Thread: AZ: Officer killed by suspected illegal immigrant drunk driv

3-month-old Mesa girl owed an explanation
Oct. 29, 2008 12:00 AM

Four times, we got rid of this guy.

One, two, three, four.

And yet there he was, out there on 19th Avenue in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Drunk three times over, authorities said he had a blood-alcohol reading of nearly 0.24 percent.

Now there's a 3-month-old girl in Mesa who will grow up without a father, and someone owes her an explanation.

Actually, 535 someones. Together, they're called Congress.

While most of our leaders were out over the weekend, trying to get themselves sent back to Washington so they can continue to ignore the nation's pressing business, Phoenix police Officer Shane Figueroa was out doing something that the politicians can only imagine: his job.

Figueroa, 25, was a guy who had everything in front of him. A wife to love, a baby to raise, a community to protect.

He was working the graveyard shift in south Phoenix on Friday night when the call came in: shots fired. As he headed north on 19th Avenue to investigate, Salvador Vivas-Diaz, 50, was going the opposite direction - in more ways than one.

Vivas-Diaz is an illegal immigrant who has snuck into the country so many times, there's likely a rut in the desert to mark his path.

He was nabbed three times in 1998 and each time was allowed to voluntarily return to Mexico, according to Vinnie Picard, spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Voluntary departure is routinely offered to Mexican residents as a way of avoiding lengthy deportation proceedings. It also allows them to avoid serious penalties should be they return.

Which he did. And did. And did.

In May 2004, he was arrested by Tempe police for extreme DUI and the following month, he was arrested by DPS for DUI and having phony ID. He was deported on June 29, 2004.

So naturally, he was on 19th Avenue early Saturday, headed south when police say he attempted to turn left in front of Figueroa and instead T-boned the police cruiser. While Officer Figueroa lay dying on the pavement, Vivas-Diaz got out of his pickup and urinated in the street.

To his credit, he didn't run - as so many drunks (most of them citizens) do. Police said he had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech - and oh yeah, several sets of ID, the better to avoid the four warrants out for his arrest from his encounters with police and failures to show up in court. (Picard said he could have made arrangements to return to the U.S. to clear up his charges but didn't.)

Now, two DUIs, three voluntary departures and one deportation later, another of Phoenix's finest is dead, and I can't help but wonder if anybody in Congress is paying attention. Officer Figueroa joins Officer Nick Erfle and Nanuma Lavulavu, a legal immigrant and mother of six, and 20-year-old Chris Miller and a long line of people killed because our leaders can't or won't get control of the border. The drunk who killed Lavulavu last year had been sent back to Mexico five times and still was on our streets.

Vivas-Diaz had been sent back four times and still he was here early Saturday morning.

Stunned officers met with the media on Monday evening to talk about their friend and colleague. He was, they say, a good man, quiet and humble, devoted to his family and to his community.

"I don't understand," Officer Mike Fortune said. "Why him?"

Maybe someday our leaders can explain that to Figueroa's daughter, whom I suspect will want to know why her daddy had to die. Until then, maybe they can explain it to the rest of us.


Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8635. Read her blog at robertsblog.azcentral.com.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... s1029.html

Services held for fallen officer
November 1st, 2008 @ 1:33pm
by KPHO.com

Memorial services were held Saturday for the Phoenix police officer who died after a suspected drunken driver who was in the country illegally smashed into his squad car.

Shane Figueroa, 25, pictured at left, was responding to a "shots fired" call west of downtown Phoenix early Saturday morning when investigators said Salvador Vivas-Diaz, 50, slammed his pickup truck into the officer's car.

The memorial service was held at the Mesa's Red Mountain Institute.

Interment followed the service at the city of Mesa cemetery, 1212 N. Center St.

Donations can be made to M & I Bank in the name of Melisha or Kenzlie Figueroa, Figueroa's wife and daughter. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to the 100 Club.

Figueroa is survived by his wife and 3-month-old baby. He had served less than three years on the force.

On Wednesday night, a candlelight vigil was held just down the road from the crash scene, at 19th Avenue and Roeser Road.

Edward Campos Jr. heard the crash that evening, and ran out to help. At the vigil, he said he tried to comfort Figueroa as he lay on the ground.

"It's just sad to see somebody hurting that bad, and to be scared," Campos Jr. said. "I just told him I was there to help him, and that help was on the way.

"I told him everything was going to be all right."

Commander Dave Faulkner is in charge of the precinct where Figueroa worked.

"Sadly, we've been through a lot," Faulkner said. "Over 26 years of my career, each time it doesn't get any easier.

The driver of the pickup that hit Figueroa's car, Salvador Vivas-Diaz, 50, is being held on charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault and forgery.

http://www.ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=983767

Added to home page with title change
http://www.alipac.us/article3695.html

I really feel for this officers fmaily. To think Obama has an illegal immigrant in his family living here illegally and nothing was done about her either. This was a preventable death.

Illegal Immigrant Gets 16 Years for Taking Life of Phoenix Cop in DUI Collision
By Ray Stern in NewsFriday, Jun. 26 2009 @ 6:45PM
Shane Figueroa

An illegal immigrant who was drunk when he smashed into a Phoenix police car last year, killing Officer Shane Figueroa, was sentenced today to 16 years in prison.

Salvador Vivas-Diaz, 50, turned left in front of Figueroa's cruiser on October 25, 2008, in the intersection of 19th Avenue and Roeser. Vivas-Diaz' truck "spun the patrol car and sent it into a block wall," says one account. Figueroa flew out of his car and died a while later.

The 25-year-old officer with two years on the job had been responding to an emergency call about shots being fired. He left a wife and baby behind. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office noted in October that just a month before, the office had won a conviction in the case of a man who took shots at Figueroa and another officer.

Vivas-Diaz, meanwhile, is another poster child for immigration reform. (There are so many). He'd been deported four times previously and worried his neighbors because his drinking problem was so severe.

We just can't figure it out: Does this type of thing argue for or against clarifying the status of illegal immigrants? Maybe Vivas-Diaz would have checked into rehab if he wasn't worried about being deported. On the other hand, being deported doesn't seem to faze him.

Or does it matter either way? After all, the majority of DUI-related deaths in this state are caused by citizens.

Fact is, cases like these may serve to drive debate on immigration, but even after a "solution" finally arises, drunk-driving deaths will still be happening.


http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com

Yes, Citizens do commit crimes but resources that could be utilized fighting these crimes are diverted in an attempt to protect U.S. Citizens from the never ending crimes of the ILLEGALS and their Anchors. A young man is dead, a wife does not have her husband, and a child loses a father. A U.S. Citizen is dead and a young family destroyed because an ILLEGAL was in the United States driving drunk; if he were not in the U.S. ILLEGALLY the Citizen would be alive; not murdered by the ILLEGAL in this drunk-driving incident.