CHP Assistant Chief Mike Maples said Garcia was an illegal Mexican immigrant whose Pontiac was to be impounded because he was an unlicensed driver. Maples said investigators had yet to establish whether Garcia had been told that the car would be impounded before he allegedly opened fire, “but Officer Pressley was filling out the paperwork” when the shooting occurred.

Yeah, and then who gets arrested for drunk driving? None other than Assistant Chief Mike Maples.

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_H_chp22.35fa5a0.html

On 31 May 2005, a Sacramento cop drove drunk and killed 13-year-old Michael Ramirez, hit and run.

Members of Bailey’s family, which includes wife Teresa and four young children, were gripped in grief in the aftermath of the shock that the National Guardsman, who had returned in November from a 14-month tour in Iraq, was killed on Interstate 15 by a suspected drunken driver’s 1991 Honda Accord.

“Shock, just a feeling of disbelief,’ said Aimee Bailey, 35, of her older brother’s death.

“For 14 months we prayed for his safe return (from Iraq), then to come home and get killed by a drunk driver is just mind boggling,” said Bailey, who was en route to Southern California from her Charlottesville, Va. home Monday morning.

Bailey’s brother-in-law, Mike Walker, said the family was struggling with the twin burdens of grief and funeral arrangements. He said they have not reconciled the sad irony of Bailey’s surviving harrowing service in Iraq, where he was part of a Blackhawk Helicopter repair squadron, and abrupt death on comparatively tame Southland freeways.

“In Iraq, he was flying into war-zones to repair helicopters, under gunfire all the time,” Walker said. “The hardest thing is that he was killed by a drunk driver.”

Domingo Esqueda (and we still are not sure if that’s his true name) will be arraigned this afternoon in Victorville. So far, three charges have been filed, Vehicular Manslaughter and DUI — PC191.5(a) VC23153 (a) & (b). His bail will be $1,000,000.

A bit of perspective: Looking bact to local journalism from the ’60s and ’70s quickly shows the pernicious side of racial detailing of ‘detail’ if it’s not balanced and consistent. Back then, blacks caught committing crimes were invariably described as negro males, or black males; while, on the other hand, the “race” of whites (or Jews or Chinese or whatever) was rarely identified in newsprint. From the perspective of ‘06, the practice back then was embarrassingly racist.

So, what kind of background information is relevant. And when? How do journos today draw tht line, or lines, between accurate reporting, or erring political correctness, or erring on the side of racism — or simply not having the time to get all the information by deadline?

Perhaps you should watch the news from foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia. Philly is about 45% white, 45% black and 10% mixed and “other.” It appears that WPVI-TV’s (the local ABC O & O station) policy is not to mention that a suspect is a “black male,” or “white male,” but only a male. If WPVI has a police photo or sketch, they show that, so the viewer can see for himself.

#4, Patterico:
1. These facts are extremely relevant in telling the story. If the guy was an illegal, that fits into the ‘meaningful’, no question. I cited the Desert Digest report right away. And I suggested they had info the LAT did not report.

2. I think the illegality of this guy is news. The LAT should make a deal about it. Either on front page, or on front page of the California section.

(Not to be callous about it but) If an illegal drives down an officer in any other state, that is major news. Headline stuff.

Unless the lives the CHP officers in this state are considered expendable.