LOS ANGELES – District Attorney Steve Cooley today
hailed the joint efforts of the Sheriff’s Department, the
U.S. Marshal’s Service, the Mexican government and his own
prosecutors that resulted in yesterday’s capture in Mexico
of the man accused of gunning down Sheriff’s Deputy David
William March nearly four years ago.
Calling it a "landmark day," Cooley said, "When a police
officer is murdered, we don’t forgive, we don’t forget and
we don’t give up."
Jorge Arroyo Garcia, 29, known by many aliases including
Armando Garcia, was arrested just after noon yesterday in
Tonala, a small town just outside Guadalajara. Officers from
Mexico’s Agencia Federal de Investigationes arrested Garcia
without incident as he left his uncle’s home. He was taken
to Mexico City, where he was jailed pending court hearings
on extradition to Los Angeles.
He is accused of murdering Sheriff’s Deputy David March
on April 29, 2002, in the east San Gabriel Valley city of
Irwindale. March, on routine patrol in a black-and-white
Sheriff’s cruiser, stopped a car allegedly driven by Garcia.
The deputy was shot with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun and
left bleeding in the street. He died later in the day.
It is believed that Garcia, a convicted drug dealer, fled
to Mexico within hours of the shooting. At the time Deputy
March was killed, Garcia was wanted on two unrelated counts
of attempted murder.
In late November of last year, the Mexican Supreme Court
reversed an earlier ruling that hampered extradition of
suspected murderers such as Garcia who faced a possible life
prison term in the United States. The Mexican court’s
November ruling allowed extradition of criminal suspects
facing life-in-prison sentences abroad.
Cooley had lobbied both before and after the original
Mexican Supreme Court ruling in 2001 for the opportunity to
extradite murder suspects to the United States to stand
trial. Every legal, political and legislative avenue was
used to ensure justice in the March murder, as well as
hundreds of other killings of Los Angeles County, California
and U.S. citizens whose accused murderers fled to Mexico to
avoid extradition.
The Nov. 29, 2005, ruling in Mexico allowed the District
Attorney’s office to file a special circumstance murder case
against Garcia. That case, filed last month, charges him not
only with the March murder but with the two attempted murder
cases, also from 2002, and two charges of illegal weapons
possession. The complaint alleged that Garcia murdered a
police officer during performance of his duties and that he
killed the deputy to avoid arrest. Both special
circumstances would result in Garcia’s imprisonment for the
remainder of his life if he is convicted.
Joining Cooley at the news conference were Sheriff Lee
Baca, U.S. Marshal Adam N. Torres, members of the March
family and Mexican Consul-General Ruben Beltran, along with
prosecutors from the District Attorney’s Crimes Against
Police Officers Section and investigators who worked on the
case.
sg
