CO: Shooting suspect Vazquez was deported previously
9/11/2008 7:57:00 PM Email this article • Print this article
Shooting suspect Vazquez was deported previously
By Brandon Johansson
The Aurora Sentinel
AURORA | Six months after he was deported to Mexico for stealing a car, Aurora police say a known gang member is back and shot at a man during a botched car break-in in Aurora on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
Hipolito Rojas Vazquez, 19, is in Adams County Jail on an attempted first-degree murder charge after police say he fired a handgun at a man who tried to stop Rojas Vazquez and a friend from breaking into a car near East 32nd Avenue and Tower Road.
The bullet passed through the victim's clothes and he was not injured.
Aurora police arrested Rojas Vazquez in January on an auto theft charge. At the time, police believed he was in the country illegally and referred him to federal immigration authorities, who took him into custody in April after he served a four-month sentence on the auto theft charge.
"We don't understand why if he was in ICE custody in April that he is now on the street committing violent crimes with a handgun today," Aurora police spokesman Bob Friel said.
A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said agents deported Rojas Vazquez to Mexico on April 18.
Agents said they aren't sure how or exactly when he re-entered the country, but said Rojas Vazquez could face a felony charge for coming back to the United States after being deported.
Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for ICE, said the re-entry charge is typically one of the easiest for agents to prove.
Rojas Vazquez's arrest comes amid an already contentious dispute between local police federal authorities after an illegal alien crashed his SUV last week, killing three people, including a toddler in an ice cream shop.
In that case, local police say they notified police about the driver, Francis Hernandez, 23, after an arrest in April, but federal authorities did not respond and pick him up.
In Rojas Vazquez's case, it apparently didn't matter that ICE picked him up in April and deported him to Mexico because he was back in Aurora after only a few months.
Rusnok said that in most deportation cases, if the defendant is a Mexican national, they are taken to a border town like El Paso and escorted across the border. After that, the defendant is out of U.S. custody.
Rojas Vazquez is being held on multiple charges with no bond. He was due in court on Friday, Sept. 12.
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