Former Marine Shot by SWAT Team for Nonexistent Pot

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Maybe, as it's been alleged, Jose Guerena was part of a home-invasion ring with family members, ripping and running with body armor and assault weapons, posing as law enforcement.

But all we know, more than two weeks after SWAT officers shot him 60 times, is that Guerena was a Marine who served in Iraq and had no criminal record. We know he worked the night shift at the Asarco Mission Mine, and he was a father and husband.

Arizona Daily Star link

This is horrific on so many levels. Aside from the tragedy of a former marine being murdered in his own home in front of his family, all of this is supposedly over pot. Fucking pot. Pima County Arizona police were attempting to serve a narcotics search warrant in a multi-house raid, for "alleged marijuana trafficking," which didn't find any evidence of drugs--or if it has the police refuse to release it. They're refusing to release a lot of evidence. They've also lied in what they have released:

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The Pima County sheriff, whose team conducted the raid, scolded the media for "questioning the legality" of the shooting...At first the Pima County Sheriff's Office said that Guerena fired first, but on Wednesday officials backtracked and said he had not. "The safety was on and he could not fire," according to the sheriff's statement.

ABC link

I'm quoting multiple articles, since there's been so much written about it, each with slightly different evidence. The sheriff's office also claimed to have knocked on the door prior to breaking it down, and to have put on police sirens when driving up to the house, none of which any neighbors heard:

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"We spoke with several of the neighbors," Epps says. "And none of them -- none of them -- heard any sirens that morning. Every one of them told us they didn't hear anything, no knocking, no shouting, until the shooting started. They didn't hear anything until the shooting started." Scileppi, who is conducting his own investigation, wouldn't say if he had spoken to neighbors, but did say of the lights and sirens, "What we've found contradicts what they're saying." Epps added, "What I found disturbing is that none of the neighbors would give us their names. These people are terrified of the police, now. Another thing I found strange, they said the police didn't evacuate them until after the shooting."

If next-door neighbors didn't hear the sirens or police announcement at the door, it's plausible that Guerena, who was sleeping off the graveyard shift he'd worked the night before, didn't hear them either. Of course, the other possibility here is that the police are lying about the sirens and the announcement.

HuffPost link

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The Pima County Sheriff's Office has now changed its story several times over the last few weeks. They have issued a press release (PDF) scolding the media and critics for questioning the legality of the raid, the department's account of what happened, and the department's ability to fairly investigate its own officers. They have obtained a court order sealing the search warrants and police affidavits that led to the raids, and they're now refusing any further comment on the case at all. When I contacted Public Information Officer Jason Ogan with some questions, he replied via email that the department won't be releasing any more information. On Saturday, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told Arizona Daily Star columnist Josh Brodesky that he may never release the search warrants and police affidavits.

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The young husband and father, an Iraq veteran, was lying in his own blood, shot at 71 times by heavily armed men, who then allegedly prevented medical assistance from being given until he was dead...But Jose was not killed instantly. He lay bleeding while his wife was on the phone with 911 trying to get help -- an odd move for people assumed to be criminals. She told 911 that men had shot her husband. An ambulance arrived minutes later but police held the medical team at bay for over an hour, until Guerena was dead, even as Vanessa begged for help.

Different HuffPost link

Then there's the racial aspect:

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police found a photo of Jesus Malverde in Guerena's home. Malverde is an iconic, probably mythical figure often described as the "narco saint". But as my former Reason magazine colleague Tim Cavanaugh points out, while it's true that Malverde has been embraced by drug traffickers, he is also revered by the poor, by immigrants, and by people who feel they've been wronged. "That Guerena had a picture of Jesus Malverde tells us two things," Cavanaugh writes. "He had a family to worry about and he shared the belief of most Americans that a supernatural being or beings can influence earthly circumstances."

Obligatory comment on the War on Drugs:

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Whatever one may think of the hazards of using recreational drugs, the sad reality is that drug warriors are more deadly. Drugs may negatively impact the lives of people who choose to use them. But drug warriors attack the wrong homes with surprising frequency. Drugs tend not to kill, but when they do, it is those who choose to use them. Drug warriors are not so specific.

The real harm of recreational drugs is nothing compared to the dangers of the war on drugs, especially now that the police have been turned into paramilitary outfits.

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"I never imagined I would lose him like that, he was badly injured but I never thought he could be killed by police after he served his country," Vanessa Guerena [wife] said. Guerena says there were no drugs in their house.

Forbes

I can sort of see Dupnik's reluctance in dealing with the media, considering how he got ripped by that same media over his handling of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. But this is not the way to respond when there are legitimate questions as to the way this raid was carried out, the amount of force used, the refusal of officers to permit emergency services to assist the man after he was clearly no longer a potential threat, and the basis for obtaining the warrant in the first place.

Whether the gun's safety was "on" or "off" is irrelevant because the officers could not have possibly known that until after the fact. Whether they demanded he drop his weapon before opening fire is relevant.

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Maybe, as it's been alleged, Jose Guerena was part of a home-invasion ring

Well, he was certainly killed by one. I wonder what would ever possess someone to point a rifle at SWAT-looking guys milling about on his front lawn.

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home-invasion ring with family members, ripping and running with body armor and assault weapons, posing as law enforcement.

Holy shit, thieves pose as cops? (this might be news to some people). Sounds like this poor guy had every right to fear for his life when the law showed up unannounced.

Also, as someone who is no stranger to twelve-plus hour shifts in an industrial setting, I cannot imagine doing that in a mine and having enough time and energy to go around breaking into houses. During the daytime (since he worked the night shift), at that. And never getting caught due to stupid mistakes caused by sleep deprivation.

I'm quibbling about the details with their weak attempts at casting blame on the victim because if I think about anything else, rage drowns out coherent thought.

WTF is wrong with Arizona?

They killed a man in front of his family for fucking weed? Are you kidding me? It's weed, not meth. This is BS.

And I'm more disturbed that they held the medical team back for an hour while he died on the floor. That's just sick. The poor man must have been in so much pain, while his wife had to stand there and watch. If you're going to let him die anyway, go up and put a bullet in his brain and end it. Don't make him suffer.

This was just stupid, and I think the department deserves every bit of scrutiny and investigation it gets. People should not be afraid of the police, and these men and women have abused the uniform and the badge to the point that no one wants to say anything.

Lapin wrote:

WTF is wrong with Arizona?

They killed a man in front of his family for fucking weed? Are you kidding me? It's weed, not meth. This is BS.

Honestly, even if it was over meth, this would still be murder, it would still be wrong, and it would still be an act of a government terrorizing its citizens.

That it was, as you say, done over a drug that is essentially harmless (and that said drug wasn't even on the premises) does make it all the more ridiculously tragic.

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And I'm more disturbed that they held the medical team back for an hour while he died on the floor. That's just sick. The poor man must have been in so much pain, while his wife had to stand there and watch. If you're going to let him die anyway, go up and put a bullet in his brain and end it. Don't make him suffer.

Nah, that'd be murder. I mean, we don't want anyone losing their jobs over this, do we?

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This was just stupid, and I think the department deserves every bit of scrutiny and investigation it gets. People should not be afraid of the police, and these men and women have abused the uniform and the badge to the point that no one wants to say anything.

What else can we expect, when we have people's lives being ruined over trivial or victimless "crimes" all for the sake of them being fed into the massive American privatized prison system? The only way to starve that beast would be to stop feeding it people who've committed no violent, repeated, or serious crimes.

I mean, gee, have the federal government admit that it was wrong about the whole War on Drugs? That would mean admitting we've been completely wrong-headed about our whole social approach to drug use and drug addiction, wasted billions upon billions of dollars, destroyed people's lives (through death, in some cases), and terrorized our citizens for decades.

Believe me, I wish a lot of the drug laws would go the way of Prohibition, but I am becoming increasingly cynical that they will do so. The privatized prison system needs to make money, after all.

Personally, I smell conspiracy. A SWAT team sent in to kill somebody over pot? Or indeed, any kind of small drugs bust? COME ON! Surely there's a better reason than that for sending a SWAT team ANYWHERE?

Guys, weed was the reason for the search, not the shooting. As godawful as this is, it's not like a cop saw him, screamed "BLUNT!" and opened fire.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Personally, I smell conspiracy. A SWAT team sent in to kill somebody over pot? Or indeed, any kind of small drugs bust? COME ON! Surely there's a better reason than that for sending a SWAT team ANYWHERE?

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I am aware weed was the reason for the search. I just have a hard time understanding why they needed a whole armed SWAT team for weed. Or how their investigative abilities are so damn low.

Lapin wrote:

I am aware weed was the reason for the search. I just have a hard time understanding why they needed a whole armed SWAT team for weed. Or how their investigative abilities are so damn low.

1: They don't.
2: The vast majority of police departments do not need SWAT teams at all. However, they're super cool, justify huge budgets, and thus attract more funding. So, a unit designed for hostage rescue and other high-risk operations in dense urban centers like LA and NYC is suddenly being added across the board, no matter how inappropriate it might be for that particular jurisdiction. Then these units have to be seen in public, Fighting the Good Fight, in order to remind people that they need to pay for them.
3: As militarization of civilian police spreads, it becomes more and more acceptable to gear up like it's WW3 to serve pretty much any kind of warrant, regardless of actual risk. Meth labs are the usual justification for Podunkville, North Dakota's police department having one, for example.
4: And as people continue to accept police militarization and house-to-house searches like this, the police will do them more often, and more people are going to die. Every month or so it seems there's an article about a SWAT team that serves a "no-knock" warrant on a drug raid at the wrong address, and winds up killing a homeowner and/or their dog.

Not to mention, this excessively aggressive strategy gets cops wounded and killed, too. Sometimes the resident is killed only after shooting cops that burst into his house by mistake at 3 AM. It's ridiculous across the board.

(Puts her head down on the desk)
I give up.

The Swat team also refuse the EMTs to assist Guerena for 79 minutes.

They wanted him dead.

XLT-100852.0 wrote:

The Swat team also refuse the EMTs to assist Guerena for 79 minutes.

They wanted him dead.

Pretty much. I think once they had forced entry and shot up the place, they realized it was a huge mistake and then had to cover their asses. As sick as it is, allowing him treatment and possibly living to tell his side of the story would make things a lot harder for the sheriff's department. With his death they can fudge their story and put out bogus information, and it'll be open to questioning forever.

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TheHermit wrote:

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FTFY

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Personally, I smell conspiracy. A SWAT team sent in to kill somebody over pot? Or indeed, any kind of small drugs bust? COME ON! Surely there's a better reason than that for sending a SWAT team ANYWHERE?

Nine times out of ten, yeah. Unless you're dealing with somebody like the late Pablo Escobar, it's generally not necessary to use SWAT teams to carry out arrests for drug-related offenses; more to the point, SWAT teams are generally intended and trained to handle threats like terrorism, assassination plots, snipers*, and school shootings.

*FYI: The whole concept of the SWAT team came about in the aftermath of Charles Whitman's infamous rampage at the University of Texas in Austin in August of '66.

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The Swat team also refuse the EMTs to assist Guerena for 79 minutes.

They wanted him dead.

Sometimes the police have to do paperwork/questions/whateverthefuckelse before they can allow people to get rushed to the ER, even if they didn't shhot them. When my mom worked at a clinic and would have people come in hurt and the person at the desk was stupid and called the police the police would have to show up, talk to everyone, ect before they could be moved away.

Not saying it's not GA, but it's not always a choice to have someone bleeding on the ground and no doctor taking care of them.

bleachedblackcat wrote:

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The Swat team also refuse the EMTs to assist Guerena for 79 minutes.

They wanted him dead.

Sometimes the police have to do paperwork/questions/whateverthefuckelse before they can allow people to get rushed to the ER, even if they didn't shhot them. When my mom worked at a clinic and would have people come in hurt and the person at the desk was stupid and called the police the police would have to show up, talk to everyone, ect before they could be moved away.

Not saying it's not GA, but it's not always a choice to have someone bleeding on the ground and no doctor taking care of them.

Why the fuck would all that have to be done in a life-and-death situation? Isn't that carrying red tape a bit too far?

bleachedblackcat wrote:

Sometimes the police have to do paperwork/questions/whateverthefuckelse before they can allow people to get rushed to the ER, even if they didn't shhot them. When my mom worked at a clinic and would have people come in hurt and the person at the desk was stupid and called the police the police would have to show up, talk to everyone, ect before they could be moved away.

Not saying it's not GA, but it's not always a choice to have someone bleeding on the ground and no doctor taking care of them.

This is totally irrelevant to the case.

bleachedblackcat wrote:

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The Swat team also refuse the EMTs to assist Guerena for 79 minutes.

They wanted him dead.

Sometimes the police have to do paperwork/questions/whateverthefuckelse before they can allow people to get rushed to the ER, even if they didn't shhot them. When my mom worked at a clinic and would have people come in hurt and the person at the desk was stupid and called the police the police would have to show up, talk to everyone, ect before they could be moved away.

Not saying it's not GA, but it's not always a choice to have someone bleeding on the ground and no doctor taking care of them.

That has nothing to do with this. The only justification police have for preventing EMTs from doing their job is making sure it's safe for them to go in. That's the standard procedure: EMTs have to be given the go-ahead before entering a violent crime scene. Considering that they stormed the house they should've been able to figure it out pretty goddamn fast.

Considering that Guerena was shot so much, it's not likely that anything could've been done for him. But now we'll never know that, and by denying him treatment for that long, someone wearing a badge needs to go to jail for at least manslaughter.

FYI, the reasoning released by the sheriff's department as to why they delayed care for so long was that it took them that amount of time to "secure the area."

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At his press conference last week, Storie also defended the SWAT team's refusal to allow paramedics to access Guerena for more than hour. "They still don't know how many shooters are inside, how many guns are inside and they still have to assume that they will be ambushed if they walk in this house," Storie said.

Which, as several journalists (and Penguin) have pointed out, is total bullshit because the entire purpose of a SWAT team is to secure an area quickly and effectively, especially if there was truly as much pre-raid investigation as the sheriff's office claims. Basically their lawyer has admitted either that they're fucking liars or they're plain incompetent (which they are, but for other reasons).

bleachedblackcat wrote:

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The Swat team also refuse the EMTs to assist Guerena for 79 minutes.

They wanted him dead.

Sometimes the police have to do paperwork/questions/whateverthefuckelse before they can allow people to get rushed to the ER, even if they didn't shhot them. When my mom worked at a clinic and would have people come in hurt and the person at the desk was stupid and called the police the police would have to show up, talk to everyone, ect before they could be moved away.

Not saying it's not GA, but it's not always a choice to have someone bleeding on the ground and no doctor taking care of them.

I'm guessing those were not in emergency, life-threatening situations. In your post it sounds like patients were already at the hospital and stabilized when the police were called--which, if there's reason to suspect a crime, they should be called because they may need to collect physical evidence quickly. When you have someone who has just been shot 60 times literally bleeding to death at a crime scene, there's absolutely no reason to deny care for that long.

wow this title was very misleading, I mean they did do 20 months of investigating into his home invasions/murder/ect. Granted they went over kill with 60 bullets but mpk5 usually do 600-700 a min in firing. So they did 7 seconds on a man who pulled out a rifle on them. He deserved it despite is former occupation.

Grunge wrote:

wow this title was very misleading, I mean they did do 20 months of investigating into his home invasions/murder/ect. Granted they went over kill with 60 bullets but mpk5 usually do 600-700 a min in firing. So they did 7 seconds on a man who pulled out a rifle on them. He deserved it despite is former occupation.

I'm telling you guys, Grunge is a troll.

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I'm guessing those were not in emergency, life-threatening situations. In your post it sounds like patients were already at the hospital and stabilized when the police were called--

Nope, not even close, my mom worked at a free clinic which has next to nothing for emergencys. The best one was when a 14 year old boy had stabbed himself with a sword in the groin. The police had to talk to him half an hour while the poor guy was bleeding to death on the ground. Though that one was to make sure nothing besides the guy being stupid had happened.

"Did someone stab you?"
"No."
"Did you try to kill yourself?"
"No. Hey I'm kinda going into shock right now guys..."
"Hey can we walk up and help him now?"
"Pfft, not until we've asked him everything on the lisit and made sire he's not a threat to you."

To be fair, we don't know much about this. Given that he had a gun, it was likely he was pointing it at the SWAT team, and they were warning that they would shoot (and obviously did) if he didn't drop it.

However, them not allowing the medical team in is rather suspicious.