California is becoming quite the horror show of illegal alien crime. The latest is painfully similar to the San Francisco shooting death of Kate Steinle in its preventable nature: the accused illegal alien,Victor Aureliano Martinez Ramirez, has a long rap sheet including violent crimes but was recently released onto California streets instead of being deported and/or prosecuted.
Greta van Susteren, a lawyer, had an interesting conversation with Santa Maria’s Chief of Police Ralph Martin on Friday. He makes it clear that Sacramento has turned the dial to favor illegal alien criminals, but we know the feds are to blame as well. The system is designed not to work, so both sides can blame the other and claim the violent foreigner “fell through the cracks” or some other fiction. Crime committed by illegal aliens goes unpunished in today’s lawless America, and no citizen is safe.
VAN SUSTEREN: There is outrage tonight over an illegal immigrant arrested for the rape and murder of a 64-year-old woman. The illegal immigrant was on probation for battery and drug possession at the time of the rape and murder. Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin joins us. Good evening, sir. Chief, what happened?CHIEF MARTIN: Well Greta, two weeks ago today Marilyn Pharis. a sixty-four-year-old very healthy woman was asleep in her bedroom. She had just finished an eight-hour shift at Vandenberg Air Force Base where she is a satellite tracker when two men broke into her home, sexually assaulted her, strangled her and then beat her unmercifully with a hammer.
VAN SUSTEREN: One of the men who has been arrested is here in this country illegally, having been released having been released on other charges?
MARTIN: Yes that’s correct my officers have arrested on Martinez six times in the past 15 months.
VAN SUSTEREN: And why was he out on the street?
MARTIN: Well the state of California has Prop 47 which was really pulled the wool over the eyes of the people here. It was supposed to be safe neighborhoods and safe schools. The reality was they decriminalized all of the small possession cases. So if you’re carrying such things as heroin or methamphetamine, we can’t take you to jail anymore.
VAN SUSTEREN: Chief, I take it and hope that tonight he is in jail having been charged with murder. He hasn’t been let out on this one, right?
MARTIN: Oh no no, this is a felony so he’s been booked for first-degree murder, and the district attorney and I are going to meet next week and this is really a death-penalty-eligible case.
VAN SUSTEREN: How tough is it been in your department these days. Immigration laws are so confusing and and and no one really knows what to do.
MARTIN: Well Greta, it starts in Washington, DC. I’m gonna stand by my comment earlier today that I believe there’s a blood trail from Washington to Sacramento into the bedroom of of Marilyn. We see time after time that this administration throws buckets of nails in front of ICE. Our state has been dumping thousands and thousands of prisoners back into our streets under AB109 and with Prop 47, it’s just like going to the beach and picking up a bucket of sand. We just can’t keep up.
VAN SUSTEREN: Chief, thank you and I totally agree with you that policy should be set here in Washington. I understand that you are just being left with a mess.
A local report adds more details: Two men charged with murder in attack of SM woman, Santa Maria Times, August 7, 2015The men accused of sexually assaulting, strangling and beating a Santa Maria woman last month have been charged with murder, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley announced at a press conference Friday.
Marilyn Pharis, 64, was attacked in her home in the 900 block of North Dejoy Street on the morning of July 24 as she slept following working a night shift as a satellite tracker operator at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin called the assault “a brutal and vicious attack.”
Police said Pharis was sexually assaulted with a foreign object, strangled and beaten in the head with a hammer, leaving her with two shattered eye sockets and a broken neck, and that Victor Aureliano Martinez Ramirez and Jose Fernando Villagomez left her for dead.
She died at Marian Regional Medical Center eight days later. Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin said that an autopsy conducted Thursday confirmed that Pharis died as a result of her injuries.
Ramirez, 29, was arrested on the morning of the attack after he was found hiding nearby under a tarp on a backyard patio by a police dog. Villagomez, 20, was arrested Aug. 4, after already being in custody for a probation violation since July 28.
Police said Ramirez broke into another house while fleeing, telling a mother and three children there that he needed to hide from the police.
Martin acknowledged how the case has become a national issue, due to Ramirez’s status as an undocumented immigrant and his prior arrest record.
The police chief laid the blame for Ramirez’s release into the community on policies set forth by the administrations of President Barack Obama and Gov. Jerry Brown, as well as Assembly Bill 109 and Proposition 47, which he said led to Ramirez being released when he was arrested on drug charges last month.
“I am not remiss to say that, from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento, there is a blood trail into the bedroom of Marilyn Pharis,” Martin said.
Ramirez was arrested in May 2014 for felony assault with intent to commit sexual assault, but the charge was reduced to misdemeanor battery and he was sentenced to probation.
Dudley refused to comment why the case was downgraded.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they asked to be notified when Ramirez was released from County Jail on that arrest, but the notification never came.
Santa Barbara County Undersheriff Barney Melekian, speaking because Sheriff Bill Brown is out of the state, said that ICE detainers at that time were a de facto request to hold, which was made illegal by the 2013 California Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools Act, as well as a federal court case.
Martin said that changes need to come from the federal and state government.
“We can all point fingers locally at each other,” Martin said. “ICE can point the finger at the sheriff, they can point it everywhere else, but the reality is it starts at the very top, and it’s not going to get fixed until it gets started at the very top and reached the lower levels.”
Martin said that he has not heard from anyone in federal or state government about the case.
“Crickets,” he said.
The men will be arraigned for first-degree murder on Thursday, Dudley said.
Special allegations, such as felony murder with rape by instrument and murder with torture, mean that the men could face the death penalty.
“It is too soon in our process for me to make a decision about whether this will be a a death penalty case,” Dudley said.
Martin said that focus should be on the death of Pharis, an Air Force veteran who had worked as a civilian contractor at Vandenberg since 1974.
“Despite this incredible beating, Marilyn would not give up,” Martin said after describing the attack. “She fought back with all of the strength that she could possibly muster, even while receiving repeated blows with a hammer.”
The men will be arraigned for first-degree murder Thursday, Dudley said.
Special allegations, such as felony murder with rape by instrument and murder with torture, mean that the men could face the death penalty.
They also are charged with sexual assault and first-degree burglary.
“It is too soon in our process for me to make a decision about whether this will be a a death-penalty case,” Dudley said.
If Dudley declines to try the case as a death-penalty case, the men will face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Ramirez pleaded not guilty Aug. 31 to attempted murder, sexual assault and burglary, the day before Pharis died.
