Illegal and above the law
By Howie Carr | Friday, November 27, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com |
Columnists
If I ever get in a jam, I wouldn’t think of asking for any special
consideration.
Just treat me like an illegal alien.
The illegal alien du jour is Angel Castaneda, also known as Enrique Colon, which
is the name on his driver’s license. It’s called identity fraud, at least if
you’re an American citizen. If you’re an illegal alien, it’s called, “Nothing to
see here, folks. Move along.”
First of all, Angel is no angel. He’s already been deported once, and guess what
- he came back. As the old song goes, “Everything free in America.” And now in
his latest crime he stands convicted last month of holding off an entire shift
of Danvers cops - not one cop but an entire shift - with a chain saw that was
running.
The idiot judge gave him a whopping six months at the House of Correction. Angel
copped an Alford plea and could be out of Middleton by Super Bowl Sunday.
Angel - who after all was only committing the crimes that Americans will no
longer commit - had been “drinking and doing whatever” all night in Lawrence.
Imagine, an illegal alien in Lawrence - excuse me, he’s a “New American,” as
Gov. Deval Patrick puts it.
He was driving back to his house in Danvers when he called his wife, whom he’d
allegedly been threatening all night. She handed the phone to a cop she’d
called, and the cop informed Angel that the missus had asked for a restraining
order.
To which this “New American” responded in so many words, “Restraining orders? I
don’t need no stinkin’ restraining orders.”
A few seconds later, the El Salvadorean criminal pulled up in a pickup truck,
shirtless, started up his chain saw and began, as one newspaper account put it,
“terrorizing his wife’s family, sawing off a patio table umbrella, then trying
to saw his way into a window, and finally trying to cut and kick his way inside
the locked front door.”
The cop radioed back: “Dispatch, send everybody!”
Eventually five Danvers cops arrived. Somehow they got Angel/Enrique to turn off
the saw and put it down.
Luckily for Angel, his lawyer knew how to tug at Judge Robert Cornetta’s
heartstrings. According to The Salem News, she told Cornetta that Angel couldn’t
remember a bit of his crime spree.
Oh yes, the old I-can’t-remember defense. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And for good
measure, he has a “substance” problem and “relapsed” after the death of his
father last year. Riiiiiight.
Asked for a comment, the judge’s flack replied that he did order ICE “be
notified immediately of the defendant’s illegal status and to hold him on a
detainer.”
Of course, these days among New Americans the synonym for deportation is
“vacation.” Given his record, chances are good he’ll be resuming his crime wave
in Lawrence sometime around Groundhog Day. He’ll have a new driver’s license
under a new fake name, he won’t be paying taxes, and by next fall he could very
well be voting in the governor’s race.
For Deval Patrick, naturally.
Article URL:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1214831
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Jules Crittenden is a Boston Herald editor who has reported on politics, crime, science, maritime matters, foreign affairs and conflict in the United States, Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East.
Howie Carr is THE best columnist in the city of Boston.
I was born and raised in the People's Republic of Cambridge, across the Charles River from Boston. I escaped in 1967 and became a naturalized citizen of the Republic of Texas.