Tuesday, December 02, 2008

The Black Friday Toys R Us Shooting: The Devil Is In The Details

Almost everyone has by now heard about the shooing on Black Friday at a California Toys R Us. What you may not have heard is that the shootings were apparently a murder-suicide. The evidence is piling up that there was only one shooter, Juan Meza, who after killing Alejandro Moreno, shot himself. Apparently there had been a long standing feud between the two families which led up to this confrontation.

The story gets very interesting when you learn about the criminal records of Moreno and Meza. Moreno apparently had been arrested for domestic assault in 1998. Meza, the alleged shooter, however had a much more lengthy criminal record including multiple arrests for gun possession (the latest one only 8 months ago), assault with a deadly weapon and drug possession. Yet Meza had never served any prison time.

How'd he manage that? The Moreno family's attorney, Mark Sullivan has a theory:


I suspect that Juan Meza was a criminal and an informant for the police. The reason I say that is because the judges who sentenced him on all these cases are not lenient judges. They're very tough sentencing judges here in Indio, as they all are. None of the judges nowadays tolerate weapons possessions, especially repeat offenders who have never been to prison a day in their life.

The Sheriff's department for their part had this to say:

"I'm not able to confirm that at all," -Herlinda Valenzuela, a Riverside County Sheriff's spokeswoman

Interesting.....

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