A man wanted in connection with the 2008 killing of a Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s deputy in Cypress Park has been returned to the U.S. from Mexico to face charges.<\/p>\n
Roberto Salazar, 38, was arrested in March by Mexican authorities and transferred Tuesday into U.S. custody. He is scheduled to be arraigned in a downtown L.A. courthouse Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cJustice has been a long time coming, but today we are one step closer,\u201d Sheriff Robert Luna said during a press conference at the Hall of Justice Wednesday afternoon. <\/p>\n
The L.A. County district attorney\u2019s office will charge Salazar with first degree murder with special circumstances and conspiracy to commit murder, which carries a life sentence without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n
Salazar was handed over along with 25 other prisoners described by U.S. and Mexican authorities as high-ranking drug cartel members. Mexico long ago abolished capital punishment and reportedly agreed to the mass prisoner transfer on the condition that none face the death penalty.<\/p>\n
Salazar\u2019s case dates back to Aug. 2, 2008, when Juan Abel Escalante was shot in the back of the head as he was reaching to adjust a child\u2019s seat inside his car outside his parent\u2019s house as he readied to leave for his job at Men\u2019s Central Jail.<\/p>\n
By December 2012, four of the six alleged members of the notorious Avenues gang that authorities accused of having been involved in the killing had been arrested and charged. That list included Carlos Velasquez, who was arrested in December 2008 and ultimately pleaded guilty to murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Authorities said Velasquez shot Escalante multiple times after mistaking him for a rival gang member.<\/p>\n
U.S. Atty. Gen. Pamela Bondi described the return of the 26 men as \u201cthe latest example of the Trump administration\u2019s historic efforts to dismantle cartels and foreign terrorist organizations\u201d in a statement Tuesday. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Celeste Escalante, wife of Juan Abel Escalante and their daughter watch as pall bearers walk with the casket of her during funeral services on Aug. 8, 2008. <\/p>\n
(Al Seib \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Escalante and his family were living at his parents\u2019 home in Cypress Park at the time of his slaying. He had served in the Army Reserve and had been working for the sheriff\u2019s department for 2\u00bd years.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy words go out to the Escalante family. That relentess pursuit of justice is not over, but we are almost there,\u201d Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man wanted in connection with the 2008 killing of a Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s deputy in Cypress…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":143745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,85285,85284,7726,85287,21183,2961,35699,224,5337,85283,2222,9620,6976,84046,23872,5618,1439,85286],"class_list":{"0":"post-143744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-carlos-velasquez","11":"tag-cypress-park","12":"tag-deputy","13":"tag-escalante","14":"tag-killing","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-long-time","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-mexican-authority","20":"tag-mexico","21":"tag-murder","22":"tag-parent","23":"tag-roberto-salazar","24":"tag-special-circumstance","25":"tag-tuesday","26":"tag-u-s","27":"tag-u-s-atty"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115024342992409461","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}