What is difficult to know? If the ILLEGAL was not here he could have not KILLED a United States Citizen!!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5621509.html

March 14, 2008, 11:07PM
Motives for quick arrest questioned
Activists say Hispanic driver in fatal crash was a scapegoat


By PEGGY O'HARE
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

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Several civil rights activists on Friday alleged "anti-immigrant hysteria" motivated the quick arrest of a Hispanic truck driver involved in a fatal collision that killed a Harris County sheriff's deputy who was drunk on duty.

And the League of United Latin American Citizens is calling for an independent agency such as the FBI to investigate how the Harris County Sheriff's Office and Harris County District Attorney's Office handled the case.

"We don't feel the sheriff's office and DA's office can do a fair and unbiased investigation on this case," said Francisco B. Rodriguez III, director of LULAC's local office. "They have done minimal work because they thought they had a scapegoat."

The truck driver, Mexican immigrant Jose Jesus Vieyra, 57, remains in the Harris County Jail on a $35,000 bail, charged with criminally negligent homicide. Activists are calling for his bail to be lowered so he can return to work as he prepares to defend himself.

Vieyra was charged less than 24 hours after sheriff's deputy Craig W. Miller crashed his leased Toyota SUV into the rear of Vieyra's box truck on the Katy Freeway service road Feb. 21.

Sheriff's officials initially said Vieyra caused the crash by crossing three lanes of traffic and veering in front of Miller. The sheriff's department has said it is still interviewing witnesses and hasn't completed an accident report.

But test results released Thursday by the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office show Miller, 43, was highly intoxicated when the crash occurred as he drove to an undercover surveillance assignment.

Those findings indicated Miller had a blood-alcohol level between 0.27 and 0.32 — more than three times the legal limit — when he died.

Prosecutors said they have not decided what to do about Vieyra's case, so he remains in jail, where he has been for more than three weeks. If he is released, Vieyra will likely be deported because he overstayed his 2006 visitor visa, authorities said.

Rodriguez charged that the sheriff's office is engaged in a cover-up.

"What we would have liked was a thorough investigation," Rodriguez said. "It's been almost 30 days — yet the sheriff's office has not gone out and interviewed all the people who were in contact with Mr. Miller.

"They didn't extract information from the black box," Rodriguez said, referring to the crash computer in Miller's leased Toyota. "A lot of things fell through the cracks."

The sheriff's office declined to respond to Rodriguez's comments. Sheriff Tommy Thomas, who was absent from a press conference announcing Miller's toxicology results on Thursday, also declined comment Friday.

One immigrants' rights activist said authorities' swift and stern reaction to the Feb. 21 crash was "extreme" and called it typical of incidents involving injuries or death to a law enforcement officer.

Vieyra's high bond and the time he has already spent in jail is "really less about the reality of crime ... and more about catering to the erroneous notion that his undocumented status is equal to him being a criminal," said activist Maria Jimenez of Houston.

And Harris County has an unreasonable practice of setting high bail for undocumented immigrants arrested for crimes because of fears they will abscond before trial, Jimenez said.

Another civil rights activist said Vieyra was charged very quickly.

"This rush to judgment, this anti-immigrant hysteria, it clouds the truth. It really does," said Randall Kallinen, president of the American Rights Association, a civil rights and civil liberties group based in Houston.

The Mexican Consulate in Houston is closely monitoring the case and said Miller's blood-alcohol level changes the situation for Vieyra, said spokeswoman Lolita Parkinson.

Harris County prosecutors may not be so quick to set him free, however. Assistant District Attorney Bill Hawkins said allegations that Miller was drunk don't affect causation in the collision.

Hawkins said he will wait for the sheriff's investigation to conclude before taking the case to a grand jury.

During an interview Thursday, Vieyra was apparently being treated as if he were highly dangerous. Despite being locked behind protective glass, he was shackled at the ankles and had his hands cuffed behind his back unlike other prisoners, who were able to walk freely behind glass in a common room as they spoke with visitors.

That's because Vieyra has been housed in administrative segregation — apart from the jail's general population — for his own safety, said sheriff's office spokesman David Crain. Such a classification is used for all inmates charged in high-profile crimes, including capital murders.

Sheriff's Office policy calls for all such inmates to remain shackled and handcuffed when they receive visitors or are removed from their cells. But sheriff's administrators are now weighing whether to allow deputies the discretion to remove such restraints from inmates who pose no threat to others, Crain said Friday.

Vieyra "is not a threat," Crain said. "He poses no hazard or danger to us. He clearly should have been moved to visitation without the restraints."

Chronicle reporters Brian Rogers and Dane Schiller contributed to this report.

peggy.ohare@chron.com