The bumbling federal agent who fired two gunshots at an innocent, unarmed man sitting in an SUV located between him and an occupied Anaheim elementary school won't be prosecuted, the Orange County District Attorney's office announced today.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Justin Wiessner with the Department of Homeland Security told OCDA investigators that he fired the shots because the intended victim, Daniel Noriega, “intentionally [tried] to ram” his unmarked government vehicle and therefore, so his tale goes, believed his life was in danger and required a lethal response.
]
The excuse is laughably ridiculous but apparently good enough for District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, whose underlings claimed with straight faces that they could not prove Wiessner had acted recklessly.
Really?
At
the time of the 2011 incident, Wiessner had wrongly assumed Noriega was another person wanted by the agency. But the man was unarmed, innocent and minding his own business. His vehicle didn't ram anything or even come close to ramming
Wiessner's car. He was leaving a parking lot after dropping off a little boy for school when the ICE agent startled
him by racing up at an angle and firing the shots without identifying
himself and while sitting inside his car.
Noriega, who is suing
the agent for nearly killing him without cause, was so scared that a nut
or a criminal had tried to kill him he that fled to a gas station and
immediately called 911.
Wiessner stayed at the scene and concocted his lame explanation while the elementary school–the one with two fresh bullet holes in the walls by classroom entrances–was forced to evacuate students for their safety.
Go HERE to read my original article on the ICE shooting.
In California, law enforcement officers are routinely granted special, legal protections after they've abused citizens.
Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
Hey Scott thanks for writing this exactly how you say it here it happened.Iam Daniel Noriega the survivor from this incident would like to ask you some questions if you have time I will put my email and phone number want to ask you questions about the case