Jose Guerena Affidavit Released

[jeremy]

Meths got to be more profitable than corn.

I don't know Corn hit $7 this spring...

 

[Keyser Soze]

Meths got to be more profitable than corn.

Anhydrous is up to $120 a pound. There is a dye that makes it useless for manufacturing meth. The dye is relatively cheap. Its still not being added by producers.

 

[88GT]

my girldfriendS did. they stripped hard for the money no wife back then

I meant Guerena's wife, ya tool. Nobody considers she could have contributed to the funds.

 

[jeremy]

Anhydrous is up to $120 a pound. There is a dye that makes it useless for manufacturing meth. The dye is relatively cheap. Its still not being added by producers.

At a $120 dollars a pound let me see that is $240,000 a ton.
And I think NH3 is selling for what, let us make it easy for math's sake, $1,000 a Ton at the Plant.

I am selling the wrong product...

 

[jsharmon7]

Wow, finally got a chance to read the affidavit. I understand why they did the search warrant. It still doesn't excuse what looked to be an awful job of conducting the search, and not getting him medical help more quickly. I don't know what to make of this situation at this point.

 

[88GT]

Just found the time to read through the entire PCA.

At the very least, it contradicts LE's side of the story as told immediately following the murder. At worst, it's the ****tiest bit of police work I've seen in the recent past.

 

[j706]

Hmmm looks pretty clear cut to me the the guy was heavily involved in the distribution of narcotics. Lets break it down shall we-

1) 25 Years old with FIVE felony counts including misconduct with weapons. No convictions annotated is not at all unusual. Some times they are just not entered or his cases have not been resolved yet.
2) Person of interest in 2009 by ICE for conspiracy to distribute.
3) Owns six vehicles with 105K estimated value not including a 96 Diesel due to not knowing what type of vehicle it is.
4) Verified employment at 41K before taxes. In other words he made about 32K bring home.
5) Owns home. Did not indicate if it was paid off.

This clown was a dirty as dirty as dirty can be. For 25 years old he has been kinda busy don't you think? Take off your blinders people. Did he deserve to be killed for all of that? Nope and he would not have been had he not presented a weapon during the warrant service.

My advice is if you are messing with law violations (as he clearly was)be prepared for a possible warrant service. When said warrant service comes (and it probably will) don't arm yourself when it happens because you might get shot.


Sooooo after all is said and done we now know the following. It WAS NOT the wrong address. It WAS for the person named on the warrant. This WAS NOT a no knock warrant. There WAS ample warning given. The guy DID show himself armed with a weapon during service and was shot and killed as a result. As for the delay in medical treatment I am not on a SWAT team so I don't know much about their SOP's. The number of rounds fired may be excessive but in the heat of things stuff can be confusing. But justified lethal force is lethal force no matter what type or how it is delivered. This was a justified lethal force incident plain and simple.

This was a above average investigation with tons of probable cause. No reasonable judge would have refused to have signed the thing.

Many of you posting here are so filled with LE and rule of law hatred that you will never be able to see through it (Always the same guys over and over again).

I have ZERO sympathy for the knucklehead. You play then you pay.

 

[88GT]

Hmmm looks pretty clear cut to me the the guy was heavily involved in the distribution of narcotics. Lets break it down shall we-

1) 25 Years old with FIVE felony counts including misconduct with weapons. No convictions annotated is not at all unusual. Some times they are just not entered or his cases have not been resolved yet.
2) Person of interest in 2009 by ICE for conspiracy to distribute.
3) Owns six vehicles with 105K estimated value not including a 96 Diesel due to not knowing what type of vehicle it is.
4) Verified employment at 41K before taxes. In other words he made about 32K bring home.
5) Owns home. Did not indicate if it was paid off.

This clown was a dirty as dirty as dirty can be. For 25 years old he has been kinda busy don't you think? Take off your blinders people. Did he deserve to be killed for all of that? Nope and he would not have been had he not presented a weapon during the warrant service.

My advice is if you are messing with law violations (as he clearly was)be prepared for a possible warrant service. When said warrant service comes (and it probably will) don't arm yourself when it happens because you might get shot.


Sooooo after all is said and done we now know the following. It WAS NOT the wrong address. It WAS for the person named on the warrant. This WAS NOT a no knock warrant. There WAS ample warning given. The guy DID show himself armed with a weapon during service and was shot and killed as a result. As for the delay in medical treatment I am not on a SWAT team so I don't know much about their SOP's. The number of rounds fired may be excessive but in the heat of things stuff can be confusing. But justified lethal force is lethal force no matter what type or how it is delivered. This was a justified lethal force incident plain and simple.

This was a above average investigation with tons of probable cause. No reasonable judge would have refused to have signed the thing.

Many of you posting here are so filled with LE and rule of law hatred that you will never be able to see through it (Always the same guys over and over again).

I have ZERO sympathy for the knucklehead. You play then you pay.

Correction: arrests. I've read a lot in the last few hours, but at most only one stuck, a weapons charge IIRC. THough admittedly, I might be getting people and charges mixed up. Still, his criminal record was practically non-existent. Aside from that one, I don't believe he was actually charged with anything. I have yet to determine if his ICE incident is related to a 2009 arrest in which the DA failed to bring charges or if they are two separate incidents. Reports are not clear. Either way, arrests without charges being filed mean nothing. We all know it's not uncommon for LE to arrest everybody on scene and let the lawyers sort it out later. There's little doubt his bro was dirty, but since when did being related to a scumbag come with a guilty verdict on drug charges and sentence of death?

We've only seen the PCA. The language of the warrant has yet to be revealed. One can only hope that it was written per the requirements of the Constitution. Sadly, based on the media quotes of the LE/lawyers, nothing listed for the Guerena home is much of an indication of drug activity either. Of the four homes targeted that day, they found roughly $100K in cash and a baggie of weed. One baggie. Not at Guerena's home. And that much cash across 4 households (possibly more--I've never known a Latino family not to combine households on at least a semi-permanent basis) in a culture that doesn't rely/trust banks wouldn't exactly be all that surprising. Not saying it's exculpatory. Just that it's not evidence of much at all except cultural norms.

Still, considering only Guerena's home, I do not find the information in the PCA sufficient to issue a warrant on his home. At best it says he's the brother of a bad dude. And occassionally spends times with him, perhaps even when the brother is doing his drug stuff. But I didn't see anything that concretely linked Jose to the drugs outside of his sibling connection. Certainly nothing that evidence ACTIVITY in the drug trafficking business.

He owns a home worth about $105K in addition to six vehicles. I own property worth more than four times my household's annual W2 income. Guerena's didn't even make 3x. All FIVE of my vehicles/trailers are paid for. It doesn't mean diddly.

And I'm gonna ask it again: did his wife work? And let's not forget the man did two tours of active combat duty. I've done the research, on top of his "base" pay, he was potentially eligible for up to $625 (give or take) more a month. If you factor in the exempt from taxes possibility, I really don't see how what he has is all that out of the realm of reasonable possibility. A house payment is no different than rent, but because he "owns" it, somehow it's a sign he's got money coming in he can't explain?

Ample warning????? Six seconds would hardly be ample time for a man asleep to rouse himself and answer a door. But then they didn't really want him to answer the door, did they? Someone on another forum said it this way: if you need a truly dynamic entry, then petition for the no-knock. Otherwise, wait for the person to respond. Knocking and then busting through the door 6 seconds later is hardly waiting. What if he were taking a dump? Lots of "what ifs" that belie the "ample warning" argument.

All I see is a homeowner preparing to defend his family against a home invasion. Let's assume for a moment that SWAT hit the wrong house. Bear with me for a moment. I know you're gonna wanna argue that his "guilt" on the drug charges justifies all SWAT actions resulting from a warrant on those drug charges, but I disagree and here's why.

Let's assume that SWAT his the wrong house (or better yet, that Guerena is innocent????). The EXACT same thing happens in the exact same house: sleeping husband is awakened by frightened wife, who says men are outside with guns. Just a few seconds later, pounding and some sort of shouting is heard outside the front door. It's not exactly clear what's being shouted because there are several feet, walls, and building materials between husband and the people shouting. Not to mention, he's still trying to clear his head. After all, he just got off a 12-hour shift at the local mine. He's tired. He's not sure what to make of the commotion. He scrambles out of bed, grabs his rifle and prepares to defend his family.

But not knowing what's on the other side of the door or why it's there, he holds and waits. Know what your target is and what's beyond it, right? He'd hate to shoot an innocent person because he got trigger happy and made a bunch of assumptions. He leaves the safety on, but keeps the rifle at the low ready, thumb ready to flip it to "fire" if necessary.

Mind you, this is all in about 15 seconds.

Then BOOM! His front door flies open. Somehow through the grace of God or providence or karma or whatever you want to call it, something keeps him from raising the rifle, flipping the selector switch, and pulling the trigger. But it doesn't matter: the breaching officer sees the gun and doesn't give him a chance to put the firearm down. Bang! And the rest, as they say, is history!

Is that a justified shoot? You'd be the worst kind of ass to say it was. But why? Because the man was innocent, you say. So what? That only means LE should have never been at his home. Of course it follows that everything else is poisoned.

But I say it was a bad shoot because they never gave the guy time to comply. An innocent man could have thanked his lucky stars as he lay down to sleep later that night if

(a) they actually provided enough time for someone to verify who was at the door and comply with the requests to open it,

(b) exercised a little bit of restraint and gave the man a chance to disarm himself through the use of demands to put the firearm down

That's just good common sense right there. But you want to say that LE no longer has to be held to that standard when the person is presumed guilty? You're telling me that the suspect has no right to defend his home against an unknown threat and live to tell about because he was able to recognize in the knick of time that it was LE and refrained from taking further action? That LE doesn't have to verify an actual imminent threat, doesn't have to wait to fire until fired upon? That they only have to be able to claim some vague notion of a threat, be a rifle, a flashlight, a golfclub, a baseball bat? That the mere possession of these items by the resident is sufficient excuse to blow them to hell?

I wholeheartedly disagree. You are advocating judge, jury, and executioner all in one action simple because the man behind the door doesn't have a crystal ball to tell him who is coming through it with such force and why. I cannot stand for that. His guilt matters not. That is for a court to decide AFTER they are in custody. Innocent people die because of that mindset. Their blood is on the hands of every man who excuses this kind of behavior.

And I have little ones getting up in 4 hours. I really need to get to bed.

 

[j706]

Correction: arrests. I've read a lot in the last few hours, but at most only one stuck, a weapons charge IIRC. THough admittedly, I might be getting people and charges mixed up. Still, his criminal record was practically non-existent. Aside from that one, I don't believe he was actually charged with anything. I have yet to determine if his ICE incident is related to a 2009 arrest in which the DA failed to bring charges or if they are two separate incidents. Reports are not clear. Either way, arrests without charges being filed mean nothing. We all know it's not uncommon for LE to arrest everybody on scene and let the lawyers sort it out later. There's little doubt his bro was dirty, but since when did being related to a scumbag come with a guilty verdict on drug charges and sentence of death?

We've only seen the PCA. The language of the warrant has yet to be revealed. One can only hope that it was written per the requirements of the Constitution. Sadly, based on the media quotes of the LE/lawyers, nothing listed for the Guerena home is much of an indication of drug activity either. Of the four homes targeted that day, they found roughly $100K in cash and a baggie of weed. One baggie. Not at Guerena's home. And that much cash across 4 households (possibly more--I've never known a Latino family not to combine households on at least a semi-permanent basis) in a culture that doesn't rely/trust banks wouldn't exactly be all that surprising. Not saying it's exculpatory. Just that it's not evidence of much at all except cultural norms.

Still, considering only Guerena's home, I do not find the information in the PCA sufficient to issue a warrant on his home. At best it says he's the brother of a bad dude. And occassionally spends times with him, perhaps even when the brother is doing his drug stuff. But I didn't see anything that concretely linked Jose to the drugs outside of his sibling connection. Certainly nothing that evidence ACTIVITY in the drug trafficking business.

He owns a home worth about $105K in addition to six vehicles. I own property worth more than four times my household's annual W2 income. Guerena's didn't even make 3x. All FIVE of my vehicles/trailers are paid for. It doesn't mean diddly.

And I'm gonna ask it again: did his wife work? And let's not forget the man did two tours of active combat duty. I've done the research, on top of his "base" pay, he was potentially eligible for up to $625 (give or take) more a month. If you factor in the exempt from taxes possibility, I really don't see how what he has is all that out of the realm of reasonable possibility. A house payment is no different than rent, but because he "owns" it, somehow it's a sign he's got money coming in he can't explain?

Ample warning????? Six seconds would hardly be ample time for a man asleep to rouse himself and answer a door. But then they didn't really want him to answer the door, did they? Someone on another forum said it this way: if you need a truly dynamic entry, then petition for the no-knock. Otherwise, wait for the person to respond. Knocking and then busting through the door 6 seconds later is hardly waiting. What if he were taking a dump? Lots of "what ifs" that belie the "ample warning" argument.

All I see is a homeowner preparing to defend his family against a home invasion. Let's assume for a moment that SWAT hit the wrong house. Bear with me for a moment. I know you're gonna wanna argue that his "guilt" on the drug charges justifies all SWAT actions resulting from a warrant on those drug charges, but I disagree and here's why.

Let's assume that SWAT his the wrong house (or better yet, that Guerena is innocent????). The EXACT same thing happens in the exact same house: sleeping husband is awakened by frightened wife, who says men are outside with guns. Just a few seconds later, pounding and some sort of shouting is heard outside the front door. It's not exactly clear what's being shouted because there are several feet, walls, and building materials between husband and the people shouting. Not to mention, he's still trying to clear his head. After all, he just got off a 12-hour shift at the local mine. He's tired. He's not sure what to make of the commotion. He scrambles out of bed, grabs his rifle and prepares to defend his family.

But not knowing what's on the other side of the door or why it's there, he holds and waits. Know what your target is and what's beyond it, right? He'd hate to shoot an innocent person because he got trigger happy and made a bunch of assumptions. He leaves the safety on, but keeps the rifle at the low ready, thumb ready to flip it to "fire" if necessary.

Mind you, this is all in about 15 seconds.

Then BOOM! His front door flies open. Somehow through the grace of God or providence or karma or whatever you want to call it, something keeps him from raising the rifle, flipping the selector switch, and pulling the trigger. But it doesn't matter: the breaching officer sees the gun and doesn't give him a chance to put the firearm down. Bang! And the rest, as they say, is history!

Is that a justified shoot? You'd be the worst kind of ass to say it was. But why? Because the man was innocent, you say. So what? That only means LE should have never been at his home. Of course it follows that everything else is poisoned.

But I say it was a bad shoot because they never gave the guy time to comply. An innocent man could have thanked his lucky stars as he lay down to sleep later that night if

(a) they actually provided enough time for someone to verify who was at the door and comply with the requests to open it,

(b) exercised a little bit of restraint and gave the man a chance to disarm himself through the use of demands to put the firearm down

That's just good common sense right there. But you want to say that LE no longer has to be held to that standard when the person is presumed guilty? You're telling me that the suspect has no right to defend his home against an unknown threat and live to tell about because he was able to recognize in the knick of time that it was LE and refrained from taking further action? That LE doesn't have to verify an actual imminent threat, doesn't have to wait to fire until fired upon? That they only have to be able to claim some vague notion of a threat, be a rifle, a flashlight, a golfclub, a baseball bat? That the mere possession of these items by the resident is sufficient excuse to blow them to hell?

I wholeheartedly disagree. You are advocating judge, jury, and executioner all in one action simple because the man behind the door doesn't have a crystal ball to tell him who is coming through it with such force and why. I cannot stand for that. His guilt matters not. That is for a court to decide AFTER they are in custody. Innocent people die because of that mindset. Their blood is on the hands of every man who excuses this kind of behavior.

And I have little ones getting up in 4 hours. I really need to get to bed.

Huh? Sorry but I disagree with all counts you mentioned.

 

[hornadylnl]

Hmmm looks pretty clear cut to me the the guy was heavily involved in the distribution of narcotics. Lets break it down shall we-

1) 25 Years old with FIVE felony counts including misconduct with weapons. No convictions annotated is not at all unusual. Some times they are just not entered or his cases have not been resolved yet.
2) Person of interest in 2009 by ICE for conspiracy to distribute.
3) Owns six vehicles with 105K estimated value not including a 96 Diesel due to not knowing what type of vehicle it is.
4) Verified employment at 41K before taxes. In other words he made about 32K bring home.
5) Owns home. Did not indicate if it was paid off.

This clown was a dirty as dirty as dirty can be. For 25 years old he has been kinda busy don't you think? Take off your blinders people. Did he deserve to be killed for all of that? Nope and he would not have been had he not presented a weapon during the warrant service.

My advice is if you are messing with law violations (as he clearly was)be prepared for a possible warrant service. When said warrant service comes (and it probably will) don't arm yourself when it happens because you might get shot.


Sooooo after all is said and done we now know the following. It WAS NOT the wrong address. It WAS for the person named on the warrant. This WAS NOT a no knock warrant. There WAS ample warning given. The guy DID show himself armed with a weapon during service and was shot and killed as a result. As for the delay in medical treatment I am not on a SWAT team so I don't know much about their SOP's. The number of rounds fired may be excessive but in the heat of things stuff can be confusing. But justified lethal force is lethal force no matter what type or how it is delivered. This was a justified lethal force incident plain and simple.

This was a above average investigation with tons of probable cause. No reasonable judge would have refused to have signed the thing.

Many of you posting here are so filled with LE and rule of law hatred that you will never be able to see through it (Always the same guys over and over again).

I have ZERO sympathy for the knucklehead. You play then you pay.

Maybe you can tell me the asset to income ratio. I must be a drug dealer because I've got Guerena beat. I must be so good at it that I didn't even know I'm a drug dealer.

I say we get warrants for all Leos who seemingly have too much for their income level. I know one Leo on this board that fits that description. If my mind was made up that he was guilty, I'd look at his cop salary and his assets and say he's guilty. But I haven't done a full investigation to other possible sources of income. But I just know he's on the take so he's guilty damn it.

 

[T.Lex]

Does this warning apply to law enforcement or just the brown people?

Everyone == everyone (at least, IMHO)

The affidavit is troubling, less than anticipatory. Fair probability of a crime because he had a brother and was in a truck with furniture wrap in it?

If that were all that related to him... yes, that would be insufficient for a search warrant of his home IMHO. But, that wasn't all.

 

[jsharmon7]

Maybe you can tell me the asset to income ratio. I must be a drug dealer because I've got Guerena beat. I must be so good at it that I didn't even know I'm a drug dealer.

I say we get warrants for all Leos who seemingly have too much for their income level. I know one Leo on this board that fits that description. If my mind was made up that he was guilty, I'd look at his cop salary and his assets and say he's guilty. But I haven't done a full investigation to other possible sources of income. But I just know he's on the take so he's guilty damn it.

You are way too hung up on this one item. Take this in conjunction with the other things this affidavit mentions and it's pretty obvious that there was probable cause for this search warrant. Anyone who doesn't see the probable cause for this search warrant simply doesn't want to see it, or doesn't understand the legal system. Again, stop focusing on one aspect of the many presented here and it'll be come a little clearer. Also keep in mind that the search warrant doesn't require absolute proof, just probable cause.

 

[bobzilla]

Shhhh.....

Someone may think I know something, if you keep that **** up...

dON't worry... that's not likely to happen. I keed I keed!

 

[E5RANGER375]

It just cracks me up that SOME cops here think they are legal experts or fortune tellers and able to KNOW the guy was guilty for sure just by reading a paper with ALLEGATIONS that others cops made and some judge signed off on. they probly all play golf together. typical guilty before proven guilty talk. ive seen a stupid cop charge an innocent man for trying to fire into the ground to save himself from getting bitten by a neighbors dog, and then a prosecutor that actually was willing to pursue the charges. thats just in carmel. I have maybe 1% faith that when the cops or state charges someone with a crime that they are guilty. just because cops lump a bunch of charges on someone doesnt mean they were guilty. its especially easy for them to do it after they murdered the guy and he is no longer here to defend himself! keep directing traffic j706, hopefully you wont violate any rights at that since your job could be replaced by a bucket. Its scary your an LEO.

 

[T.Lex]

... since your job could be replaced by a bucket. ...

Did you mean a cone? Like, a road cone? I'm just not sure what good a bucket would do directing traffic?

Maybe a barrel? One of those big orange ones?

 

[E5RANGER375]

Did you mean a cone? Like, a road cone? I'm just not sure what good a bucket would do directing traffic?

Maybe a barrel? One of those big orange ones?

this! and speak of the devil

 

[jeremy]

Did you mean a cone? Like, a road cone? I'm just not sure what good a bucket would do directing traffic?

Maybe a barrel? One of those big orange ones?

"orange barrels orange barrels every where i see,
orange barrels orange barrels looking back at me,
look at larry, darryl, and darryl standing next to the orange barrel,
looking back at me,

 

[T.Lex]

this! and speak of the devil

You're welcome - I'm just here to help.

Sorry I couldn't do more for the rest of your post... it was WAY beyond repair.

 

[88GT]

You are way too hung up on this one item. Take this in conjunction with the other things this affidavit mentions and it's pretty obvious that there was probable cause for this search warrant. Anyone who doesn't see the probable cause for this search warrant simply doesn't want to see it, or doesn't understand the legal system. Again, stop focusing on one aspect of the many presented here and it'll be come a little clearer. Also keep in mind that the search warrant doesn't require absolute proof, just probable cause.

I see cause for a search warrant on 2 perhaps 3 of the homes listed. But I see none for the Guerena home. The PC hinges on nothing more than contact with a known/highly suspected drug criminal. Contact is a pretty flimsy justification. Repeated contact maybe, but these two were brothers. That relationship alone could explain the contact.

Now, if they could have shown some actual activity by Guerena and/or specific activity at his home, I would feel differently. Or Guerena's repeated presence during the drug-related activities by the others perhaps. (I would still feel the execution of the warrant was unforgivable, but that's a separate discussion.) But the fact that Guerena was gainfully employed seems to be an indicator that he was less likely to be involved, since the lack of employment is a red flag and big part of the PC for the other suspects. Unless one is arguing that employed or not, he's a suspect and we'll find some way to connect the dots. There has been a lot of that going on with this topic recently.

Ultimately, if that's the standard of probable cause, it isn't much. We're back to little more than "Because I said so" by LE. Aside from consorting with criminals (and I might be, I just don't know about it) and an arrest record, you could substitute me for Guerena and come up with probable cause. I just feel the "evidence" is a little too general. Even when considered with the other pieces. Like I said, connect him to something more concrete and I get it. But all they've really shown is that he was close and spent a lot of time with his brother, who likely was a criminal.

 

[hornadylnl]

You are way too hung up on this one item. Take this in conjunction with the other things this affidavit mentions and it's pretty obvious that there was probable cause for this search warrant. Anyone who doesn't see the probable cause for this search warrant simply doesn't want to see it, or doesn't understand the legal system. Again, stop focusing on one aspect of the many presented here and it'll be come a little clearer. Also keep in mind that the search warrant doesn't require absolute proof, just probable cause.

How many investigations start out with nothing more than an officer getting a gut feeling about a guy? Not a single crime has been committed but the cop just think the guy is dirty. With just a little investigative work, he finds the guy's home and where he works. He believes there's no way he can afford that house with his income. Which way is that investigation going to go. In his mind, the guy is already guilty so he's going to investigate to that direction, not let actual evidence determine the guilt or innocence.