14 Year Old Girl Shot and Killed at DEA Stakeout

[ReformMaryJaneLaws]

Someone from SSPD just sent me an email with this article in it.




Girl shot at DEA stakeout is dead

By Maro Robbins
San Antonio Express-News

Web Posted : 02/12/2003 12:00 AM

As Ashley Villarreal lay in the hospital and drew her last breaths Tuesday, a friend challenged the official version of how federal agents days earlier shot the 14-year-old daughter of a drug trafficking suspect.
The eyewitness account came as Ashley's family requested that she be taken off life support. She died at 6:14 p.m., a hospital spokesman said.

Daniel Robles, a family friend and housemate who was with the teenager during Sunday's stakeout by agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration, offered the conflicting narrative.

The agents were there to get the girl's father, Joey Angel Villarreal, a three-time convicted drug offender who turned himself in and was charged with cocaine trafficking a day after the shooting.

Federal authorities have said an agent opened fire when a darkened car accelerated toward him.

But Robles said that, to him, in the passenger seat, and to the girl behind the wheel, it looked like a darkened car was accelerating toward them.

The unmarked vehicles that emerged moments after Ashley steered the Mitsubishi Eclipse out of the driveway and onto a darkened South San Joaquin Street appeared to be pursuing them, he said.

"It makes me really angry," Robles fumed. "This girl's dying and there are these reports that she threatened them."

Robles' story reflected one side of the polarized narratives and charged emotions that will be sifted by investigators with two law-enforcement agencies examining the shooting incident.

DEA investigators fresh from Washington visited the scene Tuesday afternoon while San Antonio police officers continued their own inquiry by questioning Ashley Villarreal's grandmother.

Throughout the day, family members lingered at Wilford Hall Medical Center, keeping a vigil over the girl who once dreamed about being a model or singer.

Ashley's older sister, Adrianna, said doctors told the family that the gunshot to the head left Ashley's brain like "scrambled eggs." If she still twitched slightly in her sleep, the movement was due to medication.

Waves of family members came to say farewell before the family told doctors to shut off Ashley's life-support equipment.

"Her head is swollen. It just doesn't look like her anymore," Adrianna said. "They've taken an angel away from us."

Earlier that afternoon, the only visible reminders of the shooting were the glass shards of a windshield gleaming in the street and, nearby, a pair of DEA agents sketching a diagram of the incident.

DEA officials said they could not predict how long their investigation would take.

The agency's examination of an October shooting that occurred in a North Side parking lot where a drug trafficking suspect allegedly tried to run down an agent is ongoing.

According to officials, Sunday's incident began when agents watched two figures driving without headlights from the house in a hurry after 11 p.m. As agents tried to block the car's path, the driver accelerated.

Believing the car was going to ram him, an agent on foot opened fire twice. The agent was "clipped" but not hurt by the vehicle. The car went into reverse and an agent standing behind it discharged two additional shots. Ashley was the only one wounded.

"Everybody is touched by what happened," said Javier Peña, special agent in charge of the local DEA office. "Our prayers go out to this young girl."

Robles, 44, described himself as the household handyman who lives with the teenagers Ashley and Adrianna and their grandmother on South San Joaquin Street.

Robles said that he had waxed the Eclipse earlier in the day and that at the end of the night, Ashley told him she wanted to move it to the back where it could be covered and protected from dew.

They had to drive around the block to reach the rear entrance. And, like a lot of youths too young to have a license to drive, Ashley wanted to move it herself, Robles said.

Once they backed out of the driveway, a car tailed closely behind. Ashley said she thought they were being followed and sped up.

Another vehicle, a pickup, came at them from the front, Robles said. When Ashley veered right onto Motes Street, they collided.

Robles said the agents opened fire immediately after the crash and didn't identify themselves until afterward.

"The first shot was fired and Ashley didn't say a word," he said. "She didn't scream or anything and I knew she was hit with the first shot."

Robles contended Ashley never tried to back up unless, somehow in the collision, the automatic transmission was knocked into reverse. And he insisted that there was no way for the car to endanger the agents.

"How could they feel threatened when we were jammed in between (their vehicles) like a sandwich?" he said.

Officials declined to respond to Robles' version or to discuss details of the case Tuesday, citing the pending investigation.

After the gunfire, Robles said, the agents pulled him out through the passenger side and handcuffed him. Then they reached in and lay Ashley on the grassy curb.

"They knew. I could see it. They had made a big mistake," Robles said.

mrobbins@express-news.net

Staff Writer Jesse Bogan contributed to this report.

[ReformMaryJaneLaws]

This is enough to piss you off and make you cry at the same time!!!


IT'S WRONG!!!!!!!!!

[TheHempress]

good Lord...and our taxes go to pay for this?

[Bud Head]

They screw up then try and cover up..

Sounds like the war on drugs.

Yes it's wrong!!!!!!

[she]

Found at www.usdoj-gov.us/villarreal.html

Drugs did not kill Ashley Villarreal, drug laws and drug warriors did.

"Drug did not kill Ashley Villarreal, drug laws and drug warriors did. This evil that is masquerading as justice and the law is neither. These men who murdered Ashley Villarreal have to be brought to justice. If the system will not give justice to the family of Ashley Villarreal, then it is incumbent upon the Villarreal family to seek their own justice on these murderers. If not them, then their spouses, if not the spouses, then the children, if not children, then the parents. If not now, then 10 years from now. The murders of our children by this rogue federal agency must and will end, one agent at a time. Those who support the murders will not be safe."


Mayor Ed Garza
San Antonio, Texas

[pyro2005]

Originally posted by Reform MaryJane Laws
This is enough to piss you off and make you cry at the same time!!!


IT'S WRONG!!!!!!!!!

Those are exactly my thoughts. It upsets me so much that our system is so futile, and that incidents like this actually happen.

Something needs to be done. I'm not sure what, how or when, but this is crazy, living in a system where our taxes go to people who believe pot is evil, and that killing 14 year old girls is ok. There isn't any mention of how this accident is going to be repaired by the DEA. You can't bring someone back, and while there isn't a monetary value that will ever make the pain for the family go away, there needs to be something.

What is that was one of us? It very well could be. Scary, hunh?

[nucan]

waht the fuck is going on in our country. our own government kills our children, the very people they say they are trying to protect. A couple weeks ago some family's dog was shot, and today some family's little girl was killed. If the local police are killing our pets and the DEA is killing our children, it REALLY scares me as to what our government is acutaly doing. This shows above all how much the drug war is gettin completley out of hand. i guarantee that everyone on that supposed "stake out" operatoin knew good and well that the man they were after had a daughter. But still, they readily unhoulster their weapons and fire upon the first thign that moves. they might as well start callin them the SWAT team, cuz thats basicaly what they are becoming. its fucking pathetic.

[bud stuffer]

guess whats going in my war on drugs paper

[bud stuffer]

Javeri Pena of the local DEA office responds:
“Our agent should be applauded for excellent marksmanship. The agent, who wishes to remain anonymous, likened the head shot to hitting a moving casaba melon at 75 yards.” DEA agent Javeri Pena adds: "taking out one Latino kid probably rids our country of six Latino babies down the road, who would in all likelihood grow up to be drug dealers."



holy fucking shit i can not believe the words that came out of this persons mouth

this came off of the link that she gave

[TheHempress]

Originally posted by bud stuffer
Javeri Pena of the local DEA office responds:
“Our agent should be applauded for excellent marksmanship. The agent, who wishes to remain anonymous, likened the head shot to hitting a moving casaba melon at 75 yards.” DEA agent Javeri Pena adds: "taking out one Latino kid probably rids our country of six Latino babies down the road, who would in all likelihood grow up to be drug dealers."



holy fucking shit i can not believe the words that came out of this persons mouth

this came off of the link that she gave

WTF??? That's it....fuck Florida...I'm moving to Canada as soon as possible

[bud stuffer]

i agree, i am looking at schools in our northern neighbor and our decriminalized states

[nucan]

man, when the hell is our revolution gonna come? mabye we should lead it. el revolution de grasscity!

[TheHempress]

Viva La Revolution!

[ReformMaryJaneLaws]

Javeri Pena should be beat down for those words. I felt a little better after reading what Mayor Garza had to say because it showed compassion for the family and anger towards the DEA but then to read that a DEA prick made such a horrible statement pissed me off more than I was when I read about the girl.


I went downtown for "Evict the DEA" today and the turnout wasn't bad. I spoke to one of the agents...I kind of had to since I was passing out flyers with this article printed on them right in front of him...and he said that her "murder" (he used that word) should have never happened and that when things like this occur, it makes them all look bad. I boldly stated my thoughts on the prohibition of marijuana and what it's causing the government to do to otherwise innocent people and he never disagreed with me. I wish I would have known what Pena had said before I printed off my flyers because I would have added that to them.


I'm SO angry right now. And the crack about Latino's...how ignorant!!! Racism shouldn't be tolerated at all. People who are so blatent with their dislike of people from other races besides their own should not be in any kind of authoritative position. Racist leaders help make a racist community and it just shouldn't be allowed. If you don't have respect for the people you are supposed to protect and serve then you shouldn't have the privilege of doing so.


*EDIT: Javeri Pena...wonder where he's from???? Damn, what an ignorant jackass!!!

[bud stuffer]

i sure hope those words got that piece of shit into a bunch of trouble with the local community. i would be afraid for my life if i publicly stated that, i can't imagine too many people were happy about that. the first thought that crossed my mind when i read that was "no wonder we are having such a hard time, if we have people this stupid and closed minded runnig the top places in the DEA" well the first thought after "WTF this pisses me off so much"