Arizona Officials Misidentify Hispanic Girls, Says Wrong One Dead
Posted by dpolitico on July 28, 2010 · View Comments
A federal court in Arizona has blocked controversial provisions of the state’s new immigration law just as a shocking case of Arizona officials misidentifying two Hispanic girls after a car wreck comes to light. According to Arizona officials, in the “chaos” of the wreck, Abby Guerra was pronounced dead, and her family told, while Marlena Cantu’s family was told their daughter was in critical condition. Only it was the other way around. And the families didn’t find out for a week.
From News 25 in Evansville:
The family of a University of Evansville soccer player finds out the daughter they thought died in a car accident last week, is actually still fighting for her life and it was a friend who died in that accident.
The University of Evansville Athletics Director says 19-year-old Abby Guerra is alive and in critical condition. This news comes one week after investigators reported she died in a car crash.
We’re told Abby Guerra and four of her friends were gong back home to Arizona from a trip to Disneyland when they blew a tire and their car flipped on an interstate. Investigators told the Guerra family their daughter was dead and another girl’s family their daughter was in critical condition. The families found out Saturday it’s actually the other way around.
A friend of Guerra’s told a local newspaper, The Arizona Republic, it was dental records that made the positive identification. The University of Evansville Athletics Director says it’s been an emotional roller coaster for everyone.
According to GMA, officials at the scene made a hurried identification and then told the families before the medical examiner’s office could confirm who was who.
You’d like to think that people are better than that, that officials always do their job correctly, that law enforcement officials especially can be counted on to get things right. They can’t. Not always. That’s what makes the Arizona immigration law so scary. To put that kind of “stopping” and “detaining” power in the hands of officials who are, after all, human, is terrifying. The Fourth Amendment has already been stretched to the breaking point, especially under the Bush Administration. Let’s hope the federal court in Arizona doesn’t decimate it even further by allowing the Arizona immigration law to stand.
Also published at Daily Kos.
