UPDATED: This week’s “reign of terror” initiated by a man identified as twice-deported ex-felon Gustavo Garcia-Ruiz demonstrated once again that California’s adopted “sanctuary” status and restrictive gun control laws have failed, and some will add “miserably.”
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux ripped the state’s sanctuary policies that made it possible for Garcia to be released from custody when he could not be held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But there’s also the issue of the gun. Garcia-Ruiz, according to Fox News, had “a lengthy criminal record” dating back to 2002. That doesn’t seem to surprise anybody, especially when the details include illegal firearm possession and methamphetamine violations.
According to the Fresno Bee, on the day Garcia-Ruiz met his end in a high speed car crash that ended a law enforcement pursuit, which followed what appears to have been a shooting spree, a robbery and at least one homicide. There was also an auto theft involved.
By all accounts, Garcia-Ruiz went on something of a rampage that began on Sunday, Dec. 16 in the Fresno area. Among the things he allegedly did that continued Monday were a robbery, a fatal shooting, the firing of several shots at buildings, the causing of several crashes on a state highway, an exchange of shots with law enforcement and a crash involving a stolen truck in which he was killed when he was thrown from vehicle on State Route 65 in Porterville.
None of this would have happened, Sheriff Boudreaux suggested, if Garcia-Ruiz had been turned over to ICE agents. ICE wanted him, but because of California’s sanctuary statutes, they didn’t get him.
In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Sheriff Boudreaux said it was “bunk” when people argue that sanctuary laws make the community safer.
Liberty Park Press reached out to California authorities in an effort to find out how this suspect, in the country for the third time illegally, managed to get a gun in a state with some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. There’s a mandatory “universal background check,” which Garcia-Ruiz would not have passed, thanks to his criminal record that included a 27-month prison stretch. A source at the Visalia Police Department was checking on that.
Garcia-Ruiz reportedly first came to the country illegally as a minor in 1992, but was allowed to change his status to “lawful permanent resident” in 2002, the Fresno Bee said. He was arrested for carrying a gun in public in 2003, and sentenced to two years in prison. A judge booted him in 2004, and again in 2014. But back he came.
California and other states have harsh gun control laws that, say critics, only seem to impact law-abiding citizens. Criminals ignore gun control laws, and it’s not because they are Second Amendment activists.
Garcia-Ruiz is gone, but the problem remains.
