Thread: CA-2 dead, 1 wounded in Southern California shooting

2 dead, 1 wounded in Southern California shooting

The Associated Press
Mar. 11, 2010

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. -- Riverside County sheriff's deputies they are looking at all possible motives in a shooting that left two men dead and one wounded, including a possible link to immigrant smuggling.

Two men were found shot at a home in Moreno Valley Thursday night, said Deputy Melissa Nieburger. One man died at the scene and the other was taken to a hospital where he later died.

Authorities say the third man, who also had been shot, walked into a cell phone store earlier Thursday to ask for help. He was in critical condition Thursday night.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are helping search for the suspects.

Witnesses at the cell phone store told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that the man told them he was being held at the home with ten other immigrants and that he was shot five times during a fight after the coyote - a term for a human smuggler - demanded $3,700 from him or his family.

Ron Olmsted, 36, of Riverside told the newspaper that the man said he was from Pueblo, Mexico, and had crossed the border blindfolded at about 2 a.m.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/11/260181 ... alley.html

Shooting linked to smuggling ring, police say

10:01 PM PST on Friday, March 12, 2010

By JOHN ASBURY
The Press-Enterprise

A man shot multiple times Thursday evening at a Moreno Valley house where two others were killed may have been a victim of human smugglers' increasing violence against immigrants, authorities said Friday.

The two shooting victims who died were found inside the house where police say undocumented immigrants were held while waiting for their families to pay for their release. The wounded man was able to escape and ran to a cell phone store nearly two miles away.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they are seeing a preference among smugglers for holding immigrants in the Inland region rather Los Angeles. The officials say smugglers in general are becoming more violent and are demanding more money once the immigrants have been brought across the border.

"We've seen more violent activity spurred by greed because there aren't people paying the smuggling fees the way they used to," said Debra Parker, an ICE acting deputy in charge of the Los Angeles investigations unit. "It's awful. This is a very disturbing trend."

Homicide detectives continued Friday to investigate at the house on Bay Avenue at Edgemont Street. The tan stucco home, in an older Moreno Valley neighborhood, had security bars on some windows and is surrounded by a brown wooden fence.

Detectives are unsure what led to the shooting. Neither the dead men nor the injured man have been identified by police. It isn't known whether they were immigrants being held at the house or smugglers.

ICE agents joined the investigation Friday.

Held for Ransom

The man who escaped from the house said there was a fight with a "coyote," a term that refers to smugglers, and that he was shot when he ran away. He told his story to Isaura Segner, who was shopping at the Sprint cell phone store the bloodied man entered at the Canyon Springs shopping center off Day Street in Riverside, just over the Moreno Valley line.

The man said he had been brought from Puebla, Mexico, a north-central city south of San Antonio, and eventually crossed the border at 2 a.m. Thursday. After the smugglers brought him to Moreno Valley, they demanded $3,700 from his family in the Los Angeles area, he told Segner.

Witnesses said the man told them he had been shot five times while trying to escape. He was taken by ambulance from the store to Riverside County Regional Medical Center.

Meanwhile, after several 911 calls that shots had been fired at the Bay Street house, police responded about 6:15 p.m. They found one man dead and another critically injured who later died at the hospital. An injured man was bound in a back bedroom, said sheriff's homicide Sgt. Dean Spivacke.

None of their names were available.

"With the smuggling operation aside, this comes down to a double homicide," Spivacke said. "Our goal is to make sure there's not a threat to anyone else. The immigration issue is not our primary objective."

Detectives said at midday Friday they didn't know how long the smugglers had been operating or who owned or rented the house.

Spivacke said the immigrants were charged a prearranged amount for release to their families. Some may have been brought north on credit, expecting that their families would pay the smugglers when they arrived, he said.

The house was in poor condition and had several beds inside, he said. It's possible that families came to pay the fees during the day, and that some immigrants had left the house before the shooting, Spivacke said.

Police have spoken to the family of the injured man and said he has been cooperative.

"I actually think it's something we'll be able to solve," Spivacke said. "We have decent witnesses and there's going to be evidence in the house. Right now it's a whodunit, but it's not going to stay that way."

Increasing violence

The Inland region has been attractive to human smugglers because of its larger, affordable houses and its proximity to a network of freeways, ICE agent Parker said.

"It's almost like a transit point. Like a bus station, the cargo is brought there and goes where needed," she said.

The volume of human smuggling has decreased in recent years because of the economy and border enforcement, but violence has spiked, Parker said. Some immigrants have been sexually assaulted, denied food or shocked with Tasers, she said.

Murder of immigrants is still rare. Smugglers can face the death penalty if immigrants die while being transported.

The fee to take an immigrant across the border has increased from a few hundred dollars two years ago to, in some cases, more than $7,000, Parker said. Experts say the fee has increased as crossing has become more difficult because of border enforcement.

Smugglers may be Mexican or American citizens and usually are unknown to law enforcement until they are caught in the act, Parker said. Violence may be increasing because of the smugglers' desperate struggle to secure business.

"This is just kind of indicative of a trend we're seeing lately," Parker said. "There are fewer and fewer drop houses in L.A. and we're seeing them favor outlying and remote areas in the Inland Empire to avoid detection."

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