Weak border enforcement didn't cause officer's death
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... i0920.html

Sept. 20, 2007 12:00 AM

For some people, news that cop-killer Erik Jovani Martinez was an illegal immigrant gave rise to perverse, almost joyful gloating. I'm sorry, there is no other way to put it.

They had been waiting for just such a criminal to commit a high-profile crime, and now their dream of being able to say "I told you so" had come true.

In that terrible sense, even before his relatives had been notified of his death, the service and sacrifice of Phoenix police Officer Nick Erfle had been relegated to a footnote in our nasty national argument over illegal immigration. advertisement


At the same time that condolences for the fallen officer were being posted on The Republic's Web site, I was getting e-mails like this: "So, why aren't you pointing out that this scumbag was an illegal immigrant?"

As if that made the killing worse. As if such a killing could be any worse.

I heard those same kinds of questions a little over a month ago, when Officer George Cortez Jr. was killed while trying to arrest a young man suspected of passing a bad check. But the suspect, Edward James Rose, wasn't illegal.

I heard from those same people after police captured Christopher Jermaine Jones, the man who was fleeing in a stolen vehicle when two television news helicopters collided over a park in central Phoenix.

It wasn't true of Jones, either.

But Martinez was here illegally, and by Wednesday morning I heard one radio host in town say that there was no doubt that a weak border policy had led to Officer Erfle's death.

No doubt?

Martinez shot the officer, which means that the killer was able to acquire a handgun.

If it is true that weak immigration laws allowed Martinez access to our country, is it also true that weak gun laws allowed him access to a weapon?

Would a total ban on foreigners and a total ban on weapons do the trick?

Or does the argument that the National Rifle Association and others use for firearms apply to immigration as well? The NRA says that gun laws only punish honest citizens, and that criminals would find a way to arm themselves no matter what the law.

Likewise, would it matter to a criminal like Martinez what our immigration laws were? He'd been deported once already. He used an alias.

Does anyone believe that even with the strictest enforcement on the borders that we would be able to stop every career criminal from getting through? Or that with the strictest gun laws we'd be able to prevent every career criminal from acquiring a gun?

Illegal immigration strains our health-care system, our social services and our schools. There are too many illegal immigrants in our prisons. A tighter border would prevent some from getting through. But mistakes are made. And some bad guys beat the system.

Officer Erfle didn't die because Martinez was an illegal immigrant. He died because Martinez was a violent criminal.

He died because Martinez made a split-second decision to resist an arrest that would have landed him in jail.

It's important in a story like this to find out all of the information about a suspect, including his immigration status. But problems like illegal immigration can't be solved by finger-pointing or mindless catchphrases.

If it could, one side of the argument would have paraphrased an old slogan by now and printed up bumper stickers reading:

"If crossing the border is outlawed, only outlaws will cross the border."



Reach Montini at (602) 444-8978 or ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com. Read his blog at montiniblog.azcentral.com.