Free Republic

Acrimony with racial overtones has plagued the advisory council. The key issue: whether meetings in Spanish should be allowed.For months, parents on a Los Angeles Unified School District advisory council have disagreed over whether their meetings should be conducted in Spanish or English. Such arguments became so abusive that district officials canceled meetings for two months and brought in dispute-resolution specialists and mental-health counselors. But Friday morning's gathering of the District Advisory Council proved dysfunctional in any language. By one vote, parents censured their own chairman for alleged bad behavior, leading to a walkout of most Spanish-speakers. The rebuked chairman,...

PHOENIX -- A Phoenix police officer shot point blank in the chest said he credits his vest and law enforcement training for saving his life. Officer Bret Glidewell was shot Sunday after pulling over a 1998 Chevrolet S-10 pickup around 5 p.m. for running a stop sign near 32nd Street and Sweetwater Avenue. "Something about the traffic stop gave me a gut feeling that something is not right," Glidewell told reporters on Tuesday. "Because of that, I changed my tactics a little," he said. Police said the driver, identified as Jose Abel Cabrera-Somosa, 35, stuck a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol out...

PHOENIX — The nation's top security official may use his power to unilaterally trump a federal court order halting construction of a fence on a stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is weighing whether to invoke a section of federal law that allows him to exempt border construction projects from any law, his press aide, Russ Knocke, told Capitol Media Services. That includes requirements for studies on environmental impacts of federally funded projects. The move would not be unprecedented: Chertoff used the power at least twice since it was granted. In 2005 he decided to build...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Some of the city's Latino leaders are talking about a recall campaign against the mayor because he refuses to remove a member of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps from the city's parks board. Mayor Mark Funkhouser spent about an hour Thursday in a private meeting with representatives from about 30 Latino groups. The groups are upset with the mayor's appointment of Frances Semler, who is a member of the anti-illegal-immigration group the Minutemen. If Semler doesn't leave the parks board, two large conventions may pull out of Kansas City. Several reporters asked the mayor if he...

Two illegal immigrants have been indicted on charges of armed robbery, theft and aggravated assault in Maricopa County. One of them blames his crime on Arizona’s new employer sanctions law. Ruben Aragon Parra and Salvador Antonio Monreal-Camargo are accused of stealing a truck on Sept. 13 and later robbing a man in a park. The second victim chased the suspects in his own car and pounded on the windshield of the stolen truck with a shovel before they were arrested. Parra told police he needed money after being laid off as a result of Arizona’s new employer sanctions law. Beginning...

PHOENIX (AP) - A Phoenix police officer was killed Tuesday by a man who was himself later fatally shot as he pointed a gun at a carjacking victim's head. The officer, 33-year-old Nick Erfle, had been trying to arrest the suspect on a warrant when the two got into a fight. The suspect pulled his gun and fired, police spokesman Sgt. Joel Tranter said. As Erfle was taken to a hospital, police scrambled to find the suspect. The man had run away, flung open the passenger door of a car stopped in traffic, pointed his gun at the man inside,...

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to ban Mexican trucks from U.S. roadways, rekindling a more than decade-old trade dispute with Mexico. By a 74-24 vote, the Senate approved a proposal by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., prohibiting the Transportation Department from spending money on a North American Free Trade Agreement pilot program giving Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways. The proposal is part of a $106 billion transportation and housing spending bill that the Senate hopes to vote on later this week. The House approved a similar provision to Dorgan's in July as part of its version of the transportation...

Charges were filed Wednesday in connection with the kicking death of a Coweta toddler. Michael Hernandez was ordered held in the Wagoner County Jail without bond. He's charged with killing Kelynn Byrd, 2, earlier this month. The toddler's mother was Hernandez's girlfriend. Investigators said after Hernandez and the boy's mother had a fight, she left the house, leaving the child with Hernandez. The victim died from blunt chest and abdominal trauma. Hernandez allegedly confessed to repeatedly kicking Kelynn in the chest. Authorities contacted the Mexican consulate after Hernandez's court appearance because he is in the country illegally.

Alejandro Xuya-Sian did more than shred the skin on his victim's body - he shredded his victim's dignity, making him feel "too embarrassed" by his appearance to face the drunken driver who nearly dragged him to his death, a judge said as he sentenced Xuya-Sian to 3 1/3 to 10 years in prison. "You didn't just injure him physically. You shattered his life," Suffolk County Judge James Hudson told Xuya-Sian before he imposed his sentence. Hudson said Xuya-Sian treated his victim with less regard than he should "an injured animal." Xuya-Sian, 27, pleaded guilty last month to vehicular assault, driving...

A Guatemalan man who is in the United States illegally was arrested early Tuesday on hit-and-run charges after a traffic accident that killed two Baltimore-area men and injured three other highway construction workers on the side of U.S. 29 in Montgomery County, police said. The crash just over the Howard County line was the latest in a series of fatal traffic accidents involving illegal immigrant drivers in Maryland. It also added two names to the list of highway workers killed in on-the-job crashes recently. James Cronin, 37, of the 7200 block of Judy Road in Glen Burnie, was flown to...

A 19-year old illegal immigrant from Mexico is on his way back to New York City to face murder charges. Investigators said the suspected killer was hiding out near Hazleton. AUthorities said he may be 19, but Rocca Mejia Cinto a cold-hearted killer who stabbed a New York City man to death on Saturday. Mejia Cinto had nothing to say on his way back to New York City. Police said he stabbed Anthony Senisi,44, to death on Saturday near the man's Brooklyn apartment. That day was Senisi's 17th wedding anniversary. He was returning home from buying milk for his family....

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- Police say Eduardo Alejandro, who is in the Richmond County jail, is in this country illegally and they say this weekend he was driving drunk when he collided with an innocent driver. He now faces murder charges, and much of Rockingham is talking him and the crash that killed 25-year-old Reginald McEachian. “Everybody knows everyone here. It’s just a sad situation,” said Larry Eidy, a Rockingham businessman. While Eidy is sad, others in Rockingham are angry because the man accused of driving drunk and causing the crash is an illegal immigrant. “I don’t think it’s right. They...

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) _ An illegal immigrant who was deported in 1997, sneaked back into the country and then killed two people in a drunken-driving crash was sentenced Tuesday to up to 15 years in prison. Nilssen Torres Paredes had pleaded guilty in May to manslaughter. He was drunk and speeding the wrong way in a 30 mph zone when he struck a car, injuring the driver and killing the two passengers, Audra Kaczur and David Calogero, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to five to 15 years behind bars. He also received concurrent sentences on charges that he lied about...

An illegal immigrant who was about to be deported has been charged with raping three Charlotte women in a series of attacks that left police frustrated and female joggers leery for nearly two years. Jose C. Rivera, 26, was in Atlanta awaiting deportation when the rape charges were filed Friday. The charges will stop the deportation proceedings. Rivera is accused of attacking three women in different parts of Charlotte between April 2004 and Sept. 2005. Police say he talked his way into a victim's home, attacked another in the common area outside her apartment, and then, wearing only red underwear,...

An illegal immigrant will spent the rest of his life in prison for his role in the brutal beating and rape of a Limestone County Teenager last summer. Noel Darwin Hernandez pleaded guilty Friday in a Freestone County Courtroom for the June 2006 attack. Investigators said Hernandez and Javier Guzman Martinez, who's also serving a life sentence, approached an 18-year-old girl outside a strip mall in Mexia. According to police, they later ran her off Highway 171, then kidnapped, raped and stabbed her for two hours, before leaving her for dead near Coolidge. Hernandez’s trial was scheduled to begin Monday,...

WASHINGTON – For a few hours on Wednesday, the immigration debate was back on the floor of the Senate. And the result was the same: Nothing happened. The Senate refused to act on a Republican amendment to the Homeland Security spending bill that would have added $3 billion for border security and made changes in immigration enforcement policy. And because of the objections of one senator, lawmakers were also blocked from just adding the money without amending policy. The amendment, authored by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was an attempt by the GOP to enact the part of the immigration bill...

A Minneapolis man was sentenced to 48 months in prison in connection with a fatal crash in Inver Grove Heights that happened last February. Antonio Alatorre-Garcia, of Minneapolis, had been charged with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide. The car crash happened on Feb. 17 when a Ford Explorer identified as Alatorre-Garcia's crossed from southbound Highway 52 into northbound lanes. Alatorre-Garcia hit a Toyota Rav-4 head-on, killing driver Mark Berkeland, 56, of Kenyon, Minn. According to Police, Alatorre-Garcia did not speak English and showed police a fake photo ID. The odor of alcohol was also present. They administered a breath...

Vale, Oregon -- An illegal immigrant faced with multiple charges in the death of his own daughter was using false identification. Oregon State police say Daniel Cabello Deleon is actually 34-year-old David Raigoza Franco of Nyssa. Franco originally told police he was Deleon, but was later identified through fingerprints. Franco has several outstanding warrants for his arrest, including furnishing false information to police. He was arrested Sunday afternoon on manslaughter and DUII charges after he lost control of his s-u-v. The roll-over accident ejected his 8-year-old daughter Clarissa Vasquez Caldera who died at the scene.

RACINE, Wis. -- An illegal immigrant faces an 18-year prison term after being sentenced in Racine on charges in the traffic death of a high school teacher and soccer coach. Juan Chavez-Chavez, 23, of Chicago, pleaded guilty in May to homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, first-degree reckless endangerment and operating a vehicle while intoxicated, causing injury. Three other charges were dropped. Authorities said he was driving the wrong way on Interstate 94 when he hit the vehicle carrying Scott Procknow, 24, and his wife. Procknow taught and coached soccer at Tremper High School. He was killed but his...

SANTA ANA – The federal government's case against four suspects arrested in the largest seizure of heroin in California history has been dealt a potentially devastating blow by a federal judge's ruling that the search that recovered nearly $6 million in drugs violated the U.S. Constitution. The Valentine's Day raid captured national attention. Besides arresting the four Mexican nationals, investigators say they uncovered an elaborate drug-trafficking operation that ran millions of dollars worth of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine through an Anaheim neighborhood and into the hands of U.S. buyers. The four men, also suspected of being in the U.S. illegally,...