Misty Holt-Singh, 41, had just run into the Stockton, California bank and left her 12-her-old daughter in the car for a quick transaction. In an instant, her life would change as Gilbert Renteria Jr., Jaime Ramos, and Alex Martinez came in to rob the bank. They took Singh hostage and fled in a car. However, the police were quickly on their tail and trapped the car. She may have had a glimmer of hope. After all, there were some 33 police officers surrounding the car. That is when the Stockton police opened up on the car and fired over 600 bullets — killing Holt-Singh, 41, and two of the bank robbers. The family is preparing to sue and saying that the response was excessive and ignored the hostage. Singh was hit 10 times — all from the guns of the police.
The bank robbers had taken Holt-Singh clearly as a human shield and led the police on a high-speed car chase in a car stolen from a bank employee. Witnesses say that Holt-Singh was crying and saying that her daughter was in the car and that she did not want her daughter to be traumatized by seeing her with the robbers. The three robbers could care less, of course.
Two other female hostages were thrown from the car. Holt-Singh was not so lucky.
In the car was Alex Gregory Martinez, 27, Gilbert Renteria Jr. (right), 30, and Jaime Ramos, 19. Ramos (left), a member of the Nortenos street gang, would be the only one to survive.
Martinez (right) had robbed the very same bank just six months earlier. The police say that the men had fired from the car windows and an AK-47 was shown next to the car. Police say that the men fired 100 bullets. They responded with reportedly over 600, though the specific number has yet to be confirmed. What is notable is that 20 officers have been put on leave as a standard procedure in an investigation for officers who discharged their weapons. Police insist that they were concerned that other hostages could be taken or that the men could enter a business or a school. It is not clear if the men were on the move to justify such a fear and, if so, how Holt-Singh was shot. The accounts say that she and the men were shot in the car, which presumably was trapped and had had the tire blown out.
However, the family has raised questions similar to the Montesano case that we discussed earlier. The family is seeking more evidence in the case. The public is also entitled to know more about an incident where hundreds of rounds were fired by police into a car with at least one hostage. However, if as reported Ramos used her as a human shield. This does not necessarily mean that the shooting was unjustified but this is a case where total transparency should be the rule.
Many of these rounds were fired during the hour long chase that extended to 55 miles. The police fired a reported 600 bullets into the car that had originally a number of hostages and clearly had at least one remaining.
Jaime Ramos will now be charged with murder. While it was the police who killed Holt-Singh, he is criminally responsible for the death under a felony-murder theory.
Kudos: Michael Blott
JT
Jaime Ramos will now be charged with murder. While it was the police who killed Holt-Singh, he is criminally responsible for the death under a felony-murder theory.
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These kind of laws victimize the victim all over again and turn the police into licensed killers of innocent victims without any course for the relatives to redress their losses, properly. It allows the PD’s to essentially, wash their hands for poor performance on the job that ultimately cost a citizen their life at the expense of the cops adrenaline.
This is why the justification of shooting and killing HUMAN SHIELDS is never the right choice anywhere on the planet… even in Palestine.
Jude, I agree w/ your assessment of backing off in some instances. High speed chases are often cowboy cops. But, damn!! They had a hostage for chrissake. They had just committed an armed robbery. They didn’t just coast through a stop sign or fail to signal!!
Nick – several innocent drivers have been killed during high speed chases in Maricopa County so, since the cities are glued to each other, they just call ahead and keep them in sight. They are going to run out of gas or get on the freeway somewhere and then it is all over. Once they are on the freeway they are trapped. They can only go in one direction since they close off the off ramps.
Mespo, they could’ve just let them go, being that stealing money isn’t hurting anybody. They had the vehicle plates and some video footage of them. They could pick them up later.
Or, since there were 33 of them, they could have surrounded them. You can’t use a person as a human shield from all directions.
Over at Simple Justice, Scott Greenfield points out:
If those bullet holes were the result of insane kidnappers shooting up the towns as they sped through them, then it may be that the cops were faced with “No Better Options.”
If, OTOH, those bullet holes were the result of cops wildly firing on the vehicle….
It was a tragedy and until all of the facts are disclosed to the public, the tragedy continues. I am not sure that shooting at a moving car in a chase with a hostage in the car makes sense, however, we need more facts. The hostage complicates the situation and makes it tough for the police to respond correctly and tougher to make it safe for the hostage. Sad.
I have to read the final report for a better analysis of what happened to comment with definite terms but in general and this is going to sound cold hearted but there are rare times when the hostages cannot be saved and one has to decide what course of action would result in the least amount of deaths.
From what was alleged in the incident and of those suspects gangs often have several attributes: predisposition to violence; involvement in numerous violent incidents from childhood to adulthood; lack of value for life; feelings of invincibility; extreme indifference to others; and absolute stupidity in dealing with issues. Hardcore gang members are highly dangerous and do not care in the least for civility or human suffering.
It is often a mistake to judge the extreme shootout situation between LEOs and hell-bent suspects in terms of bullet counts. It is not unusual in laying down suppressive fire to fire multiple volleys to pin the shooters down while repositioning or preventing them from returning fire. Sometimes, suspects can be hit multiple times and still continue firing. Then there is the unknown.
I can say with certainty that none of the officers involved wanted to have the hostages die or be injured. And none of them wanted to die either.
Nick – I agree. What’s clear is that a little girl saw a gang kidnap her mother, who was killed. Poor girl. Misty and her family will be in my prayers.
What I see here, once again, is people passing judgement on what happened because they just “know.”
We don’t know.
They have to investigate fully what happened. THEN we will know and can react accordingly. Right now there is a police shooting under investigation, and it’s very upsetting.
These cops were dealing w/ savages. I have dealt w/ savages, sociopaths who would slit your throat and sit down and eat a ham sandwich. I’m not going to Monday morning quarterback on this one. I will just say a prayer for the family of Ms. Singh.
mespo:
“The report says the robbers were firing from the car and clipped off over a 100 shots. Can you imagine the civil payout if the murderers killed bystanders and the cops did nothing?”
True. If the gang member robbers were firing a hundred rounds from the car, the police couldn’t just stand there and get shot, or let civilians get shot.
We need to investigate to see what happened, if it was justified or not. Can such a scenario be prevented next time or not.
Gangs are another thing that crosses our porous border.
Gang members bringing peace and joy to neighborhoods daily, as usual.
No matter what the investigation turns up, justified or not, this is a terrible tragedy. Thank God Misty left her daughter in the car that day. They need to thoroughly investigate to see what happened.
That poor lady and her family.
I’m unclear what happened to the other two hostages mentioned that were thrown from the car. Did they go through the windshield? Jump out? Survive?
Police Chief Press Conference………..They need a new speech writer…..http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/video/10461208-entire-press-conference-with-stockton-police-chief-eric-jones/
Liberaltarian,
I watched the video. Lost count of the Stockton cop cars. Same thing happened when I watched the Boston marathon bomber dragnet go into full swing.
At least these robbers didn’t throw pressure cooker bombs at the cops.
Stockton is a city that I NEVER ever stop in when going south on I5. I make sure I have plenty of gasoline to get me well beyond that Hell hole.
Final shootout. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxb-D25VjI8
As long as police officers have no personal responsibility these things will continue to happen. 600 shots to 100? Overkill? Or just poor shots?
Sounds pretty intense. Rounds from a AK are going to be going thru a police vehicle, unless you get behind the engine.
I would hope the police had AR rifles to respond with, instead of pistols or revolvers, as they could deliver return fire a LOT more accurately.
But it sounds as if they may have used less accurate handguns.