There's little in life right now that pisses me off more than this kind of incident. Really makes my blood boil.
- Peter.
3-month-old Mesa girl owed an explanation
Oct. 29, 2008 12:00 AM
Four times, we got rid of this guy.
One, two, three, four.
And yet there he was, out there on 19th Avenue in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Drunk three times over, authorities said he had a blood-alcohol reading of nearly 0.24 percent.
Now there's a 3-month-old girl in Mesa who will grow up without a father, and someone owes her an explanation.
Actually, 535 someones. Together, they're called Congress.
While most of our leaders were out over the weekend, trying to get themselves sent back to Washington so they can continue to ignore the nation's pressing business, Phoenix police Officer Shane Figueroa was out doing something that the politicians can only imagine: his job.
Figueroa, 25, was a guy who had everything in front of him. A wife to love, a baby to raise, a community to protect.
He was working the graveyard shift in south Phoenix on Friday night when the call came in: shots fired. As he headed north on 19th Avenue to investigate, Salvador Vivas-Diaz, 50, was going the opposite direction - in more ways than one.
Vivas-Diaz is an illegal immigrant who has snuck into the country so many times, there's likely a rut in the desert to mark his path.
He was nabbed three times in 1998 and each time was allowed to voluntarily return to Mexico, according to Vinnie Picard, spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Voluntary departure is routinely offered to Mexican residents as a way of avoiding lengthy deportation proceedings. It also allows them to avoid serious penalties should be they return.
Which he did. And did. And did.
In May 2004, he was arrested by Tempe police for extreme DUI and the following month, he was arrested by DPS for DUI and having phony ID. He was deported on June 29, 2004.
So naturally, he was on 19th Avenue early Saturday, headed south when police say he attempted to turn left in front of Figueroa and instead T-boned the police cruiser. While Officer Figueroa lay dying on the pavement, Vivas-Diaz got out of his pickup and urinated in the street.
To his credit, he didn't run - as so many drunks (most of them citizens) do. Police said he had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech - and oh yeah, several sets of ID, the better to avoid the four warrants out for his arrest from his encounters with police and failures to show up in court. (Picard said he could have made arrangements to return to the U.S. to clear up his charges but didn't.)
Now, two DUIs, three voluntary departures and one deportation later, another of Phoenix's finest is dead, and I can't help but wonder if anybody in Congress is paying attention. Officer Figueroa joins Officer Nick Erfle and Nanuma Lavulavu, a legal immigrant and mother of six, and 20-year-old Chris Miller and a long line of people killed because our leaders can't or won't get control of the border. The drunk who killed Lavulavu last year had been sent back to Mexico five times and still was on our streets.
Vivas-Diaz had been sent back four times and still he was here early Saturday morning.
Stunned officers met with the media on Monday evening to talk about their friend and colleague. He was, they say, a good man, quiet and humble, devoted to his family and to his community.
"I don't understand," Officer Mike Fortune said. "Why him?"
Maybe someday our leaders can explain that to Figueroa's daughter, whom I suspect will want to know why her daddy had to die. Until then, maybe they can explain it to the rest of us.
Reach Roberts at
laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Read her blog at robertsblog.azcentral.com.