A shooting spree began in farming country near Exeter, California on December 16, 2018, when a man with a gun began shooting at random people, and continued to do so throughout Tulare County for 24 hours. Three people, including the shooter, died, and seven others were injured. The case attracted national attention in the U.S. because the shooter was a convicted felon who had served time in American prisons and had reentered the country illegally for a third time, following deportations in 2004 and 2014. The shooting reignited debate over California Sanctuary Law SB54 because the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested the Tulare County sheriff's office to hold him in detention, but the Sheriff was unable to do so under the California Sanctuary Law. The shooting spree began shortly after the shooter was released.
Shootings
Gustavo Garcia, an illegal immigrant, began with a shooting of random victims in an orchard, and continued with a robbery at a convenience store, and more shootings, and a carjacking, ending with a wrong-way police chase on a highway. During the spree he shot a woman seated in her car in the parking lot of a Motel 6 in Tulare, shot up a Shell gasoline station in Pixley, shot and killed a person standing outside a gas station in Visalia, and, at around 3 a.m. on the morning of Monday the 17th, was reported to police for standing in his ex-girlfriend's backyard, yelling threats as he shot at her house. He had disappeared before police arrived. He was next spotted by a Tulare County Sheriff's Office deputy in a gray Honda SUV on a flat county road outside the city, the deputy attempted to stop the SUV, but Garcia shot the patrol car and fled into an orchard, where he brandished his gun at three farmworkers, and stole their GMC truck. He drove south in the northbound lanes of Highway 65 at high speed, smashing into multiple cars at speeds of more than 100 mph. Finally crashing the vehicle, the perpetrator was pronounced dead at the scene at around 7 a.m. on Monday morning. Before the spree ended, three people, including the shooter, were dead, and seven others were hospitalized with injuries. Garcia had been arrested for being under the influence two days before he went on his crime spree, but was released because California police are not allowed to hold illegal aliens arrested for misdemeanors in order to turn them over to federal ICE agents for deportation. According to Tulare police, Garcia stole the bullets he used in the shooting from a Walmart store. Following Garcia's arrest, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement notified local police that he had already been deported twice, in 2004 and 2014. Garcia Garcia served 2 years in prison for a 2013 armed robbery, and another 27 months in prison for illegally reentering the country, before he was deported for the second time in 2014. ICE issued an immigration hold against Garcia following his arrest, but the hold was not honored. Tulare County's Board of Supervisors had adopted a resolution opposing California's "Sanctuary State" law in May 2018, but the resolution did not alter the state law's prohibition of local police holding illegal aliens charged with misdemeanors for deportation by ICE.
Perpetrator
Garcia Ruiz, a.k.a. "Junior", was an undocumented migrant who first arrived in the United States illegally in 1992 as a minor. In 2002, he was accused of assault with a deadly weapon and conspiracy in Reedley, California; that same year, he was accused of armed robbery and possession of a firearm in Fresno, California. He was sentenced to one year in jail and three years' probation or to two years in prison; sources differ. He was deported to Mexico. Having returned to the United States illegally, he went on to spend 27 months in prison and was deported for a second time in 2014. García was arrested on a misdemeanor charge days before the shooting spree, but released under the provisions of the new California Sanctuary Law SB54.
Aftermath
This shooting has led to a reconsideration of the California Sanctuary Law by some local law enforcement authorities, Tulare County Sheriff Boudreaux is one of several California law enforcement officials questioning the wisdom of the California Sancturary law. Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told the press that a "tool has been removed from our hands," and that, because California Sanctuary Law SB54 meant that the county could not turn the shooter over to ICE for deportation, "our county was shot up by a violent criminal." ICE called the incident, "an unfortunate and extremely tragic example of how public safety is impacted with laws or policies limiting local law enforcement agencies’ ability to cooperate with ICE." In the wake of this shooting, California state RepresentativeJim Patterson called on the legislature to repeal Sanctuary Law SB54 and allow local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with detainer requests from ICE. Deroy Murdock asserts that the California Sanctuary Law "tied the hands of the Tulare County sheriff who wanted to alert U.S. authorities to the impending release of illegal immigrant Gustavo Garcia, a deeply rotten hombre." President Trump invited Jody Jones, brother of spree shooting victim Rocky Jones to attend the 2020 State of the Union Address.
