Thread: Police mourn officer's shooting death

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08:08 AM CST on Monday, November 14, 2005

From WFAA-TV Staff Reports

Officer Brian Jackson Across the force, Dallas police officers are grieving for one of their own after he was killed in a gunfight early Sunday morning.

Police said Officer Brian Jackson, 28, was shot under the arm in the 2400 block of North Henderson Avenue in East Dallas after he chased a gunman on foot who had reportedly threatened his ex-girlfriend and fired a shot in her home.

A homeowner said Juan Lizcano, 29, hid in his front yard on the 2400 block of Madera Street and then fired on the officer when he came through the front gate.

Two officers attempted CPR on Jackson, but by the time doctors at Baylor Medical Center had a chance to try and save his life, Jackson was already gone.

He had been married just two months when he gave his life wearing the badge he earned five years ago.

As police continue to investigate further into the shooting, many of them also mourn the loss of their fellow officer. It was the first on-duty police fatality in Dallas since 2001, and the first on Chief David Kunkle's watch.

"He was a very kind, compassionate man who cared very deeply about his wife, his family and his job," Kunkle said.

Lizcano was arrested for the shooting, along with a friend, Jose Fernandez, who police found in Lizcano's car.

However, Fernandez is no longer in Dallas police custody after investigators questioned and released him.

Fernandez said he and Lizcano went out Saturday evening to a nightclub off Interstate 35 near Manana Drive.

Juan Lizcano sits in the back of a patrol car after he allegedly fatally shot Officer Brian Jackson. There, he said Lizcano became drunk and later pulled out a gun in his truck and said he was going to kill his ex-girlfriend.

He was with Lizcano when he said the suspect drove to his ex-girlfriend's home.

"He was jealous," Fernandez said. "He believed the woman was with another guy."

Fernandez said he tried to stop Lizcano from going inside the woman's house, but he wouldn't listen.

"I stayed in the truck, and then the police arrived," he said. "And they got me out of the truck and then I heard many gunshots."

This wasn't Lizcano's first violent run-in with the police. He was first booked in September for threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend with a knife. Six days later, he posed again for a mug shot for a charge of driving while intoxicated.

Finally, his latest mug shot was for the murder of Jackson.

Lizcano's friends said he was typically a nice guy, but would become violent when he started drinking.

"I didn't think he would ever do that," said friend Joe Gallegos.

Friends of Lizcano said he had worked as a landscaper and had been in the United States for the past two years as an illegal immigrant.

I was reading about this. The strange thing is, none of Networks have covered an Officer of the Law being Murdered.

Maybe it's happening so often they probably don't consider it news anymore.

added to homepage

http://www.alipac.us/article-869-thread-1-0.html

http://www.dallasnews.com

Suspect's friend describes events

12:49 PM CST on Monday, November 14, 2005

By PATRICIA ESTRADA / Al DÃÂ*a

A friend of the Mexican immigrant arrested Sunday on suspicion of killing a Dallas police officer described him as a good person who becomes aggressive when he drinks.

Juan Lizcano had a few drinks Saturday evening at the 2001 nightclub on Stemmons Freeway, and later headed to the home of Marta Cruz, said Jose Fernandez, who accompanied Lizcano first to the club, then to the woman's house on Sunday morning.


"When he's sober, he's a good person," said Fernandez, who was questioned by police and then released. "I told him we should go home, but he wouldn't listen. He was very angry when we returned to her house."

Police said they responded early Sunday to a disturbance call at Cruz's home on North Henderson and were told that Lizcano had threatened his ex-girlfriend and fired a handgun inside the house. He was gone by the time officers arrived.

About 45 minutes later, officers were notified that Lizcano had returned to the home. Officers pursued him on foot as the suspect jumped over fences and ran through yards toward Madera Street, police said.

Officer Brian Jackson died of a wound to his right underarm, near his protective vest, suffered in a gunfight on Madera Street in Old East Dallas.


Juan Lizcano Fernandez said he never imagined his friend was armed, and especially that he was capable of murder. He told police he didn't see or hear anything, not even when Lizcano allegedly fired inside Cruz's house, or when he returned and got into the gunbattle with Jackson.

He insists he stayed inside Lizcano's pickup truck on both occasions and was unaware of what his friend did when he entered the house.

Fernandez, a bricklayer native of Michoacan, said he has no role in the officer's death. He said he intends to visit Lizcano in jail and saw no reason to hire a lawyer.

Lizcano lives in Oak Cliff and shares a house with his brother, Silvestre. Both are natives of Doctor Arroyo, Nuevo Leon, said Hermelindo Ruiz, the suspect's uncle.

"I didn't know Juan had a gun," Ruiz said.

Lizcano's uncle said he was worried about his nephew's future and added that they have not let his mother know "because she's sure to get sick."

According to Ruiz, Juan Lizcano was living in the country illegally, working as a gardener. He described his nephew as calm and said he was unaware of his drinking.

By Sunday evening, neither Lizcano nor his family had sought aid from the Mexican government, said Hugo Juarez, alternate consul of the Mexican Consulate General in Dallas.

Juarez said Dallas police had not notified him they had arrested a Mexican citizen on a capital morder charge, which could carry a posible death sentence. It was possible the police had faxed or e-mailed a statement to the consulate, he said.

"We have an obligation to interview and help him because he's facing the possibility of death," Juarez said.

In similar cases, he said. the Mexican government has a special program for its citizens. "It is our obligation to give him the best possible defense," Juarez said.

The attorney that is suing the city of Austin over their sanctuary policy was on KLIF radio last night discussing this situation. Another lawsuit in the works perhaps? Let's hope so.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/new ... 181001.htm

Posted on Wed, Nov. 16, 2005

Suspect in shooting had an arrest record





By MELISSA SÃ?NCHEZ

Special to the Star-Telegram


DALLAS -- The 28-year-old man accused of fatally shooting a Dallas police officer is an illegal immigrant and had been arrested on suspicion of making a terroristic threat, police said Tuesday.

Juan Lizcano, a Mexican national, was arrested Sept. 11 and accused of making a terroristic threat. He was arrested and accused of driving while intoxicated five days later. Lizcano has never been held on immigration charges, according to police.

After threatening his girlfriend with a gun, Lizcano shot and killed officer Brian Jackson, 28, on Sunday, police said.

Background checks revealed that Lizcano was in the United States illegally, but police don't enforce immigration laws, department spokesman Sr. Cpl. Max Geron said.

In the United States, only Florida, Arkansas and Alabama allow police to enforce immigration laws, Geron said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is responsible for enforcing immigration laws in Dallas, but they can't screen all of the hundreds of people arrested each day, said Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman.

"We work routinely with all law enforcement agencies in order to help identify potential illegal immigrants," he said.

The agency randomly checks inmates booked into jail, and the arresting officer can refer possible illegal immigrants to ICE for review, Rusnok said.

The agency has an office inside the Lew Sterrett Justice Center.

Lizcano was not put into the ICE system on either of his arrests, Rusnok said.

"I don't know that he slipped through he cracks," Rusnok said. "Just because he was arrested doesn't mean he was referred to us."

The agency has placed a detainer on Lizcano in case he posts bond or is released, Rusnok said. The detainer will alert authorities to his illegal status, and Lizcano will have to face an immigration judge who will determine his future, Rusnok said.

Lizcano is being held in the Lew Sterrett jail on charges of capital murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and an insufficient bond related to the DWI arrest. Bond has been set at $1 million. Three more charges of aggravated assault on a public servant are pending.

Should get the same as a guy I graduated with in 78. He went to Dallas and killed a Police Officer.

Details

05/27/94 241. Stephen Nethery TX Lethal Injection

www.dallasnews.com

Memories move officer's widow

'In the back of his mind, he knew he might not come home'


11:25 AM CST on Wednesday, November 16, 2005

By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News

After Officer Brian Jackson returned from attending a Rhode Island police funeral this year, he turned to his wife and said: "This is how I want to go. I want to go out helping people."

JoAnn DeMello Jackson, his widow, recalled his words Tuesday in an interview at the Jack Evans Police Headquarters. "I didn't like that he was discussing it," she said. It made her uneasy.

"He was always worried," she said. "In the back of his mind, he knew he might not come home."

But Mrs. Jackson also understood her husband's deep devotion to his police work.

The 28-year-old Rhode Island native died early Sunday from a gunshot wound to his underarm that he suffered in a gunbattle with a man who had threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend.

Officer Jackson, who was working late to help homicide detectives canvass bars, was among the officers who had responded to a domestic disturbance in Old East Dallas. He was the 76th Dallas officer to die in the line of duty.

The man accused of killing Officer Jackson remains in the Dallas County Jail on charges of capital murder and aggravated assault.

With Officer Jackson's sister at her side, Mrs. Jackson didn't want to talk about the man accused of killing her husband or the circumstances surrounding her husband's death. Instead, she spoke movingly of the man she married in August. "He was what any woman waits a long time for," she said.

While to many he may be a hero, she recalled the bald man in a cheerleader shirt she first met at a pig roast six years ago at the University of Rhode Island. Or the man who good-naturedly pushed her around in a wheelchair on their two-week Hawaiian honeymoon after she injured her back.

She also recalled how he sometimes curled up on a recliner to watch Sunday football, covering himself with a throw imprinted with a Dallas police badge and his badge number.

Officer Jackson joined the Dallas Police Department in January 2001 after graduating from college. "He just wanted to help," she said. "He wanted to be someplace where he could make a difference."

He was assigned to central patrol after graduating from the academy and eventually became a liaison to the gang unit. He also served as a student resource officer at Lake Highlands Junior High School.

"He loved every bit of it," she said. "There was nothing that was going to stop him from being a police officer."

She thanked Police Chief David Kunkle and said she was shocked by the outpouring of support after losing her husband.

"I didn't realize the number of lives he touched and the number of people that knew him," she said.

The young couple had planned to start a family early next year and had even chosen baby names, she said.

"He wanted nothing more than to have a child with me and I with him," she said.

If he could see her one more time, she says she believes he would tell her "how much he loved me, and that he knows that I loved him, and to take care of myself and to be happy. At this point in time, I don't see that happening."

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Why was officer's alleged killer not deported?

12:33 PM CST on Thursday, November 17, 2005

By DON WALL / WFAA-TV

Questions have been raised about the lack of a policy that would have kept the accused murderer of a Dallas police officer from going free two months ago.

If the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement had identified Juan Lizcano as an illegal immigrant, Officer Brian Jackson might still be alive.

ICE missed two opportunities to detain and deport Lizcano. The first came when the suspect was arrested for making a terroristic threat on September 11. It happened again six days later, when Lizcano was arrested for driving while intoxicated.

"We've expressed our frustrations before that we keep arresting the same people over and over again," said Dallas police Chief David Kunkle.

ICE officials and police personnel differ on why Lizcano was not in custody.

ICE has an office in the jail so it can screen inmates and find illegal immigrants. However, immigration officials said they need help from police - help that didn’t come when Lizcano was booked in September.

"It is ‘up to the arresting officer to notify ICE' … and we have no record of Lizcano being referred to us," said ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok.

Dallas police said it's not their job to track illegal immigrants like Lizcano.

"Immigration code does not allow, does not authorize us to enforce immigration law," Dallas police spokesperson Gil Cerda said. “We don't do any kind of enforcement at all as far as immigration is concerned."

And that's the problem. Immigration personnel want police to call them about illegals, but police say they have no authority to do so.

"This makes you a little bit angrier, because you would have liked to have seen some kind of intervention which could have taken him off the streets," Kunkle said.

WFAA was allowed to see the Dallas Police policy that prohibits officers from getting involved in immigration cases.

However, when ICE officials were asked to show the policy detailing the police department's responsibilities, WFAA was told it's an unwritten recommendation.

Both sides said the issue will need to be reviewed.