Family Demands Answers in SWAT Team Killing of Arizona Ex-Marine

Family Demands Answers in SWAT Team Killing of Arizona Ex-Marine
by ELLEN TUMPOSKY
May 19, 2011

The family of an ex-Marine who was gunned down in his home by a Pima County, Ariz., SWAT team firing 71 shots is demanding some answers.

Jose Guerena, 26, died the morning of May 5. He was asleep in his Tuscon home after working a night shift at the Asarco copper mine when his wife, Vanessa, saw the armed SWAT team outside her youngest son's bedroom window.

"She saw a man pointing at her with a gun," said Reyna Ortiz, 29, a relative who is caring for Vanessa and her children. Ortiz said Vanessa Guerena yelled, "Don't shoot! I have a baby!"

Vanessa thought the gunman might be part of a home invasion -- a frequent occurrence in Tucson -- Ortiz said. She shouted for her husband in the next room, and he woke up and told his wife to hide in the closet with the child, Joel, 4.

Guerena grabbed his assault rifle and was pointing it at the SWAT team, which was trying to serve a narcotics search warrant as part of a multihouse drug crackdown, when the team broke down the door. At first the Pima County Sheriff's Office said that Guerena fired first, but Wednesday officials backtracked and said he had not. "The safety was on and he could not fire," according to the sheriff's statement.


SWAT team members fired 71 times and hit Guerena -- an Iraq War veteran -- 60 times, police said.
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Family Demands Answers in SWAT Team Killing

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