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Family Of Slain Robbers Say Cops Used Lethal Force Excessively
posted (March 13, 2013)
Yesterday, police killed a pair of robbers aged 18 and 22 in San Ignacio - one of them armed with a sawed off shotgun. Many are calling it a victory for law enforcement and community safety. As cold as it may sound, we can see where that argument can be made, because police say the men fired on them - and once that happens, all bets are off.

But tonight, the family is saying they didn't have to kill them. That's what's called proportionality, that the use of force has to be proportional to the threat. Was it or wasn't it? Someday, a court will have to make a decision on that, but before that happens the family made an appeal to the court of public opinion. Monica Bodden has the story from San Ignacio:

Monica Bodden Reporting

The broad daylight armed robbery happened here at Rose's Restaurant and Store on Benque Viejo Road. 30 year old store owner - Ming Feng Chen, was inside the store yesterday afternoon at around 12:45, when 22 year old Rony Garcia and 18 year old Jose Garcia entered the establishment - one of them had a blue rag over his face and the other had a black stocking over his face and armed with a sawed off shot gun.

The gunman pointed the firearm at Chen and ordered him to lie down on the floor and demanded money. He then demanded a cell phone form a female employee.

The other robber with the blue rag over his face went behind the counter and took money from the cash register. Both of them fled the scene and that was when someone called the police.

The police responded quickly and made checks in this area -about half a mile from where the armed robbery took place.

According to police, they saw the two masked men, one of them carrying that sawed off shot gun. Police say they ordered both Ronnie and Jose Garcia to stop but one of them fired a shot at the officers. Police returned fire fatally wounding both men.

Gladys Garcia - Mother of Ronnie Garcia
"The only thing I can't understand is - and I want justice for this because this is not right. My son got shot in his head, and according to what police is saying; is that they had a shoot-out. I don't see how they can ever had a shoot-out when he was shot in his head. I don't know if it was at the front or at the back but definitely the officers or who so ever had to be close by to shoot him in the head. I know that there are a lot of these things happening, but shoot them in the foot or somewhere else on the body. They didn't have to shoot him in the head. I am not saying that my son was a saint. I'm not saying that my son wasn't someone that used to like hanging out with friends, but my son was not a criminal and I want the whole world to know that. I know better than everybody else that my son was not being a criminal, and he will never do something like that."

Police recovered a total of $342 dollars in cash inside a knap sack along with assorted packs of cigarettes and two cell phones - all items property stolen from the store.

Police say the other man had a 16 gauge cartridge in his pocket and the 16 gauge sawed off shot gun lay beside him. It had a 16 gauge cartridge in the chamber which appeared to have misfired.

Gladys Garcia
"Some people where claiming that he had the gun, maybe he got frighten or whatever; I don't know. I'm not swearing for my son as a mother, but it hurts me to know that if he was doing wrong, they could have apprehended him, take him to jail and do justice with him but not kill him; that wasn't a reason. There's no reason why they had to take away his life like that. My son was only 22 years old. He was just starting to live. Why would they have to do that?"

Today both the Garcia's families - which have no relations to each other- are pointing fingers at police for the death of their loved ones. Both men were shot once behind their head by police and died on the scene.

Monica Bodden
"What do you understand happen; what is the police saying?"

Gladys Garcia
"The officers are saying that they had a shoot-out that they had to shoot back because these guys had a gun. Now, I understand that people say the gun doesn't even have a cartridge, so how in the world can someone shoot you without a cartridge in the gun. There's no - I don't know, there's no reason why they had to shoot them like that, and even if they were running, right; this is what I said. I don't understand how he got such a close range that he can shoot right here and out the back of their head. This person must have been very close to do that, and the only I'm thinking is that they were executed. That's all I can say."

Monica Bodden
"Do you know if your son was involved in a robbery or anything as what the police are calming?" "Well according to what I've heard, yes; but if he did it, this was the first time he ever did something like that. I want justice because the person that did it accordingly, wasn't a police officer; he supposed to have been a civilian that had left that service a long time ago, and he had no reason; no reason what to ever to kill my son, none at all. I don't know why he did it, but I'm just appealing to him letting him know that what he did, there's a God above us .He's everything and he is going to pay for that one day because he didn't have to take away my son's life. Miss, you don't know how I'm feeling, he has taken everything that I had. My son was my life, and without him I don't know what is going to happen with me. I cannot accept this, I will not; I have to get justice somehow."

Alyssa Ralda - Aunt of Jose Garcia
"When they called her daughter she just wanted to know - I mean they spoke to her daughter and she just wanted to know what really happened. When she went to ask the police, they told her that they robbed a Chinese shop. She said a lot of police were there, but she knows that it wasn't a police that shot him because he got shot in the head. Police wasn't supposed to shoot them in the head; they were to shoot them on the arm or in the leg so that they don't run or something. The police want justice and she wants justice too because they're not supposed to do that, and in the thinking, she knows that it wasn't the police who that did that, or if they did it; they weren't supposed to kill him because he is not an animal for them to do that. She said they are poor people, and yesterday they went to the police and ask if they kill him, why they don't try help to bury him. But the police told her that her brother is an ignorant man, that's why she thinks the police will help them and they were in trouble.

Police have denied the families' requests to have police pay the funeral expenses.

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