SWAT Team Shooting of Marine Jose Guerena Ortiz Provokes Rage

This 2005 photo provided by Marine William J. Moore,
shows fellow Marine José Guerena Ortiz,
left,
while deployed at Camp Korean Village FOB with Marine Wing Support Squadron 371. (AP)

It is sad what happened to U.S. Marine Veteran Jose Guerena Ortiz. Ortiz was a hero for serving his country by fighting in Iraq. My prayers go out to his wife and his son who are now fatherless. Ortiz was killed by SWAT during a drug raid at his house. We have to be careful here with this story. There are a lot of mixed emotions being thrown because of what went down. Propaganda, liberal bias, and evil distortion can distort the facts. In the story at
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/11/27/swat-team-shooting-marine-jose-guerena-ortiz-provokes-rage/
we are given a lot of descriptions and opinions, rather than facts.

Ortiz's wife heard a boom and saw one of the dark-suited SWAT members pass by her window. She told her husband and he went to grab his AR-15. Even though this is HER testimony, I can understand this. If my wife told me someone was sneaking onto our property, I'd go for my gun too. I'm not a moron. It is righteous for a man to protect his family.

However, the police claim that after they identified themselves to Ortiz, he yelled at them, "I've got something for you." and aimed his rifle at them. How could Ortiz not know it was SWAT? If he did know it was the police, why put up the fuss?

It has been said to me, "Well, if you were in that situation, what would have you done?"
As a Marine as well, I can use discernment and identify if the threat is law enforcement or thugs trying to home invade. Plus, if cops come after me, I will be expecting them... like Jigsaw expected Detective Matthews in the movie, Saw 2. I'll be sitting at my desk calmly.


The Actual Article broken down: (article in green; words of THRILL in Red)
The article has so many holes in it. So much doesn't add up.

In a blink of an eye, José Guerena Ortiz’s life took a turn for the worse.

José Guerena Ortiz was sleeping after an exhausting 12-hour night shift at a copper mine. His wife, Vanessa, had begun breakfast. Their 4-year-old son, Joel, asked to watch cartoons.

"exhausting 12-hour night shift" "watch cartoons" "breakfast"...how the author paints the momentum of the story.

An ordinary morning was unfolding in the middle-class Tucson neighborhood — until an armored vehicle pulled into the family's driveway and men wearing heavy body armor and helmets climbed out, weapons ready....the way SWAT teams should appear.

They were a sheriff's department SWAT team who had come to execute a search warrant. But Vanessa Guerena insisted she had no idea, when she heard a "boom" and saw a dark-suited man pass by a window, that it was police outside her home. She shook her husband awake and told him someone was firing a gun outside. All this is according to the wife.

A U.S. Marine veteran of the Iraq war, he was only trying to defend his family, she said, when he grabbed his own gun — an AR-15 assault rifle. If this is true, it is understandable. If he woke to his wife saying that a strange man was sneaking around on the property, I understand him wanting to grab his weapon to protect his family.

What happened next was captured on video after a member of the SWAT team activated a helmet-mounted camera.

The officers — four of whom carried .40-caliber handguns while another had an AR-15 — moved to the door, briefly sounding a siren, then shouting "Police!" in English and Spanish. With a thrust of a battering ram, they broke the door open. Eight seconds passed before they opened fire into the house. Ok, so the cops did identify themselves. 8 seconds is a long time in a firefight.

And 10 seconds later, Guerena lay dying in a hallway 20-feet from the front door. The SWAT team fired 71 rounds, riddling his body 22 times, while his wife and child cowered in a closet.

71 rounds, 22 body hits.... remember this... I'll bring this up later.

Also note that she "cowered in a closet" with her child.

"Hurry up, he's bleeding," Vanessa Guerena pleaded with a 911 operator. "I don't know why they shoot him. They open the door and shoot him. Please get me an ambulance."

When she emerged from the home minutes later, officers hustled her to a police van, even as she cried that her husband was unresponsive and bleeding, and that her young son was still inside.

Whoa whoa whoa... according to who? What she told the press? or what the press concocted?

So let me get this straight: a mother protects her child in a closet. Ok, I'll give you that. But she emerges onto the crime scene with her child NOT by her side?

She begged them to get Joel out of the house before he saw his father in a puddle of blood on the floor. Rrright.... ok, understandable... i guess

But soon afterward, the boy appeared in the front doorway in Spider-Man pajamas, crying.

Now, I bet you that the bullet counted mentioned earlier will change as this story progresses. Since this tragedy happened 6 months ago, I'm sure the count has already changed several times. Ergo, we can't get an accurate bullet count, but some how the boy's pajamas were noted for having Spider-man on it? Who would notate that? Anyway,,.... that's not the point.

The mom was moved into a police without her child...then her child roams the crime scene freely? If the mom WAS hiding in the closet with her son, she would have emerged with her son simultaneously. Let's say that SWAT dragged her out of the closet and shoved her in the van Nazi style. Her son would have been taken at the same time and put in another squad car with Good Cop or Lady Cop.

The only thing that makes sense for the mother and child to be separated is that the mother was not compliant, and was not looking out for her child.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department said its SWAT team was at the home because Guerena was suspected of being involved in a drug-trafficking organization and that the shooting happened because he arrived at the door brandishing a gun. The county prosecutor's office says the shooting was justified. With all the racket the SWAT team was making, including yelling in English and Spanish, Ortiz had time to comply.

But six months after the May 5 police gunfire shattered a peaceful morning and a family's life, investigators have made no arrests in the case that led to the raid. Outraged friends, co-workers and fellow Marines have called the shooting an injustice and demanded further investigation.

I demand further investigation before I call it justice or injustice. It wasn't the "gunfire" that "shattered a peaceful morning and a family's life". The police's actions were not a cause, but an effect. Find out what caused the police to choose Ortiz's home, and there you'll find the cause of why this family's life came crushing down.

A family lawyer has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the sheriff's office. And amid the outcry in online forums and social media outlets, the sheriff's 54-second video, which found its way to YouTube, has drawn more than 275,000 views.

The many questions swirling around the incident all boil down to one, repeated by Vanessa Guerena, as quoted in the 1,000-page police report on the case: "Why, why, why was he killed?"

I'll respond to that question later...
___
Outside the family's stucco home, a giant framed photo of Guerena in his Marine uniform sat placed in the front bay window, American flags waved in the yard and signs condemning his death were taped to the garage door.

The 27-year-old Guerena had completed two tours in Iraq, and a former superior there was among those who couldn't make sense of his death.

Leo Verdugo said Guerena stood out among other Marines for his maturity and sense of responsibility. Verdugo, who retired as a master sergeant last year after 25 years in the Marines, placed Guerena in charge of an important helicopter refueling mission in the remote west desert of Iraq.

"He had a lot of integrity and he was a man of his word," Verdugo said.

Who would ever say anything negative about any Marine who served in war. Of course there are plenty of good testimonies on Ortiz. I'm sure he was an outstanding Marine.

Verdugo, who also lives in Tucson, said Guerena came to him for advice in 2006 about whether to retire from the Marines and apply to the Border Patrol.

When Verdugo ran into Guerena and his wife at a Motor Vehicle Department office about a month before Guerena was killed, Verdugo said that Guerena told him that the Border Patrol had turned him down because of problems with his vision and that he had instead taken a mining job.

It's amazing how many war vets hope that their highly decorated service record could land them a dignified law enforcement job, but doesn't. The reality shock is very depressing.

Those who worked with Guerena at ASARCO'S Mission Mine said the man they knew would never be a part of drug smuggling. ...because if he was, he sure as hell wouldn't tell the only people that sign his only paycheck.

"I don't care what the cops say. I don't believe for one moment José was involved in anything illegal," said Sharon Hargrave, a co-worker, adding through tears: "They were judge, jury and executioner, and there was no excuse."

Guerena worked as a "helper" at two crushers in the mine, shoveling piles of rocks that fall from conveyor belts and wheel-barrowing heavy debris. "No one in their right mind" would choose this work, which paid about $41,000 a year, if they were bringing in drug smuggling money, Hargrave said. Not everyone who sells drugs makes enough to quit their day job. Why is that so hard to believe. Maybe the mining job paid the bills, but the drug dealing job paid for the Escalade.

"He was a hell of a worker," she said. "He's got good judgment and I could trust him."

Innocent or not, he didn't use good judgment when the police showed up.

She said Guerena talked constantly about his wife and two sons, Joel and Jose Jr., 5, who'd gone to school the morning of the shooting. "I know he was definitely in love with his wife and in love with his kids," she said. No doubt... a man will do anything to provide for his family.

Kevin Stephens, a chief steward at Mission mine and head of the miners' union there, said bluntly: "Personally, I think he was murdered, and that is the feeling that is out here."
But the sheriff's office said just because Guerena was a Marine and worked at a mine doesn't mean he couldn't be involved in drug trafficking. Bingo. War Vet, good conduct, hard worker, loving husband and father... doesn't mean he couldn't have been involved in drugs trafficking.

"We know from our experiences that good people turn their lives around and do bad things, and this guy was bad irrespective of his honorable discharge as a Marine," said sheriff's chief of investigations Rick Kastigar.

Answer this: Have there ever been any Marines who served honorably in combat and in service, who after leaving the military, commit a crime? Think really hard about your answer.

He said Guerena was suspected of involvement in a drug operation that specialized in ripping off other smugglers. One tip held that Guerena was "the muscle" of the organization, or in Kastigar's words, "the individual that was directed to exact revenge." Hmmm.... I would want to know about the crowd Guerena Ortiz surrounded himself with.

An affidavit supporting the search warrant that precipitated the raid describes the department's suspicions about Guerena in a drug investigation that appeared more focused on his brother, and his brother's father-in-law. Guerena's brother does not have a listed number and other family members have ignored written requests from the AP for comment.

Brother and the brother's father-in-law.

Sheriff's Capt. Chris Nanos, who heads the criminal investigations division and oversaw the Guerena case, said that high-powered rifles and bulletproof vests that were found in Guerena's home after the shooting back up investigators' belief that Guerena was involved in drug trafficking. A shotgun found in the home was reported stolen in Tucson in 2008.

I see nothing wrong with a Marine, or gun lover, owning some rifles and a bullet proof vest. I carry these things in my wife's bra. Unless, Oriz had like 6 dozen rifles in his refrigerator. Would the author of this article clarify? However, NOT COOL that he had a stolen shotgun.

In the affidavit, sheriff's Detective Alex Tisch laid out the case against Guerena's family. It details two instances of drug seizures, one in April 2009 in which Jose Guerena was found in a home with other people who had just dropped off 1,000 pounds of marijuana at a separate residence, and another in October 2009 in which a man who had met with Guerena's brother was found with drugs and weapons.

So, cops have raided on Guerena in the past. Even if he was innocent, he was still in a home with the guilty. Interesting.... Fine, he was innocent, but wow... surrounds himself with dealers... I'm just saying.

Neither Guerena nor his brother was charged.

The affidavit also cites two traffic stops of Jose Guerena.

The first was on Jan. 28, 2009, when an officer pulled Guerena and two other men over north of Tucson. The officer seized a gun from Guerena, a marijuana pipe from Guerena's cousin and marijuana hidden in canisters of lemonade and hot cocoa that were under the feet of Guerena's friend.

Cop seized a gun off of Guerena, and the others in the car had drug paraphernalia....wow.

The officer arrested Guerena on charges of weapons misconduct, marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia. But prosecutors filed no charges against him.

The other stop came Sept. 15, 2009, when the sheriff's office pulled over a truck leaving the home of Guerena's brother.

José Guerena was in the passenger seat and another man was driving. Officers searched the truck and found commercial-sized rolls of plastic wrap that they say are commonly used to package marijuana. No arrests were made.

Oh, come on! Fine... it was just the bags, but hello! If it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck,....

Tisch wrote in the affidavit that the past arrests of Guerena and members of his family, combined with observations during months of surveillance led detectives to believe that the family was operating a mid-level drug-trafficking organization in the Tucson area. ya think?

The investigation is ongoing, the sheriff's office says.
___

After the SWAT video circulated, people who didn't know Guerena traveled from as far as California to march in protest of his shooting, and an Alaska woman began an online petition calling for a federal investigation of the SWAT team.

Hundreds of people across the country have written on several Facebook pages dedicated to Guerena with messages that include, "He fought for our country, now we must fight for him."

The Guereno family's lawyer, Christopher Scileppi, filed a lawsuit on their behalf seeking damages from the sheriff's office, the officers involved in the shooting and other officials. The lawsuit didn't specify how much money the family was seeking, but a notice of claim filed Aug. 9 put the amount at $20 million.

"During this investigation, extremely little evidence, if any, was found to raise even a suspicion that José Guerena was involved in any possible drug trafficking ring," the notice says.

Scileppi said the fact that Guerena had been fired at 71 times and hit 22 times was "grotesque," and "almost a caricature of an overly excited group of poorly trained law enforcement agents."

Most law enforcement and military rifles use .223 caliber because it costs state and federal money to issue weapons with a larger caliber. You can't drop a male Marine that is fueled on adrenaline and possibly drugs with one .223.

Kastigar sharply disputed that, calling the Pima County SWAT team one of the best of its kind in the nation. "We're not a bunch of country bumpkins in southern Arizona with big bellies and cowboy hats," he said.

The shooting was justified, he said, because Guerena pointed his AR-15 at the SWAT officers and said, "I've got something for you," before they opened fire. Hmmm.... "say hello to my little friend."

The five SWAT team members who shot Guerena believed that he had fired his weapon first, he said. Subsequent investigation revealed that the gun's safety was on and hadn't been fired. Ultimately, that is not an issue, Kastigar said.

Some Marines, like myself, don't disengage the safety until milliseconds before pulling the trigger. Maybe Ortiz was keeping his weapon on safe until he was ready to fire. Rule number 3 of the Marine Corps weapon's safety laws.

"What reasonable person comes to the front door and points a rifle at people?" he said. "It takes several milliseconds to flip the switch from safety to fire and take out a couple of SWAT officers.

I'm firmly of the opinion that he was attempting to shoot at us."

The officers laid down "suppressive" fire because one had tripped and fallen and the others thought he'd been shot.

"You point a gun at police, you're going to get shot," Kastigar said.

The five officers who shot Guerena declined to speak to the AP through Mike Storie, a police union lawyer who represents them and defends their actions.

"Anytime that they are faced with a serious, imminent and deadly threat, they are entitled and justified to use deadly force," he said. "And when Guerena came around the corner and lifted an AR-15 and pointed it at them, that provided the justification."

An independent expert, Chuck Drago, a former longtime SWAT officer for Fort Lauderdale, Fla., police who now does consulting on use of force and other law enforcement issues, said that the shooting itself appeared justified.

"It's a horrible, horrible tragedy, but if they walked in the door and somebody came at them with an assault rifle, that would be a justifiable response," said Drago. "It doesn't matter whether he's innocent or not."

But after examining elements of the search affidavit, Drago questioned whether the sheriff's office truly had probable cause.

"When you back up and look at why they're there in the first place and whether the search warrant was proper, my mind starts struggling," Drago said. "There are a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense."

Let's continue to investigate to seek the truth. I just ask that people put forth an effort to investigate Ortiz's life, not just the life of the police. Ortiz is innocent until proven guilty, and the cops are guilty until proven innocent?

We should pray for everyone involved.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/11/27/swat-team-shooting-marine-jose-guerena-ortiz-provokes-rage/#ixzz1f239d2v6