Jose Guerena, 26, former Marine
Here is the man's grieving wife, Vanessa Guerena. They have two sons, ages 4 and 5.
Posted on 05/19/2011 1:59:49 PM PDT by Tucsonican
Barbara Grijalva is live from the law offices of Michael Storie, the legal team representing the law enforcement officers involved in the deadly SWAT incident.
More complete background can be found at these links:
Police change story in fatal shooting; wife wants answers
SWAT raid fatal drama is revealed in 911 call
Raw video: Sheriff's Office interview on fatal SWAT raid
Sheriff's Dept. defends actions in SWAT killing
..and a whole bunch of other sources.
1. If this guy was a Marine with 2 combat tours then why would he possibly be standing in the hallway with an AR when the cops came knocking if he had hostile intentions? I don't know about anyone else but I seem to recall being "encouraged" to be as small a target as possible by having as much of my body on the ground as possible when encountering or expecting hostile fire.
2. This guy says that the suspect was standing and walked into the hallway. Previous reports have stated that the suspect was crouched at the end of the hall. This seems to be yet another version of the story.
3. I don't know about anyone else's training but I seem to recall having been trained to continue an entry once initiated and continue to clear the area until the threat was eliminated. By not doing so the SWAT was standing outside while an armed suspect may well have been holding others hostage. If they didn't know that anyone other than the suspect was in the house at the time of the raid then they certainly knew once they were notified of the 911 call the wife made.
4. Why the heck would a warrant for items which are perfectly legal to own require a "kinetic entry"? Were they concerned that the suspect would flush an AR? This guy had no record of violence and the warrant doesn't seem to have been in regard to any violent act.
5. The attorney has suggested that the suspect was involved in some kind of "organization" and uses the possibility that the wife called one of the other suspect houses as supporting evidence. I may have misunderstood something but I believe that the attorney also said that this "organization" included family members. Is is really that unreasonable that a stressed out person would call a family member prior to calling 911? In my experience that happens all the time.
6. The attorney asserts that the suspect was involved in "counter surveillance" on one of their unmarked units. That may well have been the case but I'm pretty sure that Guerena wasn't the first person to have taken an interest in a suspicious vehicle in his neighborhood.
7. The attorney asserts that sirens were going off all over the place but neighbors have not corroborated that.
I'm not going to go so far as to say that Guerena isn't dirty but something (many things) in this situation are definitely dirty and I'm paying a lot of attention to this because it seems to be a road map for how an overbearing "law enforcement" action is going to be played out.
They believe they are in legal jeopardy. They, AT LEAST, screwed up and killed a man in his own home.
I'd sure like to see the Search Warrant and supporting affidavits.
You watch.
The SWAT Team already has lawyers!??!
WTH—Over!??!
One of the earliest reports was that the wife looked out a window and saw at least one of these folks looking in. That is why she awoke/alerted her husband to them. Now, with that said, if the SWAT member was looking in, then he full well knew that someone other than the targeted male was in the house, and should have relayed that information to the team at the front door. IMHO, this belies the statement by the team that they did not know anyone else was in the house.
Just give them a bit more time to slap a couple more coats of white wash on this baby and ‘Ratherize’ the documentation and you will find out that the guy they killed would make OBL look like a commom shoplifter.
The more moves and stories that SWAT team and the Sheriff’s Department trot out, the more this whole deal stinks.
Now, we get a lady lawyer who basically does a We-Don’t-Have-A-Case-So-I’ll-Just-Power-Up-The-Manure-Spreader routine.
She’d better hope she can stall this whole thing until she’s even got dreams of a halfway friendly jury. Thirty or forty years and change venue to Mars should be about right.
What a cluster.
Wish Gurena (sp?) was that lucky.
I will say he wasn’t dirty. At least while he was alive.What the sobs planted on him after they murdered him, I can’t say, but, while he was alive, he was clean.
"Everything they think they're gonna find in there, they find," Storie said.
Handguns, assault rifles, part of a law enforcement uniform and body armor were found, he said. Along with a portrait of Jesús Malverde, the patron saint of drug running. The portrait was found under the suspect's bed face up, Storie said.
Storie believes that Guerena and/or the group he was allegedly working with used the law enforcement uniforms to invade other homes.
Interesting. Why didn't they say this from the beginning?
The police are in Fraternal silence mode.
Does anybody know why they needed the SWAT team to serve a warrant on this guy? It seems like there is more to this story then we are being told.
They can’t pick up this joker at the mine?
Jose Guerena, 26, former Marine
Here is the man's grieving wife, Vanessa Guerena. They have two sons, ages 4 and 5.
He might have been dirty as heck — the question is how does the homicide team get off with acting as if they knew that before the evidence shows up? And even if they did, should not the effort of police be to cleanly arrest the suspect alive to be put to trial? Let him be hanged later for the drug crimes (aside from that we don’t usually hang people for non homicides any more).
I’d like to see that poster fingerprint and DNA tested. To be fair if it was there it’s something Guerena’s wife would have known about. As a plant she would be, of course, unaware. If she sues and asks for that then that should raise suspicious antennae high.
Because it took them this long to get lawyered up, get their stories straight and plant the evidence...
OMG. If my house were searched right now, they could say they found weapons and ammunition. As an Army vet, they could also say they found 'military uniforms and equipment' (albeit some BDUs and my Mess Dress hanging in a closet gathering dust). Certainly my hiking stuff could be described as 'survival gear' (Bergen pack, wire saw, compass, Camelback, etc.). After they shot my dog, they could say that I had the residence guarded by a vicious animal (who's to say he's friendly as a kitten after he's been shot?). I have a number of WWII history books on my shelves, so technically they could also say they found, "pictures of Adolf Hitler" (neatly ommitting Churchill, FDR, etc.) in the residence.
Oh...and since I get some mice every now and then, they could fairly say that they found 'numerous deadly traps," throughout the house. Once they searched my laptop, no doubt, my time on FR would be described as "membership to a controversial, ultra-right wing web site."
Oh but the lawyer says they have not communicated with one another since the shooting. He says they were separated after the shooting.
But to listen to his explanation of what happened in 7 seconds of firing, you’d think it took an hour to shoot those 70 bullets. Oh my goodness.
“They were almost ambushed by this guy.” Oh my. The incompetence that this guy is demonstrating on the part of the SWAT team is incredible.
This is the attorney for the SWAT team that is disclosing this information. I would assume that he had the OK from PCSO to do so but up until now the SO was the only agency releasing anything. Frankly, I don't find any of this stuff to be remarkable. There are quite a few homes down here where you could find "several" tactical weapons and I believe that body armor is issued to a lot of our guys in Afghanistan so it wouldn't be the least bit surprising that a veteran of that theater came home with a "souvenir".
What I find startling is that no drugs or anything else worth an arrest was found at any of the homes searched regarding this particular incident. If this "organization" was really a rip team then there must have been something in one of these houses. I'm kind of leaning toward the idea that Guerena knew someone who was dirty (probably at the mine) and may have opened up his yap just enough so that the "confidential informant" that was apparently being squeezed felt the urge to "confess".
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