By Steve Pomper
I’m sure you remember the recent video showing that oh-so-charming illegal immigrant, allegedly involved in assaulting two NYPD officers, flipping off America after he was released without bail. Well, the lawyers for another illegal alien who reportedly caused the death of a Florida deputy sheriff are letting America know they ain’t seen nothing yet.
According to Lawrence Richard at FOX News, “A Guatemalan migrant who is accused of killing a police officer last year is now leading a lawsuit against the deceased deputy’s estate, another law enforcement officer and the county, alleging he was the victim.”
Prosecutors charged Mendez with manslaughter, but the judge initially ruled Mendez “incompetent” and ordered a mental health evaluation before he would decide if he would stand trial. Later, according to another FOX News report, from Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, the judge tossed the charge based on “expert” testimony.
FOX News also reported, Mendez “remains in federal custody in Florida and faces deportation.”
Though this decision is more than frustrating, going forward, I’ll try to write about this with a straight face, but I make no promises.
It may appear the State’s Attorney’s Office sort of “rolled over” on this, but I’m not sure there was a choice. Aside from Mendez’s lawyer’s version of the “Twinkie Defense,” a language deficiency as a “legal disability,” reading the reports, there may be some evidence for an argument—on paper—that the suspect may have had diminished intellectual capacity. Whether that rises to the level of incompetent to stand trial, based on the reports and videos, I’m not convinced.
The State Attorney’s Office said, “Furthermore, based on the court’s recent ruling that the defendant is incompetent to proceed based on that expert testimony, dismissal of the charges is appropriate. Arrest and time served is sufficient.” Nine months for an incident that led to a deputy’s line of duty death.
St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Michael Kunovich, a 25-year-veteran, one of the deputies involved with arresting suspect Virgilio Aguilar Mendez, 19, died during Mendez’s alleged resisting arrest, which was captured on video.
The sergeant’s tragic death is bad enough, but this legal defense strategy, actually claiming the officers violated the ADA, boggles the mind.
According to the Florida Times-Union, this suspect, likely at the direction of his attorneys, is now accusing St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office deputies, the late Sgt. Michael Kunovich and Lt. Jose Jimenez of acting “inappropriately in mistreating the migrant with multiple violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).”
How? You may ask, did they violate his supposed ADA “rights?”
Get ready.
Mendez’s “lawyers specifically claim Aguilar Mendez’s limited ability to speak or understand English and Spanish constituted a disability.”
Well (abandoning my straight face attempt), maybe Mendez shouldn’t have illegally come to a country where he doesn’t speak the dominant language and then refuse to cooperate with law enforcement—or is that just me?
You heard that right. Reportedly, the cops violated the ADA because the suspect doesn’t speak “English [or] Spanish.” According to the suit, Mendez speaks an indigenous Guatemalan language called Mam. According to Omniglot.com, about 500,000 people speak this Mayan language in Guatemala and in the bordering Chiapas state in Mexico.
FOX reported the lawsuit contends, “Mendez was walking on a public sidewalk and speaking with his mother, which is not a crime [just in case you were wondering]. When Sgt. Kunovich seized Aguilar Mendez, he stopped and did not try to flee.” So, Sgt. Kunovich tackled him. Hmmm. That last part could be a fib.
The following sentence does not specify a source but sounds like the police report, saying, “The officer pursued Aguilar Mendez, who apologized in English, before continuing to resist the arrest.” Perhaps leading the officer to believe the suspect spoke English.
Then, back to the lawsuit, “the migrant was confused and told the deputy: ‘I’m sorry, no speak, no speak English.’”
Though the suit asserts Mendez didn’t flee, FOX reports deputies deployed a Taser, and the cops reported having to tackle the suspect, according to Sheriff Robert Hardwick.
According to police reports, Mendez continued to resist. The sheriff’s office describes the sergeant and lieutenant struggled to subdue Mendez on the ground as he “violently resisted” for about six minutes, during which they said the suspect attempted to “grab Sergeant Kunovich’s taser.”
Once handcuffed, the suspect reportedly was found with a small pocketknife in his possession, which he reportedly removed from his pocket and may have attempted to drop, afraid to get caught with it.
Shortly after Mendez was in custody, Sgt. Kunovich collapsed. St. Johns Fire Rescue attempted lifesaving efforts while transporting him to Flagler Hospital. At the hospital, staff took over care but were unable to revive the sergeant, who was pronounced deceased.
The lawyers contend the “confused” Mendez was “unable to understand the brutality of the officers.”
However, I found no reports of injuries to Mendez from the “brutality” he supposedly endured.
My focus is not on the investigation into whether the use of force was proper, which I am prepared to give the officers the benefit of the doubt as, after reading the portion of the reports provided, and watching body-worn camera video, appeared appropriate for the circumstances.
My focus is on just how far some attorneys are willing to go to defend their clients, especially those people who are in the country illegally. Does a vigorous legal defense, which I believe in, include inventing defense mythologies? These days, maybe it does.
According to their defense strategy, is anyone “incompetent” in English, America’s common language, subject to the ADA? It’s important to realize that even if you were able to stretch being a non-English speaker into a “legal disability,” for Mendez, it only became a “disability” when he allegedly refused to comply with the police.
In the report, Mendez, at one point, admitted he didn’t comply with police orders to stop and avoided answering why he “ran” from police. The police interview report also indicates Mendez said he understands he has to respect police orders in the U.S., just like in Guatemala.
From the police interview, “I told Virjilio [Mendez] that here we have to respect the police, and Virjilio said that it is the same in Guatemala.”
The report also indicated, when asked why he didn’t cooperate with the deputies, Mendez said he wanted to stay in the U.S. and not go back to Guatemala. He also told the investigating officer much of his work history in the U.S. Perhaps he wasn’t a genius, but this did not convey incompetent to stand trial.
But, during the police videos shown at Jacksonville.com, once again, it’s clear the suspect, for whatever reasons, does not appear to be complying with the officers. Now, officers cannot be expected to know every language, much less an indigenous Central American one, and it seems just a bit impractical to expect officers to provide interpreters during an arrest—with a resisting suspect.
After all, it’s not often you’ll have Mam-speaking officers on duty when you need one.
It’s easy for cop-critics, upon retrospect, to second-guess the cops and find some sympathy for the “confused” young man. However, during the incident, the deputies didn’t have a crystal ball to consult to determine what languages the suspect speaks or the level of his “intellectual capacity.” Suspects fake this stuff to throw cops off all the time. It seems if I had a nickel for every time a suspect lied to me about speaking English, I could have retired five years earlier than I did.
Even not knowing the language, a police officer holding your arm is a pretty solid indication you are not free to leave, and that you should not pull away, as it appears in the video Mendez attempted to do.
Despite what these purveyors of this updated version of the Twinkie Defense would have you believe, the officers did not “tackle” the suspect until he attempted to pull away from the deputy, indicating they would not have had to tackle Mendez if he hadn’t resisted. And but for that resistance, Sgt. Kunovich might be alive today.
Oh, yeah—that may also have been true, if the suspect hadn’t been in the U.S. illegally.
