Albuquerque police have announced that they have arrested the man responsible for the killing of Lilly Garcia, 4, in a road rage incident. Tony Torrez, 32, reportedly confessed to the crime and the police hit him with a long list of charges that should guarantee that he remains in jail most if not all of his life. Indeed, even a plea agreement at this point would likely place the sentence near the maximum level but, if Torrez confessed, there is little in terms of a defense to present without striking the confession on some grounds.
Alan Garcia was traveling westbound on Interstate 40 when Torrez cut him off in a Lexus in attempting to exit the freeway. The men exchanged words and Torrez pulled out a gun and fired at Garcia’s truck. He hit the four-year-old girl. With the witnesses and alleged confession, Torrez is toast absent some surprising development.
Torrez is charged with murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, assault with the intent to commit a violent felony, shooting at or from a motor vehicle, child abuse, child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence. He was being held on $650,000 bail.
While the actions of Torrez leaves one, again, depressed about our society, it is important to note that Torrez was captured with the help of a tip. Moreover, two nurses stopped and rendered aid to Lilly until she was taken to the hospital. Finally, thousands of people have gone to a gofundme site to contribute to the family.
Just showing the picture below is enough to secure a death penalty.
Karen,
I’m being argumentative, not making personal attacks.
Regarding Obamacare, my personal experience and the experience of people I am personally acquainted with produce huge amounts of skepticism for me accept your claims. I also read in the news where healthcare costs are coming down (or at least rising more slowly) and more people are benefiting from the ACA. I am aware that there are people who are opposed to Obamacare no matter what the facts are.
In my response to Olly above, I allow that it is perfectly reasonable for rural dwellers to possess firearms. As a rural dweller, you seem to pretty firm on the right to possess firearms. I call that agreement.
Nevertheless, I still don’t think individuals should have a right to possess military armaments and I don’t think individuals should have a right to carry firearms around in public.
THall:
“But we’ve got people shooting up schools and movie theaters and staging running gun battles on the expressways. You seem to be OK with a little hand wringing and writing off the carnage as the price we all must pay to live in a free society, when what you really mean is that it’s OK for children to die so long as you can shoot clay pigeons and rattlers.”
AGAIN, as I’ve explained before, supporting a legal activity in no way indicates support for an illegal activity or the death of kids. What kind of logic is that? I also support driving cars, but despise drunk drivers, especially those who kill kids. I support parenting, but find negligence that results in the death or injury of a child heartbreaking, regardless of whether it used a pool, prescriptions, or a gun.
Who does that? Says that someone must like the death of kids?
If someone kills a kid in a drunk driving accident, are you OK with that because you support driving legally and sober?
And you are mixing your references. The clay pigeons was the reference to the shooting clubs, one of the few legal gun owners in Australia which were targeted by the gun buyback program. The mass shootings here are a result of our broken mental health institution, criminal behavior, and in one case (Adam Lanza), a shockingly selfish and irresponsible negligent mother. She refused to get her son the help that multiple mental healthcare professionals recommended, ignored the violent images he had plastered all through his room and writings, and gave him guns. What an idiot. You can’t fix stupid.
Karen S……The Lanza estate was sued…..I think the judgement was $1.25 million for the plaintiffs.
Small compensation for their losses, but it recognizes the responsibilty and liabilty of Mrs. Lanza
THall:
“You would spend half a billion to get rid of gangs? Tell us how you would achieve these savings, because we’re spending a lot more than that now.”
I said spending such money to disarm legal shooting clubs in Australia was a complete waste of taxpayer money, but I would absolutely go for that to fight the gangs. You are right, we spend a lot of blood and treasure on our persistent gang problem. They chase employers out of their neighborhoods, recruit kids because the streets are so unsafe without the “protection” of belonging to a gang, and then they destroy the neighborhood further with their violence. It’s a vicious circle. The majority of gun violence is perpetrated by gangs, and the majority of violence against blacks is also perpetrated by blacks, again because of gangs. It’s a tragedy.
The first step to helping these neighborhoods is to get the gangs out. We see all this community spirit and unity and cool songs and holding hands when people want to protest the cops. The cops are the ones fighting the gangs, but Liberals have managed to put an end to proactive policing. Now murders are up 400%, ruining our statistics for years to come.
Why can’t we get the activists and the preachers and the movie stars and the cool songs for getting rid of the gangs? Have some grandma follow each and every one around with a broom and smack them every time they start to do wrong? Well, the latter wouldn’t work because there’s no respect for the elderly now.
Karen – Liberals are too gutless to go into gang areas to try to break them up.
Oh and Karen,
if people were only shooting clay pigeons, this discussion doesn’t happen. But we’ve got people shooting up schools and movie theaters and staging running gun battles on the expressways. You seem to be OK with a little hand wringing and writing off the carnage as the price we all must pay to live in a free society, when what you really mean is that it’s OK for children to die so long as you can shoot clay pigeons and rattlers.
Please give us some more of your impressions of inner city youth. Isn’t that what you’re really afraid of?
T. Hall – I think it is important that you put a poster in your yard and stickers on your front and back doors stating The Occupant of This Residence is Not Armed.
T Hall:
“You, yourself, are just now relating that you have criminals and mountain lions and what all to be afraid of.”
I’m not afraid of those things. I handle them. I don’t sit there and let a rattler kill my dogs because I’m wringing my hands waiting for animal control to take an hour and a half to find me out in the country.
That’s what people do out here. They just handle things. It’s not a big deal.
You really do seem to have trouble engaging in discussions without personal attacks. Were you aware? Or do you just come on the blog to fight with personal strangers in a way you would probably never do in public?
Here is the Harvard link, just in case I posted it to another thread instead of this one:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
It can be interesting to exchange ideas with people with opposing beliefs when they can calmly talk about the issues. I admit, I approach anything to do with Obamacare with a high degree of bitterness because of how it has hurt me and my family, so I understand this can be hard. I do not get the impression that you have been burned, however, just that you have a very strong bias that prevents you from understanding both sides of the issue.
Clearly, I have benefitted many times from the legal use of firearms. It might help you understand that there are other sides to this issue if you got to know more stories like mine.
Karen,
You would spend half a billion to get rid of gangs? Tell us how you would achieve these savings, because we’re spending a lot more than that now.
Re: Switzerland and paperweights. Hey, I’m just telling you how they work it. You guys think Switzerland is such a fine example of an armed populace.
Karen,
You know what gun owners are afraid of? Absolutely everything.
You, yourself, are just now relating that you have criminals and mountain lions and what all to be afraid of.
(Cue the sad trombone for m’lady) Wah-wahhhhh.
Now you should go back and read a comment I made about firearm possession for rural dwellers, and stop nattering about the Left. And stop parroting Fox News, you do know it’s a propaganda tool, don’t yo… oh never mind.
I didn’t see any such Harvard study, I saw your link to Ted Nugent’s think tank. (Now there’s a misnomer.)
I might add that I have a healthy skepticism for all the claims that are made on the internet. I’m sure your grandpappy was a fine human being who always meant well, but…I never knew anyone who caught a fish that didn’t get bigger with time
Oh, and if you’re allowed to own guns but not ammo, you don’t have a firearm. You have a paperweight.
I would spend a half a billion dollars to get rid of gangs and keep them disarmed. You know, encase them in electrostatic bubbles that give them shocks if they congregate near other gang members or schools or if they pick up a sharp object. You know, protect them and all of us from their clear refusal to control themselves. Give them a good shake once in a while to make all the guns and drugs and knives fall out of their pockets. Of course, their pants would fall down too because the idiots won’t wear pants and clothes that fit and think walking like a penguin is really manly. But they also think pointing a gun sideways, improperly, is cool, too, so clearly they have some mental issues.
But spend a half a billion dollars so that people can’t shoot clay pigeons? That’s just a stupid waste.
Max:
“Karen S
Look at what happened to Australia when they eliminated firearms…”
I have addressed this already. Please see my link. Australia NEVER had constitutionally protected rights to bear arms, because it was originally a penal colony. The only people who owned firearms were hunters, shooting clubs, or others who needed it to do their jobs and had to prove it.
They spent a half a billion dollars on a gun buyback program. They did not actually ban firearms, although this myth keeps perpetuating. And it’s not like they picked up gang members by the ankles and shook the guns off them.
What do you think will happen to crime if shooting clubs give up their guns? Nothing. That’s what. People argue back and forth about did crime go up or did it go down, and was any of it causal from the buy back. But it’s all moot. They didn’t have the protected right to bear arms, and the guns, while reduced, are still not banned.
Max:
“Karen S
Adam Lanza’s mother was a law abiding citizen… until her son had free access to deadly weapons.
Then he killed her and a whole lot of other babies.”
Just like other negligent parents are law abiding until they do something completely stupid. If she had survived she would have been sued.
You can’t legislate away stupid. I really wish we could.
T Hall:
“Also, you had no cogent come back about how conceal carry laws encourage the presence of more guns in public, and how injuries from guns are increasing as a result.”
Please provide your data indicating that any of the mass murder shooters were permitted for concealed carry, or if even this Torrez was licensed CC. I have no idea about Torrez.
Oh, and about the racial violence in NM, I believe it. Here in CA, it’s Latinos and African Americans who have racial wars. I know one mother who had to pull her son out of public school because he was minority black in a Latino majority school. They had broken his ankle, his arm, stolen his lunch every day . . . he’d gotten injured something like 6 times. They’d driven most of the blacks out of the school because the public school won’t do anything about the bullying or racism. And then it just goes tit for tat in the neighborhoods, black against Latino and vice versa. And then of course there’s the beef between Mexicans and South Americans.
Seriously, they all need to cool it.
You know what gun owners are afraid of? Absolutely nothing.
As I’ve stated before, I am biased on this issue because I am very likely alive today because my father had a firearm. The people the KKK were after are very likely alive today because Grandpa had a shotgun and a backbone, and stood up for what was right. My firearms are tools we use every summer to remove 4 plus foot rattlers from my backyard where my child plays. I was safe feeding horses that had been attacked by a mountain lion, a lion I later had a run in, because I kept my mom’s rifle slung across my back.
So give me a break that only criminals and paranoid people buy guns.
It’s just a tool to be taken seriously, like a chainsaw or nail gun. Misuse it and you’ll get hurt or hurt someone else.
You know, the Left’s sneering disdain for those who live in rural areas really comes through in all those cartoons.
The “Party of Tolerance” an oxymoron.
Those cartoons are false. And the Left needs to decide what it wants. It can’t keep denying it wants to ban all guns if it keeps making arguments and creating cute little cartoons that, in effect, imply we should ban all guns.
I’ve already posted a study from Harvard Law that gun control does not actually decrease violence, because it does not turn criminals into law abiding citizens. All these cute little pictures are responses from people who are over-faced with discussing the facts. When you can’t talk like a grown up, you resort to ridicule.
And WHY do people bring up instances of either criminal behavior or parental negligence as the reason to ban guns? There are ALREADY gun laws that these people have broken. You can’t legislate away stupid or criminal behavior. Obviously, or we would no longer have murder. That’s been against the law for thousands of years.
If the only way a tool can be legal is if no one ever uses it to engage in criminal or negligent behavior, then we would no longer be allowed to own any tools. Even a #2 pencil would be banned.
Read the headlines. There are so many tragic, completely preventable instances where children die because of parental neglect where no firearms are involved.
I notice that the same person who keeps posting these comments about parental neglect causing a firearm death of a child has claimed she does not support banning all guns, if I recall correctly. And yet, since there are already laws against this kind of negligence, and yet she doesn’t want to ban all guns, how does she propose we could prevent these tragedies?
See Darren,
This is why i never understood you. 😉
If anybody wishes to use the Blockquote format this is how it is done through typing:
<BLOCKQUOTE> Your quotation here </BLOCKQUOTE>
It is not necessary to do this for each line, it can be utilized across multiple paragraphs.
This will produce layouts such as,
Schulte,
Your response begins with the words “Until the arrival of Wyatt Earp”. The fourth sentence you compose reads, “No guns were allowed,” to describe the north side of Dodge City.
Sheesh, no wonder you’re a Republican.
T. Hall – as most people will be happy to tell you, I am a registered independent. Have been for at least 30 years. Now, for you, you are half right and half wrong. You are completely wrong until Wyatt Earp arrives and gets some extra deputies, including Bat Masterson.
T. Hall – the first part of that is a blockquote from one of your comments. So, I was directly quoting you and then responding. I think the tired one is you. You should learn to blockquote, it is handy when quoting people.
It’s been a long day, why don’t you get some rest