The former vice president was analyzed by Tucker Carlson recently for the thoughtless remarks designed to appeal to persons whose culture may not value highway safety. It was disturbing to see Biden essentially excuse drunk driving when it has killed many thousands of Americans over the years. Drunk driving has been more accepted among certain cultural groups, like Mexicans, so diversity is definitely not a strength on that front.
This website has noted the deaths of numerous Americans as a result of drunk driving illegal aliens, such as the few following:
Below, 21-year-old Sarah Root was killed in Omaha just a day after her college graduation in 2016 by one of Obama’s protected DREAMers, reported here: ”Drunk Driving Illegal Alien Kills Woman, Is Bailed Out and Disappears.”
Mesa, Arizona, police Sergeant Brandon Mendoza was killed by a head-on collision with a previously arrested but not deported drunk-driving illegal alien with a blood alcohol level of .24 percent.
Young Alabama couple Tad Mattle and Leigh Anna Jimmerson were killed by a drunk-driving illegal alien with a blood-alcohol content more than three times the legal limit and who had at least four previous DUIs.
Houston Officer Kevin Will died when a drunk Mexican crashed through a police barrier at 90 mph and hit Will as he was standing on a road shoulder investigating an accident.
Three-year-old Marten Kudlis was run down in a Colorado ice cream shop by a 16-times-arrested drunk-driving illegal alien. Two adult women were also killed when the truck smashed into the building.
Best friends Tessa Tranchant, 16, left, and Allison Kunhardt, 17, died when their car, stopped at a light, was hit by a seriously drunk illegal alien, who had three previous alcohol-related convictions but was not deported.
There are many more preventable drunk-driving deaths to mention, but I’ll stop and continue with Tucker Carlson’s discussion of Joe Biden:
(A spare video, slightly longer, is here.)
]]>TUCKER CARLSON: Now they tell you that the Democratic establishment wants Joe Biden as the nominee in the first place because he’s moderate and can win. But is Joe Biden actually moderate? He hugs people — that doesn’t mean he’s moderate, he’s just not a threat to the lifestyle of Democratic leaders.
On immigration for example, he’s not moderate by anybody’s definition. In a recent interview with Vice, Biden explained that even illegal aliens who commit drunk driving offenses ought to be allowed to stay here forever. Watch:
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOE BIDEN: You only arrest for the purpose of dealing with a felony that’s committed, and I don’t count drunk driving as a felony.
CARLSON: Yeah have a few beers, like whatever. Drunk driving kills thousands of Americans every year: Democrats used to tell you a lot about that. Biden doesn’t care any more, not if illegals are doing it. And for good measure after those illegal immigrant drunk drivers cause a crash, they get free healthcare for their injuries. while their victims may not.
Do you get free health care? No, but Biden likes to give it to people here illegally.
That’s okay. After all, according to Biden, illegal aliens are more American than you are. He said it. Watch:
BIDEN: These kids that come, they’ve done well. Most of these kids — there’s a lot of them, they’re not just hispanic or Asian-Pacific islanders as well. And they in fact have done very well. In many cases, they’re more American than most Americans are because they have done well in school; they believe the basic principles that we all share.
CARLSON: “They’re more American than most Americans are,” more American than you are — shut up, you foreigner. In the same interview, Biden vowed to protect drunk drivers. He also said Americans must pay reparations to illegal aliens for what they’ve done to them. Watch:
VICE SHOW HOST: Do these numbers separated by the federal government deserve any kind of reparations or any kind of restitution for what they suffered?
BIDEN: Yes, they should be made whole; they should be made whole in terms of first and foremost getting back with their families. That’s it, I mean reparation is repairing damage. Some of you, part of the Latino community, what is, talk about things — let people know the anxiety the children you know of or parents who may have an illegal parent and an undocumented parent in the country.
It’s an enormous anxiety, and so that’s why we should be fighting them, the kind of help that is needed and the family that helped me to restore their confidence restore their sense of who they are.
CARLSON: Oops, he said it “illegal” but quickly corrected himself — “undocumented.” That’s fine, go ahead and drunk drive. By the way, we’re giving you reparations and free healthcare.
Is that moderate? That’s the question, is it moderate? Alana Goodman writes for the Washington Examiner and we’re happy to have her tonight because she covers all this stuff. Thanks so much for coming.
So from the very beginning, the assumption has been, mostly because of his temperament, that Biden is this moderate guy with broad appeal to swing voters to the extent they still exist. Is that still true?
ALANA GOODMAN: Look, I think people look at this, the DUI comments you know, and they say why didn’t Biden do anything about this when he was vice president? I mean Obama deported a hundred thousand illegal immigrants who had DUI convictions, and I don’t remember Joe Biden saying anything about this at the time. So the question is, why is this an issue for him all of a sudden right now?
CARLSON: It’s just a little weird because your average American-born eighteen-year-old lives in terror of getting caught using a fake ID or drunk driving: they’re telling us that’s totally cool — fake documents, drunk driving — no problem.
GOODMAN: Yeah, it downplays in a way also the seriousness of drunk driving, especially felony drunk driving. I mean you there’s usually more factors to it in those states to get a felony, usually things like you know if you cause an accident that results in an injury or if you have a young child in the car, so there’s usually other issues like that, and it just seems to kind of downplay the severity of it to say. . .
CARLSON: What’s a little strange honestly because I watched a video — you can watch it yourself on Youtube — of Joe Biden saying that his wife and daughter were killed by a drunk driver, so it’s a little weird for him to be saying that. . .
GOODMAN: I would just want to say, you know as you probably know, the family of the man who had been driving that truck, they said that he was not driving drunk and there was no, he was never charged with drunk driving.
CARLSON: No, I think that’s a totally fair point. Do you think that Democrats in Washington who conceived of, pushed and now are defending the Biden candidacy are worried about it?
GOODMAN: I think that they would have to be. I mean look when he was talking about reparations, things like that, it just shows how far Democrats have shifted on the issue of illegal immigration just in the last four years. I mean President Obama had deported more illegal immigrants than any other president and at a higher rate, and now you have Joe Biden coming out and taking very different positions on this. And where was his criticism of this at the time when he was vice president and should have been able to do something about it?
CARLSON: So really quick, is there majority support in this country for reparations for illegal aliens do you think?
GOODMAN: I have not seen the polling on that yet.
The appalling case was reported here in [...]]]>
The appalling case was reported here in April 2016: Drunk Driving Illegal Alien Kills Woman, Is Bailed Out and Disappears.
Below, illegal alien Edwin Mejia (left) killed Sarah Root (right), yet was allowed to post bond from jail and escape.
The organization America First Policies produced the video; its Youtube page is here.
Here’s a report on the video from The Hill:
]]>Pro-Trump group to debut latest ad in $1M push for border wall, The Hill, November 23, 2018
A political nonprofit aiming to boost President Trump’s policies is set to debut a new ad on Monday calling on lawmakers to fund his long-promised wall along the U.S. southern border.
The $500,000 ad buy is the second from America First Policies this month, seeking to put pressure on Congress to get behind the border wall project. Together, the ads have cost the group $1 million so far.
The latest spot features Michelle Root, whose daughter was killed in 2016 in a car crash allegedly caused by an immigrant in the country without legal status. In the ad, Root suggests that building the border wall would prevent future tragedies, while alluding to the administration’s controversial former policy of separating migrant families at the border.
“My separation is permanent,” she says in the 30-second spot. “I want to see that wall built. I want to see stronger immigration laws. Make your voice heard. Call your congressman and your senators.”
The ad comes nearly three weeks after Democrats recaptured the House in the midterm elections, giving them a majority in the chamber for at least the next two years.
The party needed to gain at least 23 seats to recapture control of the House. So far, Democrats have picked up 38 seats.
The ad from America First Policies also comes as a deadline for lawmakers to fund the government is just two weeks away.
Trump wants Congress to approve at least $5 billion in funding for his border wall, while Senate Democrats have said that they will offer no more than $1.6 billion. (Continues)
DE BLASIO: So, we differentiate. Anyone who is violent, anyone who [...]]]>
DE BLASIO: So, we differentiate. Anyone who is violent, anyone who is a serious threat to society, we agree we will work with the federal partners and they get deported. But we are not going to see, with a half-a-million undocumented people here — this would be true for 11 to 12 million undocumented folks in this country, the vast majority of whom are law- abiding — we are not going to see families torn apart over a very minor offense.
TAPPER: But is grand larceny or drunk driving a very minor offense?
DE BLASIO: Drunk driving that does not lead to any other negative outcome, I could define as that.
The CNN show transcript is here.
The problem is that habitual drunk drivers don’t kill anyone — until they do. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) reports that the average drunk driver has driven drunk 80 times before the first arrest. In 2015, 10,265 people died in alcohol-impaired crashes, up by nearly 300 from the year before.
Of the Americans killed by illegal aliens, probably the largest group is the category of citizens killed by drunk-driving illegal aliens. Here are just a handful:
Below, 21-year-old Sarah Root was killed in Omaha just a day after her college graduation by one of Obama’s protected DREAMers, reported here: ”Drunk Driving Illegal Alien Kills Woman, Is Bailed Out and Disappears.”
Mesa, Arizona, Police Sergeant Brandon Mendoza was killed by a head-on collision with a previously arrested but not deported drunk-driving illegal alien with a blood alcohol level of .24 percent.
Young Alabama couple Tad Mattle and Leigh Anna Jimmerso were killed by a drunk-driving illegal alien with a blood-alcohol content more than three times the legal limit and who had at least four previous DUIs.
Houston Officer Kevin Will died when a drunk Mexican crashed through a police barrier at 90 mph and hit Will as he was standing on the roadside investigating an accident.
Three-year-old Marten Kudlis was run down in a Colorado ice cream shop by a 16-times-arrested drunk-driving illegal alien. Two adult women were also killed when the truck smashed into the building.
Best friends Tessa Tranchant, 16, left, and Allison Kunhardt, 17, died when their car, stopped at a light, was hit by a blotto-drunk illegal alien, who had three previous alcohol-related convictions but was not deported.
There are many more stories of preventable drunk-driving deaths caused by illegal aliens, but I’ll stop.
]]>Sanctuary Suites: Defiant mayor vows to harbor illegals at Boston City Hall, Boston Herald, January 26, 2017
“If [...]]]>
Sanctuary Suites: Defiant mayor vows to harbor illegals at Boston City Hall, Boston Herald, January 26, 2017
“If people want to live here, they’ll live here,” Walsh said yesterday. “They can use my office. They can use any office in this building. Any place they want to use. They’ll be able to use this building as a safe space.”
Why do liberal mayors think immigration to America is a right? Should the billions of poor people on the planet be permitted to move here just because they want to?
The mayors say they want to keep their communities safe, but crime victims of illegal aliens see it differently because sanctuary cities are less safe for American citizens.
Milford, Massachusetts, resident Maureen Maloney objected to the arrogant mayors because she lost her son Matthew Denice when a drunk-driving illegal alien dragged him to death. The Ecuadoran alien, Nikolas Guaman, had a long rap sheet but was protected by Massachusetts’ sanctuary policy, allowing him to remain and eventually kill 23-year-old Matthew.
Below, in 2014 Maureen Maloney gave a victim’s statement at the sentencing of Guaman for manslaughter.
In the current matter of sanctuary, Maloney said her family’s loss will never go away.
Grieving mom calls out pols grandstanding on sanctuary issue, Boston Herald, January 27, 2017
Any grandstanding mayor who actually harbors illegal immigrants should be prosecuted by the feds, said the grieving mother of a Milford man killed by a motorist who faces deportation after his jail sentence is up. . .
“The ripple effect of losing Matthew is not just the pain and suffering of me and his immediate family,” she stressed. “He had a longtime girlfriend. They were planning on getting married. He had a huge circle of friends and extended relatives. The ripple effect just goes on and on and on.
“I hear them saying that we’re separating these (illegal immigrant) families. Well, my family has been permanently separated. And I can’t call heaven and I can’t visit heaven. I have to go visit a grave,” she said. “The illegals do have other options. My son has no options. He had a very promising life, and it’s gone. There’s no other way to put it.”
She recently spoke on a Boston radio show:
Sheriff Thomas Hodgson of Bristol County Massachusetts won’t accept the liberal do-gooder blather about protecting illegal aliens. He was interviewed on Fox News on Sunday and discussed the illegal aspect of sanctuary policy.
]]>ED HENRY: You might call it a Sanctuary City Showdown. Some mayors are speaking out after president Trump’s executive move to strip funding for sanctuary cities.
BOSTON MAYOR MARTIN WALSH: You are safe in Boston. We will do everything lawful in our power to protect you.
SOMERVILLE MASS. MAYOR JOSEPH CURTATONE: Somerville will stand with you regardless of your race, creed, color, gender. . . We know what makes America great.
HENRY: But is it wrong for these mayors to say they will harbor illegal immigrants? The sheriff of Bristol County Massachusetts has vowed to arrest these mayors for breaking federal law. That Sheriff Thomas Hodgson joins us right now. Sheriff, why are you going to arrest the mayors? Will you really go through it?
SHERIFF THOMAS HODGSON: Well I’ve never said that I would arrest them; I’ve said that the federal authorities should absolutely should, based on the fact that Section 8 of the US code clearly states that anyone who harbors or conceals someone they know to be in the country illegally is in violation of a felony under federal law. When the rest of us — you and me, Ed — are required to follow a law, and when we don’t, we have agents knocking on our door arresting us. This is up to five years in prison for each alien that you attempt to harbor or conceal. You and I, if we did this, would certainly have the federal agents knocking on our door and putting us in handcuffs and taking us away for doing this. We could be harboring terrorists or anyone else.
HENRY: I want to get you to react then to what the mayor of Somerville told the Boston Herald. He said “My wife and I will gladly take a person into our home… I’m not going to run away from my responsibility to my fellow man.” What’s your reaction?
HODGSON: Your responsibility is you’ve been elected uphold the laws of this country and of your community. You expect everybody to follow along the ordinances and laws of your community, yet you decide you don’t like a federal law so you’re going to publicly say I’m not going to enforce it and basically push it in the face of of the people, your community and the federal authority. So you better expect a knock on your door — I hope the Trump administration forgets the sanctions on money. We can’t have a special class of people, as is the illegals already, being told that you come here, and then elected officials on top of that wanting to have themselves be considered a special class of people that don’t have to follow the laws, but everybody else does. They need to follow the laws that have the same consequences that the rest of us do if we decide to violate those laws.
HENRY: And now that President Trump has taken this executive action, we’ll see whether or not the federal government actually does its job and follows through.
Over the last several months, Chief Beck has weakened the policy of impounding the vehicles of unlicensed drivers from 30 days to one day, in violation of state law. He has also ended compliance with the federal Secure Communities program, by which already arrested illegal aliens in jail are handed over to ICE for deportation.
Clearly public safety is not a high priority for Los Angeles political leaders, particularly the mayor, when measured against the convenience of foreign lawbreakers.
Don Rosenberg, the father of a young man killed by an unlicensed driver has been an outspoken advocate using traditional ideas of policing and licensing to stop preventable deaths on the roads.
Below, Don Rosenberg holds a photo of his late son Drew, who was killed by an unlicensed driver.
To advance his cause of public safety on the roadways, Rosenberg has appeared on talk radio, given testimony before the California legislature, spoken at public forums and created a website UnlicensedToKill.org.
More recently he has written a well researched paper, Los Angeles Traffic Addressing Safety Issues.
]]>Report: Illegal Drivers Behind High Hit-And-Run Rate In LA, CBS LA, October 11, 2012
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The number of hit-and-run accidents in Los Angeles is four times higher than the national average, with one in five fatal crashes involving an unlicensed driver, according to a new report.
Don Rosenberg, the founder of UnlicensedToKill.org, told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO that an estimated 750,000 illegal immigrants live in the L.A. area and those who drive could pose “an immense threat to society”.
“The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reports unlicensed drivers are five times more likely to kill, they will flee the scene over 50 percent of the time, five times more likely to drive drunk,” said Rosenberg.
In a whitepaper compiling statistics of hit-and-run accidents, Rosenberg found that unlicensed drivers were involved in more than 7,600 fatal crashes — about 20 percent of fatal crashes nationwide.
There were an estimated 21,000 hit-and-run collisions that were reported as “accidents” in Los Angeles in 2010 alone, according to the study.
“In Los Angeles in terms of hit-and-runs, it’s way outside the norm,” said Rosenberg. “On a national level, there’s about 11 percent of traffic collisions end up being hit-and-runs…in Los Angeles, it’s 50 percent.”
Rosenberg, whose son was killed by an unlicensed driver in November 2010, said the actual number of hit-and-run accidents by unlicensed drivers may be much higher because the LAPD does not take a report if no one is injured.
“You’ve got a very high concentrated population of illegal aliens in Los Angeles; they drive,” he said. “Matter of fact, the police chief actually encourages them to drive as long as they buy insurance.”
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told a group of Los Angeles Times reporters in February that the state of California should issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants to help reduce the number of hit-and-run accidents.
Wait, wasn’t Obama supposed to be prioritizing immigration policy to deal more seriously with violent foreigners? Apparently his home-town Chicago buddies didn’t get the memo, [...]]]>
In Chicago, the illegal alien accused of killing Denny McCann (pictured) disappeared after being released by authorities. (See my earlier report Cook County Releases Hit-and-Run Killer Illegal Alien after Arrest.)
Wait, wasn’t Obama supposed to be prioritizing immigration policy to deal more seriously with violent foreigners? Apparently his home-town Chicago buddies didn’t get the memo, because the Democrat-run Cook County Board of Supervisors passed a new policy by which dangerous foreign criminals are released on bail rather than held until trial or turned over to ICE for deportation.
Dangerous criminals are not supposed to be released when they are flight risks — which is the description of illegal aliens who can easily evade justice by escaping to Mexico or elsewhere. It’s stunning that public officials have so little regard for public safety, but hispandering to illegal aliens trumps that basic governmental function in Chicago today.
]]>Bail jumper fuels Chicago illegals debate, Washington Times, January 15, 2012
CHICAGO — Controversy over a Cook County, Ill., ordinance that forbids the sheriff from notifying federal officials when they’re about to release suspected illegal immigrants from jail is heating up after a suspect charged in a fatal hit-and-run posted bail and disappeared.
Amid reports that Saul Chavez, an illegal immigrant, hasn’t been seen since late last year when his family posted bail, the nation’s top immigration official and the board president of the county that includes Chicago have squared off with dueling statements about the ordinance passed last September.
“This ordinance undermines public safety in Cook County and hinders [the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s] ability to enforce the nation’s immigration laws,” wrote the agency’s director, John Morton, in a letter to County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. “In addition to undermining local public safety, the ordinance may also violate federal law.”
Miss Preckwinkle, though, responded in a news release that it isn’t fair to link Mr. Chavez’s immigration status with his disappearance, calling it a “red herring.”
Miss Preckwinkle said she is bothered by the case, not because of Chavez’s immigration status, but because his bail was set too low for someone with a prior felony conviction and who posed a flight risk.
“Some have tried to blame Chavez’s immigration status, but what allowed Chavez to escape prosecution was an attainable bond that didn’t take into account his criminal history and flight risk,” she said in the news release.
Cook County has been at the center of the debate over the treatment of illegal immigrants for several months. While other places, such as San Francisco, have passed similar measures in response to the Obama administration’s program that aims to pursue more criminal deportations, Cook County was the first to forbid a sheriff from holding suspected felons as well as those accused of misdemeanors.
Proponents say the county’s previous practice of holding immigrants in jail after they served their time or posted bail until federal agents could pick them up was unfair and unconstitutional.
“By refusing the detain people who are entitled to their freedom, based merely on a request from [immigration agents], we are upholding our system of justice,” Jesus Garcia, a commissioner who supported the measure, said in a statement at the time.
But critics have said the ordinance is a disaster waiting to happen, that ultimately an illegal immigrant who otherwise could have been held by federal authorities is going to walk out of jail and commit another crime.
“This is our Willie Horton moment in Cook County,” warned Commissioner Timothy Schneider at the time he voted against the ordinance, referring to the convicted killer who raped a woman and knifed her fiance in 1987 in Oxon Hill, Md., after being released as part of a Massachusetts weekend-furlough program. Horton’s case drew national attention when it was raised during the 1988 presidential campaign.
In her news release last week, Miss Preckwinkle said the problem has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with an overwhelmed criminal justice system. Judges, she said, have to make decisions “in an instant, without access to the appropriate level of information upon which to base their decision.”
As a result, Miss Preckwinkle has called for the Cook County Judicial Advisory Council to conduct a six-month study on how bail is set in the county. According to a statement by Miss Preckwinkle, one of the goals is to provide judges with more complete information about defendants before they decide on bail.
See LTG’s recent report about another case: Cook County Releases Dangerous Alien.
Cook County passed an ordinance that protects foreign criminals and endangers citizens. One victim was [...]]]>
Cook County Illinois is doing its darndest to take the crown as the most lawless jurisdiction in America regarding the treatment of illegal aliens. California better watch out.
See LTG’s recent report about another case: Cook County Releases Dangerous Alien.
Cook County passed an ordinance that protects foreign criminals and endangers citizens. One victim was William Denny McCann (pictured) who was killed in a crosswalk by a previously convicted drunk-driving illegal alien, Saul Chavez. Now the family and community must deal with the fact that the accused was released from jail after being arrested for the crime, according to Cook County’s illegal alien get-out-of-jail-free policy.
Isn’t job #1 of the government supposed to be protecting the public from dangerous criminals? Not in Chicago, it appears, when the criminal is a hispanic illegal alien.
]]>Cook County’s Saul Chavez moment
Politics trump justice as board immigration policy frees alleged DUI killer, Chicago Tribune, January 4, 2012Chicago politics didn’t kill William “Dennis” McCann.
What killed the 66-year-old man was that black Dodge Neon driven by an alleged drunken driver as McCann walked across Kedzie Avenue last summer.
But the politicians allowed the man charged in the fatal crash to skip out of jail despite pleas by federal authorities to hold him. Thanks to Chicago politicians, the alleged drunken driver is most likely hiding in Mexico.
“My anger is more directed at the fumbling and bumbling of Cook County agencies,” said McCann’s younger brother, Brian. “I’m more angry at the system than the offender. I know that sounds crazy.”
It happened June 8 on Kedzie Avenue in the Logan Square neighborhood. McCann was walking across Kedzie when he was hit by a car allegedly driven by Saul Chavez, 36, already convicted of one DUI.
“I heard the impact, saw this man go up into the sky and land on the windshield,” witness Alberto Aceves, 39, told the Tribune shortly after the crash. “I thought, OK, he hit him, but the driver is going to stop. He might be all right.”
But the driver didn’t stop. Instead, the driver stepped on the gas. The tires rolled over McCann, who had fallen to the ground, and then the underbelly of the car caught him and dragged his body north on Kedzie.
“I pull up to the passenger side screaming at him,” Aceves recalled. “Stop! The guy’s under your car.”
An off-duty police officer joined in the chase after he spotted a pair of sandals in the street and looked up to see McCann’s body being dragged. The car finally stopped, with McCann still lodged underneath, and Chavez allegedly tried to run. Aceves and the officer — gun in hand — chased after Chavez and caught him.
Chavez was charged with a felony — aggravated driving under the influence — and held on a $250,000 bond. The Cook County sheriff’s office said Chavez had a blood alcohol content of 0.29 percent. Convicted of a DUI in 2009, he had just finished the two-year probation sentence.
Two days after the fatal accident, on June 10, the federal Department of Homeland Security filed what is called an immigration detainer for Chavez. The agency believed he was an illegal immigrant from Mexico. The form requested that Cook County notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, if Chavez was scheduled to be released.
But as Chavez sat in the jail, immigration became an emotional issue before the Cook County Board. Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia pushed a new policy aimed at ignoring federal detainer requests and allowing suspected illegal immigrants who’d been jailed in misdemeanor or felony cases to make bond.
It passed by a 10-5 vote in September. The political payoff was obvious: It was a Democratic Party appeal to Latino voters over the hot-button issue of illegal immigration.
Preckwinkle and supporters characterized it as a way to save taxpayers money, and she put out figures insisting that it cost $15 million per year to detain suspected illegal immigrants at federal request, without the county receiving reimbursement from the feds. Garcia said it was all about “ensuring the fair treatment of all people.”
When the proposal was debated, the sheriff’s office warned that even those charged with serious crimes could be allowed to flee.Commissioner Timothy Schneider was perhaps the loudest voice against the policy, warning that criminals would run off to Mexico, and that Cook County would become a laughingstock.
“This is clearly, without exacerbating the situation, our Willie Horton moment here in Cook County,” said Schneider, R-Streamwood.
Horton was convicted of murder in Massachusetts, then was put on furlough in 1987. And while out from behind bars, Horton raped a woman and assaulted her fiance. The debacle helped kill the liberal Democratic presidential dreams of former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Schneider was right. But let’s not call it a Willie Horton moment.
It’s a Saul Chavez moment.
Thanks to Preckwinkle, Garcia and their friends on the county board, Chavez was released on bond Nov. 20. He put up $25,000 of the $250,000 bond amount, and walked. He missed one court date. Then prosecutors sought an emergency increase in the bail amount, and warrants were issued for Chavez’s arrest. He missed a second court date. He was gone.
Sheriff Tom Dart says the policy has to be changed, not for misdemeanors, but for felonies.
“The sheriff’s office believes this ordinance should be narrowed to allow those charged with severe offenses and/or multiple offenses to have the detainers honored, in which case ICE will be allowed to detain those individuals and have their own hearing to determine if the person should be deported,” said a Dart spokesman.
McCann’s brothers learned of Chavez’s release via a recorded phone message from the Cook County Jail. “It was this creepy, eerie recording,” said Brian McCann.
“Our family was infuriated,” said the victim’s daughter, Nicole Goins, 40, of Edwardsville, Ill. “It’s not so much just for our father. If it’s happened to us, it’s probably happened to others. This is not what the people want. This isn’t right. This isn’t how it is supposed to be.”
It doesn’t matter what the people want, Nicole.
This is Chicago, this is Cook County, and the politicians are all about counting votes. Not from the dead, from the living.
But plans of a productive future were destroyed in an instant when her car was struck [...]]]>
Thirty-four-year-old Corrie Damske (pictured) was in the midst of a life assessment, considering how to channel her artistic talents into career goals, according to close friends. The resident of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. was also the mother of a 9-year-old daughter.
But plans of a productive future were destroyed in an instant when her car was struck head-on by a drunk-driving illegal alien going the wrong way on an interstate highway on New Year’s Day.
The drunk driver, Leopoldo Salas Gaytan, was recently convicted of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He had been twice ticketed for driving without a license but was not further investigated and deported back to Mexico. His blood alcohol was .145, nearly twice the legal level, after consuming 14 beers.
Illegal Immigrant sentenced in deadly New Year’s Day crash, WTMJ-TV Milwaukee, July 22, 2011
MILWAUKEE – The man who killed a mother while driving drunk and the wrong way on I-94 on New Year’s Day has been sentenced to 15 years in prison and 7 years extended supervision.
Leopoldo Salas-Gayton, 41, was convicted of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, homicide by the use of a vehicle with a prohibitive alcohol level, and operating without a valid license and causing death to another person. He is also living in this country illegally. The crash killed Corrie Damske, 34, who also had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit.
Damske’s family and friends attended Friday’s sentencing. Her mother, Sharon Hvala tearfully told the judge about her daughter and the loss the family feels.
“It has torn the very heart out of myself and my family and left us with an absence so profound,” said Hvala. “There will never be again a full extent of happiness again in my life.”
Gayton was wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair, then pulled out again to be read letters that were submitted to the court on behalf of Damske’s friends and family.
He returned to the courtroom sobbing.
The state prosecutor told the judge Salas used his vehicle as a weapon.
The judge later agreed.
“You didn’t set out to kill someone that day but you did set out to drive drunk,” Circuit Judge Dennis Cimpl told Salas.
Salas sobbed hearing Damske’s family speak. A translator relayed the words.
He read a letter in Spanish, asking Damske’s family for forgiveness and mercy.
Damske mother said the remorse is meaningful to her but she says Salas made his choices, choices that leave her shattered.“I feel judge Cimpl did his job and nothing will bring my daughter back and it’s just been a bad situation all the way around.”
Meanwhile, the elite press erroneously continues to regard drunk driving as a minor crime and not deserving deportation when committed by illegal aliens. On the contrary, many Americans have been killed by drunk-driving illegal aliens. Deporting drunk-driving illegal aliens would definitely save lives.
]]>Report: Deportations hit record number, Politico, July 22, 2011
The Obama administration deported nearly 400,000 people last year – a record – with the number driven up by those tossed out for traffic violations and drunken driving, according to a report on Friday.
The focus on ousting those with relatively minor offenses raises questions about whether the administration has lived up to its promise to focus on deporting the most dangerous offenders, the Associated Press says. [. . .]
Diane and her daughter were on their way to a Fourth of July celebration in Sugar Creek where her husband Buddy was set to ride an antique scooter in the parade. They never made it.
]]>Drunken driver reportedly went wrong way for 14 miles before fatal wreck, Kansas City Star, July 5, 2011
Diane K. Bronson was eight months pregnant when a state paint-striping truck rear-ended her vehicle in 1999.
Firefighters had to cut her out of the wreckage, and Bronson suffered a serious head injury. But she survived, as did her prematurely born baby, whom she named Anna.
On Monday — more than 11 years later — Bronson and Anna, of Belton, were again involved in a highway crash. But this time, neither survived.
Police blamed the 8:30 a.m. wreck on Interstate 435 near 63rd Street in Kansas City on a drunken driver going the wrong way.
Jackson County prosecutors charged Felix Solano-Gallardo, 18, of Kansas City, Kan., on Monday with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. His blood alcohol content was 0.185, more than double the legal limit of 0.08, more than two hours after the wreck, according to court records.
Police were still working Tuesday to confirm the man’s identity. According to court records, Gallardo gave his name as Felix Gallardo, but he had two Mexican identification cards on him with a different name, and both cards had different photos. Prosecutors think he is an illegal immigrant.
Police said they think Gallardo had been driving the wrong way for at least 14 miles because they think he ran a driver off of Interstate 70 into a concrete median near Harrison Street earlier. The victim told police the driver drove at him from one side of the highway to the other and appeared to be trying to hit him, police said.
At least nine motorists called 911 to complain about a wrong-way driver on I-70 or I-435 Monday morning.
Gallardo was uncooperative with police and invoked his right to an attorney using an interpreter, according to court records.
Bronson and her daughter were headed to meet her mother and brother for breakfast before attending a July Fourth parade in Sugar Creek. They never made it to breakfast.
Bronson’s husband and Anna’s father, Buddy Bronson, said he was preparing to ride an antique motor scooter in the parade when he got a call saying police were at his house looking for him and he needed to get home right away.
Buddy Bronson asked why.
“Please don’t ask,” the neighbor who called said.
Buddy Bronson said he lost his wife of 20 years and only biological child. His wife had two sons, ages 20 and 22, and Bronson said they were working through their grief together.
“We’re really rattled,” he said. “This is not something we expected at all.”
Diane Bronson worked as a hospice nurse and “loved it,” Buddy Bronson said.
He said his daughter was “smart as a whip and the life of the neighborhood.” Anna swam at a neighbor’s pool nearly every day, and enjoyed playing softball, dancing and drawing pictures.
“My wife couldn’t live without my daughter, and my daughter couldn’t live without my wife,” he said. “I tried to make her a Daddy’s girl, but I couldn’t wrest her away …. they were always joined at the hip.”
The Obama administration insists that it is prioritizing its immigration enforcement to go after the dangerous foreigners first, which sounds reasonable enough. But the August 1 death of Sister Denise Mosier from a crash with a previously arrested drunk-driving illegal alien showed the system is still as criminal-friendly as ever.
The accused killer, Bolivian Carlos Montano, had earlier been handed over to ICE for deportation (twice!) but instead was released onto American streets. He had spent 20 days in jail for two drunk-driving convictions, so was clearly a bad crash waiting to happen. An obviously dangerous illegal alien was released with deadly consequences.
It’s a tale of malfeasance that is all too familiar to Ray Tranchant: Alfredo Ramos, the alien later found guilty of killing Tessa Tranchant and her friend Alison Kunhardt, had been convicted twice of alcohol-related crimes but was not deported.
]]>After My Daughter’s Death — A Father’s View of the Immigration Debate, By Ray Tranchant, Fox News, August 11, 2010
Alfredo Ramos, a previous DUI offender and alcoholic, seemed invisible in a system that was good at looking the other way. Virginia Beach and Chesapeake were being accused of being “sanctuary cities” as Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera screamed at each other during the national news hour. O’Reilly was right.
I know what sanctuary means more than most ever will.
Ramos was actually smug at the trial and took his lumps: 40 years in prison. There was nothing I could do but forgive him; forgiveness cleanses the soul. He was an uneducated foreigner patronized by local merchants who needed cheap labor.
Hundreds of thousands of illegals in Virginia do the same. We don’t share a border with Mexico, so the awareness here isn’t as great as Arizona or California.
But the dilemma in Arizona is more important to Virginians than it seems. Last Monday, Sister Denise Mosier was killed in Prince William County. An illegal immigrant from Bolivia with two previous drunken-driving convictions is charged with killing her and critically injuring two other nuns while driving drunk.
As with me, her friends say they have forgiven him and hold no grudges.
Later in the week, in response to this tragedy, the Secretary of Homeland Security said she would get to the bottom of why the illegals are not deported when they are repeat offenders.
Here’s what I would like to tell the Secretary: Ms. Napolitano, ICE was not there in 2007 when my daughter and her friend died. And, though ICE picked up the man who hit Sister Mosier, he wasn’t kept in custody and was sent back out the streets.
This problem is not new.
We know it’s not the people but the system that fails Americans again and again. There have been hundreds of similar stories in America since Tess and Ali died.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez from Illinois reminded me personally in a Congressional hearing that the solution lies with a comprehensive plan that includes amnesty. After all, he said, “they pick your grapes, clean your hotels and are then victimized.” Luis should worry about protecting U.S. Hispanics and instead of counting on prospective Hispanic votes.
But waving a magic wand over 12 million people will not solve this immigration problem. It worries me that we would even consider giving foreigners legal rights to Social Security, health care and school in a time of $14 trillion dollar deficits.
Consider that when 12 million get citizenship, 10 million of their relatives will migrate legally. Of course citizenship will make them pay into the system, but the amount won’t be realized for many years.
I don’t believe the current system can process this many people and verify that some are not criminals or terrorists, let alone pay benefits to new Americans.