A New England talk show (Howie Carr) kicked off his 3 O’Clock hour by discussing a criminal case in Milford, Massachusetts. Last week, there was a horrific hit and run case. Saturday night, a guy in a pickup truck ran down Matthew Denice, who was riding his motorcycle. The truck driver panicked and floored it, tearing down well over half a block before the shouting from pedestrians got him to stop — they were horrified that he was dragging Denice under his truck. At that point, Denice got out from under the truck — at which point the driver, still panicking, slammed the truck into reverse and jockeyed into a better position to get away, and fled into the night — running over the rider a second time.
Mr. Denice didn’t survive. But enough witnesses got enough details of the murder truck, and police discovered they were quite familiar with the suspect. He has a lengthy record — several motor vehicle violations (mainly driving without a license), assault and battery of a police officer, assault and battery of a public employee, and breaking and entering are among the highlights.
Oh, and one more point: he is an illegal alien from Ecuador.
Now, this might have been discovered and acted upon before he allegedly killed Mr. Denice, but Massachusetts’ governor had made certain his “rights” were protected. There’s a federal immigration program called “Secure Communities,” where local law enforcement officials can check the immigration status of people they arrest or otherwise detain. Governor Patrick, who has never passed on an opportunity to suck up to illegal aliens (he’s a fierce supporter of giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens), blocked the state from participating. So Mr. Nicolas Guaman dodged several chances to have his immigration status exposed.
Howie Carr coupled this horrific story with another from California last week, when another alleged illegal alien allegedly pulled a hit and run — this time killing a four-year-old boy in a crosswalk.
Now, most defenders of illegal aliens like to say things like “there’s no such thing as an illegal person” and “we shouldn’t go after every illegal alien, but only those who commit crimes.” Well, that fails, because of the old aphorism: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave/when first we practice to deceive!”
One crime, one deception, one evasion always leads to more. It’s virtually inevitable.
Here are two cases of illegal aliens. They have the need to get around, so they get a motor vehicle. But because they’re illegals, they can’t get a driver’s license and they can’t legally register the vehicle. And because the vehicle isn’t registered, the insurance companies won’t sell the owner a policy. (New Hampshire doesn’t have mandatory insurance, but every other state does.) That means when they get in their vehicle to get around, they’re breaking three laws.They can sometimes try to sneak by under the radar by forging or stealing a license plate, but that just adds a fourth crime to the deed.
And when they get into an accident, that’s when hell breaks loose. They simply can’t afford to have the police investigate them, because then their crimes will be instantly exposed. So they run.
And why not? They’re already screwed six ways to Sunday. Adding “leaving the scene of an accident” isn’t that much more risk, compared to the possible benefits of getting away clean. Toss in the fact that the car is unregistered, then it might even be safely ditched, and the driver might never be linked to the vehicle — and the accident.
One of Bob Dylan’s most memorable lyrics was some very sound advice: “to live outside the law, you must be honest.” (I, personally, first heard about it when it was quoted by Elliot S! Maggin, who used it extensively in his Superman novel, “Last Son Of Krypton.”) It’s very sound advice — if you’re wanted by the police, or doing something illegal, then you absolutely need to minimize the laws you break to draw as little attention to yourself. If you’re carrying drugs in your car, don’t speed, don’t run red lights, don’t weave in and out of traffic — obey all the laws you can.
The problem is, illegal aliens almost have to break laws every day just to get by. Labor laws, if they work. Identity theft or forgery laws, if they try to get a “legit” job. Motor vehicle laws, as above.
Which is why we not only need our comprehensive immigration reform (which must include serious enforcement measures, something the folks who usually use that phrase don’t like to hear), but to improve our ways of identifying illegal aliens when they do come acropper of the law.
There were many opportunities to identify Mr. Gauman as an illegal alien, through his many encounters with the law because he just couldn’t control himself and kept breaking the law. But that never happened, and now a 24-year-old young man is dead.
But at least we know the local cops, when they arrested Mr. Gauman several times, didn’t racially profile him. I guess that makes it all better.
At this point, I am ready to trot out the old line about “sympathy.” If you want to find it, look in the dictionary — it’s between shit and syphilis.
