PD after I got out of my car to meet some friends at a bar. They held me for about fifteen minutes and then released. I found out later that they were searching for somebody who was suspected of selling drugs at a nearby nightclub (which I would never be caught dead at) and I matched the description of that individual (even though I wasn’t dressed like a douchebag who would go to said nightclub). Does that mean without a reasonable doubt that I am involved with some sort of criminal conspiracy because I was detained by police officer in 2008? In the eyes of some, I guess the answer is yes.

Additionally, this arrest occurred in Pinal County, not Sheriff Dupnik’s Pima County. In 2008, Pinal County elected Paul Babeu as Sheriff and James Walsh as County Attorney. Both men ran on platforms of fighting human and drug smuggling, due to the fact that in recent years that Pinal County has become a major corridor for smugglers heading to Phoenix. Many of you have probably seen Sheriff Babeu on FOX News discussing his efforts to fight smuggling and he is constantly in the Arizona media discussing the problem. With these facts in mind, it is pretty reasonable to assume that if there was strong evidence that Guerena was involved with drug smuggling or the sale of illegal drugs that the Pima County attorney would vigorously prosecute him and Sheriff Babeu would have used the case as an example of the smuggling problem in Pinal County. However, the evidence was weak (a roll of plastic wrap, a gun, and some cash as Jonn pointed out) and he was released without even a trial.

Finally, I want to address the large amounts of cash that were found on Guerena in 2009 and at some of the homes searched by Pima County SWAT. It is pretty common for immigrants (both legal and illegal) from Mexico, Latin, and South America, to keep large amounts of cash in their homes. This is due to their mistrust of banks which have a history of being corrupt or prone to failures in the aforementioned regions of the world.

As I have continually said throughout my posts on this sad story is that even if Guerena was Tucson’s version of Scarface, there still needs to be an investigation into how the SWAT team performed the raid and their tactics and training need to be changed. Unfortunately, with Dupnik’s new effort to smear the victim I am pretty confident that neither will happen and the SWAT team will continue to bumble along, endangering themselves and others.

Arrow sends us a link to Fox11AZ’s report that Pima County Sheriff Department finally released the search warrant which was the impetus for the SWAT club’s raid on the home of Jose Guerena’s home ultimately resulting in the former Marine’s death.

But a few lines are redacted in the hundreds of pages of search warrant documents released Thursday, giving a much clearer picture of what led authorities to Guerena’s home.

The controversy over the deadly SWAT raid on 7180 South Redwater began in the days after Jose Guerena was killed while holding an assault rifle with the safety on.

Of course, we, the public, only get to hear about whatever the media wants to release. The justification of the raid seems to revolve around the big plastic sheeting rolls, which apparently ended up on his mother’s furniture;

At a yearly salary of $41,000, Guerena owned a $105,000 home and six vehicles worth another $150,000. Other suspects in the investigation were seen at times driving Guerena’s vehicles.

In 2009 Guerena was present in a home where two marijuana dealers were busted and was reportedly uncooperative.

That year he was also arrested in Pinal County on drug and weapons charges, though the charges were later dropped.

Still nothing significant justifying Guerena’s death.

ADDED: YatYas dropped off a link to a .pdf of the search warrant in another thread.