Apparently I need to write my suspicions, fears, and prognostications down more often, because I totally called this:
Tucson Police confirm that a weapon they found in Jose Guerena’s home had been stolen in 2008.
[...]
Tucson Police say a gun found in Guerena’s house had been stolen in a burglary at a home in the 4300 Block of East Holmes three years ago.
Note the news report does not specify which firearm the police identified as "stolen" – is it the AR-15 he was holding when he was gunned down, is it the nickel-plated .38-caliber handgun the SWAT team found after they searched his house, or is it something else entirely? No mention is made. Which leaves us with the following theories:
1. It is a plant. Police planting evidence, for whatever reason, is sadly not unheard of, and given the massive amount of negative publicity the Pima County Sheriff’s Department has been receiving over their killing (and arguable murder) of Jose Guerena, any reason for them to feel "justified" will help their case… and egos.
2. It was stolen by his family and given to him. Some of Guerena’s extended family appears to be wrapped up in some pretty unsavory stuff, and it is entirely possible that one of them stole the firearm in question, and gave it to Jose as a gift; he might have been completely unaware that it was stolen.
3. It was stolen by his family / someone else, and he purchased it not knowing it was stolen. Person-to-person sales of firearms without the use of an FFL are perfectly legal in Arizona (as they should be in all states), and not everyone has the means/desire to run a firearm’s serial number before purchasing it, or the stealer sold it before the victim reported his loss to the police.
4. He helped steal it / took it knowing it was stolen / bought it knowing it was stolen. Personally, I believe all three of those outcomes leave him roughly equivalently morally culpable, but based on Jose’s marked lack of criminal history, I consider this to be the least likely alternative.
Regardless of the item’s history, however, a single stolen firearm does not excuse a grossly unnecessary and excessive SWAT raid resulting in a man’s unnecessary and gratuitous death. Or, rather, it would not be excusable if American were turning into anything other than the police state it is becoming.
It took them a month to find out it was stolen? Does it really take that long?
Considering how desperately (and pitifully) they were trying to smear him before, I find it odd that this wasn’t mentioned much earlier.
Of course, given PCSO’s record in this case, I think #1 is a very likely scenario.
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Well, the best part is if he did buy it in a private party sale, they killed the one man who could actually help them catch the thief.
Given the length of time and the negative publicity I’m willing to bet this is a plant or rigging the records. That however is pure conjecture but given the publicity of this event that’s was an exorbitantly long time to determine the weapon was stolen property.
Even if it was stolen property, it still doesn’t justify their actions. It is merely them trying to make themselves look better.
Yeah I’m gonna have a hard time believing them. So where is the rest of the helmet cam footage? This was a legit bust so they’ve got nothing to hide, right? Could use some of that transparency now.
Agree. A stolen gun does not justify summary execution. I do wonder why it took so long for this information to come up.
@ Jake: My reading of the article seemed to indicate that the firearm in question was stolen from somewhere inside of the PCSD’s jurisdiction, and thus I cannot determine any reasonable explanation for the month-long delay in their reporting. I mean, sure, if we were all still using paper records and some poor recruit had to go dig through them looking for serial numbers, that is one thing, but if that is still the case at the PCSD, they have even more serious issues than we had originally thought.
@ Barron Barnett: You have pretty much summed up my thoughts… The only way this could be even remotely relevant is if he stole the firearm himself, and even that does not excuse the PCSD’s abuse of force.
@ Pyrotek85: I wonder if those helmet cams are left on during the evidence-collection period of the raid, or if that is handled by a separate, not-recorded team…
@ Kevin S: “Convenient” is the word you are looking for, I believe…
It would be great to see these cams and a first person view of the events as they unfolded. It is unlikely, but possible. They will cite that they do not wish to reveal their tactics for fear that would compromise their ability to use them in the future.
I would reply to this… “WHAT TACTICS?!?” From what I’ve seen I could teach a third grade class with better results.
The only hope of coming to an accurate closure to this incident is an External Investigation. An Internal Investigation only applies the word “Internal” and omits the word “Investigation”.
There are many questions here that could be answered with that footage. I think they are afraid of what those answers will reveal.
Depending on their departmental policy, those cams should be on the whole time they are on scene. This would include the approach, entry, and any recovery phase. Once again, that depends on departmental policy.
Tac
I dare say that the footage that has been released pretty much destroys any notion of the PCSD SWAT team having anything even approximating tactics, training, form, self-control, discipline, or so much as the slightest understanding of what they were supposed to be doing that day, apart from kicking down a door and shooting up the joint.
If I had to make a wild-assed assumption based on no facts whatsoever, I would guess that the helmetcams clearly show Guerena not pointing his firearm towards the SWAT team – if it showed that he was, you would think they would have released at least that short clip already.
It seems strange to me that an American citizen can be gunned down in his own home for no apparent reason, and nothing happens…
Just out of curiosity do we know where Guerena was when the gun was stolen?
@ RobertM:
Given that the firearm in question was stolen in 2008, my initial guess would be that he was somewhere far from Arizona, doing the bidding of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.
@ RobertM: Definitely concurring with AuricTech on this one… and that would not be some hard information to procure, either, given that his deployments and transfers would be part of his service record.
Something tells me the PCSD will not be the ones doing that particular piece of homework, though…
[...] it leave a comment | 1059 05Sep11 | written by Linoge Regular readers will recall the series of posts I wrote concerning the killing of Jose Guerena by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, as [...]