At first I started to write a letter to the editor of the Star. I wanted to ask whether the paper would follow up on an article in today’s edition on page A2 written by Kimberly Matas about the murder last May of\u00a0 31 year-old Jose Luis Arambula. Arambula was killed by Border Patrol agent Daniel Marquez. The agent was cleared of \u00a0wrong doing in a letter written by the chief criminal attorney for Pima County Kelli Johnson and released this week.<\/p>\n
I realized\u00a0a letter\u00a0would be a waste of time. Nobody cares if Border Patrol agents murder Mexicans or other Hispanics. It’s done with impunity.<\/p>\n
According to Matas\u2019 report, Arambula was fleeing from his Jeep, which contained marijuana. He was in a pecan grove down in Green Valley. \u00a0Arambula had no weapon, but twice turned toward the BP agent, formed a shape of a gun with his hand. You know, they way kids do.<\/p>\n
According to\u00a0Johnson\u00a0the county attorney\u2019s mouthpiece, Arambula\u2019s mime act, shooting his hand, would persuade a jury that the BP agent was justified in killing Arambula. The jury would, as Johnson was quoted in the Star, \u201cconclude that Agent Marquez reasonably believed that deadly force was immediately necessary to protect himself from Mr. Arambula\u2019s apparent attempt to use deadly physical force.\u201d (Love that phrase “deadly physical force.” It’s so bureaucratically redundant, as though there might be such a thing as “deadly nonphysical force,” maybe “maybe “deadly mental force”?)<\/p>\n
BP agent Marquez fired his weapon nine times at the hand jive deadly force exhibited by the fleeing Arambula. For heaven sake, nine times? At somebody’s back? One of the nine shots landed behind Arambula\u2019s ear. Nine shots? For a guy who has no weapon? And a jury will conclude, according to the county attorney, that it’s just fine and dandy \u2014 shoot him dead, blow him away, he aimed his hand at you.<\/p>\n
None of this makes sense. Wave your gun hand, and you die. The Star story didn\u2019t say whether Arambula was a U.S. citizen or where he was from.<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t matter. He had dark skin. Nobody gives a shit.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s what this country has come to. Just forget about it, and keep your hands to yourself.<\/p>\n
Or they will kill you.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At first I started to write a letter to the editor of the Star. I wanted to ask whether the paper would follow up on an article in today’s edition on page A2 written by Kimberly Matas about the murder last May of\u00a0 31 year-old Jose Luis Arambula. Arambula was killed by Border Patrol agent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[75,223,224,222,225,221],"class_list":["post-1808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-people-people","tag-arizona-daily-star","tag-border-patrol-agent-daniel-marquez","tag-jose-luis-arambula","tag-kelli-johnson","tag-kimberly-matas","tag-pima-county-atttorney","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1808"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1818,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions\/1818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}