Border Patrol Agent Carjacked, Kidnapped

Border Patrol Agent Carjacked, Kidnapped

Mcallen-based agent was vacationing with family in Florida

POSTED: 10:09 AM CDT Aug 15, 2015

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ORLANDO, FL -Four teenage suspects are in custody after allegedly carjacking, pistol-whipping and kidnapping a McAllen-based Border Patrol agent. Investigators said the agent was attacked while unloading his luggage outside a hotel.

"These individuals are high school students, playing a dangerous game," said Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings.

The men ditched the agent's SUV when an OnStar representative called. The agent was then able to escape.

According to police, the agent is recovering with his family.

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Pair of 18-year-olds, and 2 juveniles charged with carjacking of federal agent in tourist district

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Robbers carjacked, pistol-whipped, and kidnapped a federal officer who was on vacation, according to Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings. (Video by FOX35)

By Henry Pierson Curtis and Tiffany Walden
Orlando Sentinel contact the reporters

One suspect arrested in tourist district carjacking of federal agent.
Three suspects remain at large.


Three more suspects were arrested Friday in the violent carjacking of a federal agent vacationing with his family in the International Drive tourist corridor.

Dante Askins, an 18-year-old gang member, was arrested first Thursday afternoon driving a stolen car less than a mile from the previous night's carjacking, arrest records show.

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On Friday morning, a 15-year-old suspect accompanied by his parents turned himself in at Orange County sheriff's headquarters, 2500 W. Colonial Drive. Hours later, a 16-year-old suspect was arrested, and 18-year-old Gregory McDonald was arrested Friday night, according to Sheriff Jerry Demings.

"These high-school students were playing a dangerous game, and they got caught playing a dangerous game," Demings said Friday afternoon. "If you are coming to our community with criminal intent, we want you to think twice about it."

All four will be charged with the abduction of Armando Alaniz, a federal customs agent, records show.

On Wednesday night Alaniz was setting the GPS on his family's SUV parked outside the Fairfield Inn and Suites at 8214 Universal Blvd. to be ready to drive in the morning to Florida's Panhandle. The hotel is south of Sand Lake Road near the Sleuths Mystery Dinner Show.

But he was jumped by four males with a gun. They forced him into the 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe and beat him after binding him with duct tape and zip ties, according to the arrest report.

He was held for about two hours until the carjackers abandoned the SUV on West Cypress Street, about 8 miles away near Ivey Lane in west Orlando, when Alaniz's wife asked OnStar, a vehicle communications business that locates disabled and stolen vehicles, to call her husband, the report states.

Left alone, Alaniz slipped out of his bonds outside an unoccupied house on West Cypress, according to the Sheriff's Office. He later received four stitches at Dr. P. Phillips Hospital to close a scalp wound from being pistol-whipped, records show.

Federal court records in the Southern District of Texas state Alaniz works for the federal Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and stopped a tractor-trailer entering the U.S. from Mexico with more than 150 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in a load of produce last March. He could not be reached for comment.

The carjacking was Askins' sixth arrest, records show.

In 2013, the former student at Oak Ridge High School was charged as an adult at 16 with attempted first-degree murder after a drive-by shooting between two Pine Hills street gangs, Death Over Mercy and the Gorillas. A 15-year-old girl was wounded in the shooting, records show.

His charges were dropped, but two co-defendants received 21 years and 15 years. Orange County has about 1,200 documented gang members.

Demings said detectives are trying to determine whether the other teens belong to gangs. And increased patrols will continue in the International Drive tourist district, he said.

After Askins' arrest this week, investigators confronted him with the discovery of his fingerprints inside Alaniz's SUV. The teen began talking, saying he was with the 16-year-old gunman and two other teens he didn't know, records show.

The Orlando Sentinel is not identifying the juvenile defendants unless the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office decides to prosecute them as adults.

The 15-year-old was charged a year ago in Apopka with kidnapping and causing great bodily harm. The 16-year-old has five prior felony arrests starting at age 13 that include burglary, robberies and stealing a car, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The younger teens are being held at the state Juvenile Detention Center in Orlando. Askins remains held without bail in the Orange County Jail. All four are charged with armed kidnapping, carjacking with a car and aggravated battery with a firearm.

Askins faces additional charges of multiple counts of stealing cars, resisting arrest without violence, burglary and possession of burglary tools. More charges against all four suspects are expected, according to the Sheriff's Office.

hcurtis@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5257. twalden@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5620.

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