What to say? I know from my LAPD police officer friend that if a baby is not in a Federally mandated car seat at 20 months, and you drive and kill the child by accident, you are up for criminally negligent homicide. This woman is an illegal alien, and still to my knowledge wandering the streets of Grand Junction. As bad as she is, this idiot judge is an even bigger problem.

Let's contact him "Judge" Craig Hendersen

http://www.courts.state.co.us/district/ ... derson.htm


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Judge rejects homicide charge

Friday, April 14, 2006

By MIKE WIGGINS

The Daily Sentinel

A Grand Junction woman who accidentally ran over and killed a 20-month-old boy she was baby-sitting was released from jail Friday morning after a judge refused to sign a police arrest affidavit.

Grand Junction police arrested Lusero Saucedo Morales, 22, on suspicion of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Nathaneal Sandoval on Thursday, but Mesa County Judge Craig Henderson didn’t sign the affidavit, saying there was not probable cause to support the felony charge.

District Attorney Pete Hautzinger said Friday that Henderson didn’t believe there was enough evidence to back the officer’s arrest of Morales.

Henderson, who served four years as a Mesa County deputy district attorney and was sworn in as a county court judge in January, couldn’t be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

Police Sgt. Jim Creasy said Friday that Henderson spoke with a detective and struggled with his decision. Lt. Greg Assenmacher, while maintaining he believed Morales was negligent, said he was “fine” with Henderson’s ruling.

According to the affidavit, written by officer Sean Crocker, police were sent to 2837 North Ave., No. I-61, just before noon Thursday on a report that a child was run over by a vehicle and found Nathaneal unconscious and unresponsive. Paramedics pronounced him dead a short time later.

Morales, who police said was crying and yelling in Spanish, told officers she was baby-sitting Nathaneal and had been told by his mother to pick up Nathaneal’s brother from a bus stop on 28¼ Road. Morales said she put her 1-year-old child in a car seat on the driver’s side of the back seat of a Ford Explorer. She said Nathaneal was “fussy” but that she was going a short distance and didn’t put him in a car seat. Instead, she placed him in the middle of the back seat and secured him with a lap belt, according to the affidavit.

Police noted in the affidavit that the center position of the back seat had only a lap belt and no shoulder strap.

Morales told police she couldn’t get the lap belt tight enough to restrain Nathaneal. An officer noted in the affidavit that there was enough slack in the belt to secure an average-size teenager.

Morales said she closed the rear passenger-side door and saw a friend of hers had stopped her car in the road just behind the Explorer. She walked to her friend’s car and talked with her for an estimated three to five minutes. She then returned to the Explorer and saw that her 4-year-old child was now seated in the rear passenger seat with his seat belt on. She said she didn’t look to see if Nathaneal was still in the vehicle, the affidavit said.

Morales said she looked to the left and slowly began backing out of the driveway, then heard a noise that sounded like she had run over one of her children’s toys. She continued backing until she saw Nathaneal lying on the ground. She stopped the vehicle and tried to tend to Nathaneal while her husband, who heard her yelling, came out of the trailer, removed their 1-year-old from the car seat and ran back inside to call 911, the affidavit said.

Police said part of the reason they jailed Morales, who didn’t have a driver’s license or any form of identification, is because they suspected she was an illegal immigrant and may flee the area if she was just issued a summons to appear in court.

Carl Rusnok, spokesman for the Dallas office of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed that Morales is in the country illegally.

He said agents issued her a notice to appear before a federal immigration judge and released her on her own recognizance.

Rusnok said the federal agency could have kept her in custody but didn’t believe there was enough justification to do so.

“There didn’t seem to be a reason based on a flight risk,” he said, noting that because Henderson refused to sign the arrest affidavit there is no pending criminal case against her, and she has no criminal history.

Police said there were a number of factors that led them to arrest Morales on suspicion of criminally negligent homicide, including the fact that she didn’t use a car seat for Nathaneal, as well as the fact that she, as his baby-sitter, was caring for the toddler.

“To me, it’s negligent when you put a kid in a car and don’t have a car seat,” Assenmacher said.

Police aren’t sure how the 20-month-old boy got out of the vehicle. Both rear doors on the vehicle were closed when officers arrived at the trailer park. They suspect Morales’ 4-year-old son may have opened one of the doors, allowing Nathaneal to get out of the vehicle.

Police called the toddler’s death a tragedy and said they felt bad for Morales.

The department brought in a psychologist Friday and offered services to public safety personnel involved in the accident, including officers, emergency dispatchers, paramedics and translators who helped police at the scene.

Police still are investigating the accident and said they will forward reports to the Mesa County District Attorney’s Office. Hautzinger said he will review the information and decide whether to file charges against Morales.

Based on what he has seen thus far, though, he said it may be difficult to prove a criminal charge, especially a felony.

“It’s an uphill battle with criminally negligent homicide to prove that anyone should have foreseen this was going to result in a death,” Hautzinger said.

Mike Wiggins can be reached via e-mail at mwiggins@gjds.com.