Thread: Tucson police officer cleared in fatal shooting of a Mex man

Tucson police officer cleared in fatal shooting of a Mexican man
By Dale Quinn
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.04.2008
advertisementA Tucson police officer who shot and killed an illegal entrant during a violent scuffle was justified in his use of deadly force, according to the findings of a Police Department board of inquiry.
Officer Douglas Dreher’s actions on Nov. 24 when he shot a man who’d attacked him with his own baton were found to be within Department policy, according to a summary of the incident obtained by the Arizona Daily Star on Friday.
Francisco Javier Yanez-Burruel, 35, of Magdalena, Sonora, was shot multiple times in the incident, according to Star archives.
Dreher was driving his patrol car west on Irvington Road near Interstate 19 when he ran the license plate of a white 1998 Ford Windstar van driven by Yanez-Burruel and realized the vehicle’s registration had a mandatory insurance suspension, the board of inquiry’s incident summary says.
Dreher stopped the minivan at a Circle K and neither Yanez-Burruel nor his passenger had any identification. Dreher could find no record of either men in his car’s computer and he notified the U.S. Border Patrol, suspecting the men may be in the United States illegally, according to the summary.
At that point both men got out of the vehicle and began to run away. When Dreher caught up with Yanez-Burruel, he refused to surrender, the summary says.
The two exchanged blows and Dreher eventually got Yanez-Burruel in a headlock, at which point the officer could feel tugging at his duty belt and gun, according to the summary.
Dreher secured his firearm, but Yanez-Burruel grabbed his expandable baton and opened it up. The summary says Yanez-Burruel refused to surrender and was confronting Dreher with the baton in a “threatening manner.â€

Thank god that officer was not injured or killed! That illegal was a maniac and had no fear whatsoever to do what he did. I would never run from a police officer. These people are lawless horrible criminals and I am glad there is one less now! Why is this even happening, it's unreal!

I e-mailed this story tonight to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon tonight because he has come out so publicly against Sheriff Joe's crackdown on the illegal alien population, calling it an attach on "brown people." He feel that they should be going after the big criminals and leaving people with "minor" violations like broken tail lights alone. Well, I wonder if mayor Gordon would have felt that this traffic stop by this Tucson officer with a vehicle with no insurance was one of those minor violations that should have been ignored? Just look at the people who are behind the wheels in these cars. They'd too be Cop killers if given the chance, just like mayor Gordon had a J-walker kill one of his officers last year.