Marine Survives Two Tours in Iraq, SWAT Kills Him

[double_duce_duce]

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Marine Survives Two Tours in Iraq, SWAT Kills Him

Tim Cavanaugh | May 16, 2011

"Please send me an ambulance and you can ask more questions later, please!"

Guerena tells the dispatcher that her husband had returned home about 6:30 a.m. after work and was sleeping.

Prompted by the dispatcher, Guerena says her husband was shot in the stomach and hands.

The dispatcher asks Guerena to put her cheek next to her husband's nose and mouth to see if he's breathing, but she replies in Spanish that her husband is face- down.

The operator tells Guerena to grab a cloth and apply pressure to his wounds, but the wife responds frantically: "I can't! I can't! There's a bunch of people outside of my house. I don't know what the heck is happening!"

A dispatcher asks if the people outside are the SWAT members. "I think it's the SWAT, but they ... Oh my God!" Guerena says.

A dispatcher asks that she open the door for the SWAT, but Guerena replies that the door was already opened by police.

"Is anybody coming? Is anybody coming?" she asks.

The operator tells Guerena help is on the way, but they're still trying to figure out what happened.

"I don't know, that's it, whatever I told you, that's it," Guerena says.

Just after the five-minute mark, Guerena's end of the line goes silent.

The two dispatchers spend about four minutes talking to each other and calling out for Guerena while trying to figure out if the call is coming from the same residence where the warrant was served. At the end of the 10-minute 911 call, a dispatcher says she has confirmation that Guerena is outside with deputies on the scene.

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, fills in detail that has been slow to come from Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik’s office:

"When I came out the officers dragged me through the kitchen and took me outside, and that's when I saw him laying there gasping for air," Vanessa Guerena said. "I kept begging the officers to call an ambulance that maybe he could make it and that my baby was still inside."

The little boy soon after walked out of the closet on his own. SWAT members took him outside to be with his mother.

"I never imagined I would lose him like that, he was badly injured but I never thought he could be killed by police after he served his country," Vanessa Guerena said.

The family's 5-year-old son was at school that morning and deputies say they thought Guerena's wife and his other child would also be gone when they entered the home.

Guerena says there were no drugs in their house.

Deputies said they seized a "large sum of money from another house" that morning. But they refused to say from which of the homes searched that morning they found narcotics, drug ledgers or drug paraphernalia. Court documents showing what was being sought and was found have not been made public. A computer check on Guerena revealed a couple of traffic tickets and no criminal history.

Tucson KGUN’s Joel Waldman says the SWAT team prevented paramedics from going to work on Guerena for one hour and fourteen minutes.

The sheriff’s department maintains that Guerena was holding an AR-15 when the paramilitary force fired 71 bullets in his home, but other key parts of the government story have collapsed. While PCSD initially claimed Guerena fired the weapon he was alleged to have been holding, the department now says it was a misfire by one of the deputies that caused this deadly group panic inside a home containing a woman and a toddler:

http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/16/marine-survives-two-tours-in-i

[Butifldrm]

Man that is too sad!

[kevnutz]

I read this a couple of days ago. It was too sad to post. Now that the cat's out of the bag, WTF?!?

[Candinar]

It's a sad story yes, but it is just the start of what's to come.

[pleasantvalleySunday]

I am just ill after reading this --- what in the world is this country coming to???????

Prayers to the family of this soldier --- I sure hope there is a full investigation and that some SWAT team get's their azzes kicked all the way to the penitentury, but we know that is highly unlikely ... I'm spreading this article as far and wide as I can.

[double_duce_duce]

I am just ill after reading this --- what in the world is this country coming to???????

Prayers to the family of this soldier --- I sure hope there is a full investigation and that some SWAT team get's their azzes kicked all the way to the penitentury, but we know that is highly unlikely ... I'm spreading this article as far and wide as I can.

.

tyvm pvs

[debratzz]

What a tragedy, I am shocked at the handling of this situation. My heart goes out to this family.

[jg1]

Friendly fire, thats the sad fact of war and police enforcement. I dont think they did it on purpose, This event should defiantly be used as part of training and their family should be compensated greatly.

[smee2]

I sometimes think that people and their rights are more protected, and safer, on the battlefields during an officially declared war, than in their own supposedly safe homes in what is presumed to be peacetime.

For me the greater thragedy here is not just that is happened, but that responders did not treat him as a fallen hero but a criminal, not using every available second to help him survive this attack. And what will that little son think when he grows up and understands more of what happened.

I hope his wife has a strong family link and faith to help her through this. And whoever caused the rifle fire ... I cannot hope them ill but I do hope they are made to recognize their mistake and somehow pay for it. Not that it will ever bring this soldier and husband and father back ... but perhaps it will make a difference the next time ANY law enforcement officer takes up his weapon.

Shameful and sad ...

smee2

[S2_D2]

This is a very sad tragedy and for one I am appalled as to how this went down. If this is true as to mistaken identity the ones responsible should be held responsible for their actions and prosecuted. My thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family.

S2_D2

[cowboy]

I HAVE NEVER POSTED ON ANY SITE BUT NOW IS THE TIME .... IM OLD NAVY ... SERVED ACTIVE DUTY 1963 - 1967. WHILE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND OTHER AREAS .... THE USMC SAVED THIS OLD BODY 4 TIMES ..... WITHOUT THEM I WOULD NOT BE HERE. I CANT IMAGINE THAT THIS COULD HAPPEN IN AMERICA ... I WAS TRAINED BY THE MEN WHO WON WW 2 ... THE GREATEST GENERATION! WHAT IN THE WORLD HAS AMERICA COME TO THAT WE WIND UP TAKING DOWN ONE OF OUR OWN THAT SEVED TWO TOURS IN THE MIDDLE EAST PROTECTING US. I PRAY FOR HIM AND HIS FAMILY AND THIS GENERATION THAT HAS GIVEN SO MUCH TO AMERICA ..... I KNOW HOW IT IS TO GO THERE ONCE ... I CANT IMAGINE GOING BACK AND HE DID! (AND HAVE SO MANY OTHERS) GOD BLESS THE US MARINE CORP AND ALL OF THOSE WHO SERVE OUR COUNTRY. AND LET US FIND A WAY TO HELP HIS FAMILY

[kevnutz]

Tucson SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Vet 60 Times

News Broadcast at above link. This is such a shame.

by ELLEN TUMPOSKY 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.

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."

"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."

[kevnutz]

Tim Cavanaugh | May 22, 2011

How weak is the evidence tying slain Iraq war veteran Jose Guerena to the drug ring and/or home invasion gang whose existence has been asserted (though not alleged – no arrests have been made) by the Pima County, Arizona Sheriff?

Here is the full text of a press release [pdf] offered Thursday by the department:

The investigation that lead [sic] to the service of the search warrants on May 5 is a complicated one involving multiple people suspected of very serious crimes. Sometimes, law enforcement agencies must choose between the desire of the public to quickly know details, and the very real threat to innocent lives if those details are released prematurely. Sheriff Dupnik has made it a departmental policy to be open and forthcoming with information released to the news media. When the decision is made to withhold information, as it has been in this case, there is a legitimate reason for that decision. The day the search warrant was served, we reported to the media that Mr. Guerena fired at SWAT officers. This is what was understood at that time. After a more detailed investigation, we learned that he pointed his assault rifle at SWAT officers, however, the safety was on and he could not fire. This is a clear example of erroneous information being provided without careful investigation. Rather than risking the release of further information, it is imperative that we complete all aspects of this investigation.

Complicating matters is the fact that multiple agencies were involved in this incident. The criminal investigation must be completed, in addition to the investigation by the County Attorney's office, prior to any administrative review of the actions of the officers involved in the shooting. By mutual agreement, that administrative review will include officials from the Pima County Sheriff's Department, the Marana Police Department, the Oro Valley Police Department and the Sahuarita Police Department. Each of these agencies had officers involved in the shooting as members of the Pima Regional SWAT Team.

Since the Sheriff's Department has had such a long-standing practice of open and timely communication with members of the news media, it is understandable that questions are asked about when more information will become available. However, it is unacceptable and irresponsible to couch those questions with implications of secrecy and a cover-up, not to mention questioning the legality of actions that could not have been taken without the approval of an impartial judge. As a law enforcement professional with decades of experience, Sheriff Dupnik will make the decision to release the information when the investigation is completed, the danger to innocent lives has been mitigated, and all agencies involved have been given the opportunity to review the actions of their personnel.

Deputy Jason S. Ogan

Public Information Officer

Pima County Sheriff’s Department

(520) 351-3121

Jason.ogan@sheriff.pima.gov

pcsdpio@sheriff.pima.gov

www.pimasheriff.org

The self-exculpation on display in the first paragraph, blamethrowing in the second, and arrogance in the third don’t really need any commentary.

As I noted the other day, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik’s Department is not the only source attempting to discredit Guerena, who was shot 60 times by a SWAT team shortly after 9am May 5, then left to die as police for more than an hour refused to allow paramedics to work on him. According to Michael Storie, attorney for the five shooters, a search of Guerena’s residence turned up firearms, body armor, a portion of a “law enforcement uniform,” and a picture of Jesús Malverde.

More about Malverde in a moment. Storie’s claim differs from the search results reported in a televised interview Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman Lt. Michael O'Connor gave to KGUN days after the killing. O’Connor used the phrase “may have been” rather than “was” in reference to material supposedly found in some of the four residences raided on May 5. O'Connor's list included: “drug ledgers, narcotics paraphernalia, any other connecting material between the residences, in addition to a large sum of money – somewhat larger than what you would normally expect to have in anyone’s home”

However, O’Connor conceded that these things had been found at homes other than Guerena’s. In Guerena’s residence, he claimed only that police had found “connecting material to the drug conspiracy.”

Keep in mind that this televised interview occurred about a week after the raid, and concerned only the material found during the service of a search warrant. It’s not about the circumstances of Guerena’s death. There might legitimately be confusion over the play-by-play in a fatal military-style engagement during which one side – consisting of five of armed men – discharged 71 rounds, while the other side – consisting of one man with a safety-locked weapon, one unarmed woman and one unarmed four-year-old child – discharged zero rounds. But there is no reason, and certainly no excuse, for confusion about what was found in Guerena’s home. Reconciling O’Connor’s claims with Storie’s suggests the only item potentially linking the Marine veteran to a drug conspiracy was the picture of Jesús Malverde.

Jesús Malverde, a probably mythical Robin Hood figure who is said to have died at the hands of Porfirio Diaz’s dictatorship in 1909, is the subject of a cult centered in Sinaloa, Mexico. Malverde tchotchkes can be found throughout Mexico and the Southwestern United States.

While both English and Spanish media associate the Jesús Malverde cult with narcotraficantes, Malverde’s powers of intercession extend far beyond the drug trade. With judicious use of Our Fathers and Hail Marys, the official prayer to the non-church-approved Malverde is said to be effective for immigrants and people who have been ripped off. There’s even a story of supernatural malfunctions of Caterpillar machinery during an attempt to knock down a chapel consecrated to the popular bandit, though Caterpillar equipment has performed up to specs against Malverde-fortified locations in Kelseyville, California and the lovely but gang-troubled Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Maria Alicia Pulido Sanchez, a Mexico City acolyte, told AP in 2007 that she built the capital's first public shrine to Malverde after her son recovered quickly from injuries sustained in a December 2005 car crash. That Guerena had a picture of Jesús Malverde tells us two things: He had a family to worry about and he shared the belief of most Americans that a supernatural being or beings can influence earthly circumstances.

[beefcake]

If indeed he did point his rifle at the officers or made any swift movements that looked aggressive or that he might be leveling his rifle. Then it was a just shooting when law-enforcement has weapons trained on you, you communicate every move you make and move slowly!!! Its a sad story anyway you look at it

[kevnutz]

They're still sorting this one out. I'd be interested to see the helmet-cam of the guy in front...

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=nDrQpvgZfDs

[Alexyn1006]

Not sure it will do any good, but I emailed the White House this article. I hope it helps, although I'm not sure the govt. ultimately cares about our protection at times.

[Moto144]

If indeed he did point his rifle at the officers or made any swift movements that looked aggressive or that he might be leveling his rifle. Then it was a just shooting when law-enforcement has weapons trained on you, you communicate every move you make and move slowly!!! Its a sad story anyway you look at it

Yeah pal...right.

You wake up from a dead sleep with your wife screaming someone is breaking into your house, grab your gun and you want him to do what???

Monday morning quarterback ehhh, lets see you try it, especially being a trained marine back from 2 tours.

Just shooting my arse

[Polecat85]

This is what happens when we allowed our police to become militarized. Most of these honchos are trigger happy wannabes. Damn shame.

Edited June 6, 2011 by Polecat85

[frankc]

Yeah pal...right.

You wake up from a dead sleep with your wife screaming someone is breaking into your house, grab your gun and you want him to do what???

Monday morning quarterback ehhh, lets see you try it, especially being a trained marine back from 2 tours.

Just shooting my arse

Agreed. What happened to throwing in stun bombs, tear gas and bull horns telling anyone to come out hands up first? Is this an example of these AH's busting into our homes not really sure of who is in there and killing someone surprised and trying to defend his family. Remember the Supreme Court just passed the law giving law enforcement authority to write their own search warrants without needing a Judges approval. The total arrogance of the Sheriff is very telling. We're giving up our freedoms one by one and not fighting back.