Re: I Believe in Hope

[rreschran]

I was raised to believe that hope is a good thing, no matter how dismal life may seem ... there's always hope.

 

On, October 23, 2019, tow business owner and operator, Augustine Martinez, was shot and killed in an altercation with a subject in Houston.

I share a similar story of the senseless, 2008, California killing, of an off-duty tow truck driver shot and killed by an alleged gang member. In that case, after a brief altercation, the suspect rode up on a bicycle and shot and killed him. The suspect then fled to Mexico, but after a flurry of media presence, including Crime Stopper descriptions and other media accounts, the suspect was apprehended IN MEXICO, four-years later, and in cooperation with US and Mexican Federal Law Enforcement. The gang-member was reportedly a Mexican citizen who fought extradition and lost, resulting in his transfer to the Federal Bureau of Investigations in Mexico City. He was ultimately extradited from Mexico City to San Francisco, where the FBI took custody.

 

On December 11, 2018, that suspect plead no contest to voluntary manslaughter, assault with a firearm, and admitted using a firearm as well as a gang enhancement in the first crime. He also pleaded no contest to mayhem and admitted a gang enhancement for the 2014 jail assault. These convictions count as serious and violent, “strike”, offenses under California’s, “Three Strikes”, Law. A Judge sentenced him to 28 years and 4-months in state prison.

 

In a distant ray of hope to the Martinez family, to you I send my anticipation that the suspect who killed Mr. Martinez is ultimately tracked down, in Mexico, or wherever he is hiding, is arrested, and brought back to face his crimes. Christine and I send our prayers to give you peace in the memory of Mr. Martinez and the hope that the suspect is captured or whatever it takes to bring him to justice.    R.

 

http://www.stanislaus-da.org/pdf/news/2019/press-release-20190129-mvasquez.pdf