We mourn the loss of Chandler police officer Carlos Ledesma, the murder victim during an undercover operation in south Phoenix early Wednesday evening--and we are going to look into the ill-fated circumstances at a later date.
We first heard about the shootout inside a residence in the crime-ridden Lindo Park neighborhood shortly after it happened, when a law enforcement buddy rang us up.
We jumped back on the Internet, where we had been looking at something on one of the local television station's sites.
It hadn't been 90 minutes since word of the deadly shootout seeped out, and a bunch of the mopes already were in custody (presumably for the rest of their lives in many instances).
Yet comments from the peanut gallery, aka the "public." already were pouring in.
No matter to those scribes that the earliest footage from the bloody scene showed several African-Americans being taken into custody,
As far as their anonymous asses were concerned, this was yet another example of the horrors that illegal immigrants are bringing into our formerly pristine (yeah, right) neighborhoods.
"This proves what Arpario (sic) and Brewer and all of them have been saying," one person wrote. "We have to end the illegals, no matter what it takes."
Yup, end the illegals.
Another brainiac typed in this gem: "I hate those alien bastards."
We know tensions are at a fever-pitch and all that over the SB 1070 BS.
And, for the record, we are aware that undocumented immigrants are responsible for their share of the crimes here in the Valley and everywhere else.
But, hey now!
The alleged killers of Officer Ledesma by all accounts were born and raised right here, in the good old United States of America.
Not that any of it matters at this point to the late officer's grieving family and other loved ones, but the accused are of African-American descent.
