Thread: N.C.: Standoff Ends; Illegal Immigrants Detained

Video at the source link also.
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Standoff Ends; Illegal Immigrants Detained

Officers detained eleven illegal immigrants following an intense SWAT operation at a Charlotte home early Wednesday morning.

Police went to the house to serve a warrant on Rafael Wilfredo Rivas for allegedly altering the title of a vehicle.

Officers received information that he may have been a member of the ruthless MS-13 gang and that there were possibly guns inside the two-story home.

When SWAT officers entered the home, they were greeted by gunfire.

According to police, Rivas' brother fired at cops. Bullet fragments struck one of the officers, but he was not injured.

Police shot the alleged gunman and he is in critical condition.

Cops removed twelve other people from the home for questioning. All but one are in the county illegally including Rafael Rivas.

Story Created: Feb 27, 2008 at 10:33 PM EST

http://www.wbtv.com/news/topstories/16059837.html

Good for them. Sad an officer was wounded. Maybe here, too, there will be stepped up ICE raids! Obviously there's something other than the illegal drugs LIKE being illegally employed here. May they find out the employer(s) and take them into custody, too!

Thursday, Feb 28, 2008
Posted on Thu, Feb. 28, 2008
Questions remain
after shooting, arrests
GREG LACOUR AND CLEVE R. WOOTSON JR.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police on Wednesday charged a Salvadoran illegal immigrant and his brother after a visit to a northern Charlotte home resulted in gunfire that wounded the brother and an officer.
Police also detained 10 others living in the Preston Mill subdivision, what residents called a largely Latino neighborhood off Beatties Ford Road near Huntersville. Police have not charged them and did not identify them, but federal authorities have confirmed that they are illegal immigrants.

Gilberto Rivas fired at police at about 5:30 a.m., as they entered the house on Langston Mill Road to serve a criminal warrant on his brother, Rafael, police said. Members of the police SWAT team served the warrant because investigators had received word that the home's occupants had several guns, police said.

One officer suffered minor injuries. Another officer shot back, hitting Gilberto Rivas, who was taken to Carolinas Medical Center with "critical injuries," police said. Police said they plan to charge Rivas with five counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault with a firearm on a law enforcement officer when he's released.

Police charged Rafael Rivas, 32, with the crimes outlined on the warrant, which allege that he falsified N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles car title documents. He also was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction, a 7.62 mm assault rifle.

Rafael Rivas was in the county jail on $10,500 bond Wednesday but, as an illegal immigrant, would be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if freed. A federal immigration judge would decide whether he should be deported. Rivas is scheduled to appear in District Court at 1 p.m. today.

ICE officials have not determined whether Gilberto Rivas is an illegal immigrant. They plan to interview him as soon as they can about his immigration status, said Richard Rocha, an ICE spokesman in Washington, D.C.

Rafael Rivas has an extensive criminal record dating back more than a decade, though most of the offenses he's been convicted of are minor, N.C. court records show.

From 1998 to 2003, he pleaded guilty to driving while license revoked six times in various N.C. counties. It's unknown whether officers checked his immigration status then.

News outlets reported Wednesday that one or more of the 12 people police detained are suspected members of the notorious MS-13 gang, which was founded in El Salvador and has developed into one of the most dangerous and fastest-growing gangs in the United States.

But police would not confirm membership in MS-13 or any other gang. Police cannot identify people as gang members or suspected gang members unless they are charged with gang-related crimes, said spokeswoman Julie Hill.

Neighbors in the subdivision said they knew little about the people who lived in the blue house.

"Nobody knows what they do," said Ernesto Anaranto, who couldn't get to his house for most of the day because police had blocked part of the street. "They're always inside the house."

At least two children lived there, and some neighbors said they saw police carrying them out of the house early in the morning.

Natalie Cortez, who lives a few houses down, said her family has lived at their two-story house for about five mostly crime-free years, though recently, she's heard reports of home break-ins.

Still, she said, she doesn't feel afraid in the neighborhood, which she described as "pretty quiet."
http://www.charlotte.com/109/v-print/story/513427.html

No way in the world I'd get off the interstate in Charlotte

Police have said before they've deported the same MS-13 members 2 or 3 times and they still come back.

Actual link:

http://www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/ ... 13427.html

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-2991--0-0.html