Illegal Immigrant Accused Of Murder, Violent Crime Spree Was Ordered Released By Federal Border Patrol

Illegal immigrant Juan Emmanuel Razo has been arrested and accused of murder, attempted rape, and attempted murder, after a violent crime spree left one woman dead, one injured, and a 14-year-old severely shaken up.

The crimes reportedly happened in Painesville, Ohio, according to Cleveland.com, and if Razo turns out to be guilty of the crimes for which he is accused, they could have been avoided.

That’s because police had previously stopped Razo and contacted federal border patrol agents to see if they should hold him for being an undocumented immigrant.

During a July 7 traffic stop, Lake County Sheriff Detective Brian Butler testified in a court hearing, deputies had contacted the border patrol agents, who advised against detainment.

In Painesville Municipal Court, Razo confirmed his illegal immigrant status, claiming that he did not possess a passport or a green card, though he did have a birth certificate from Mexico.

“That doesn’t help you here in the United States,” said a “frustrated” Judge Michael Cicconetti, according to the news site.

Prior to his alleged crimes, Juan Emmanuel Razo had lived in the U.S. for five years and has had “no local criminal history.”

However, 20 days after the traffic stop on July 7, police say that a 14-year-old girl said Razo tried to rape her. While searching for Razo, they received a call of a shooting near the Greenway Corridor in the vicinity. The victim was an unidentified 40-year-old woman with two 12-year-old children.

She was treated for “non-life threatening injuries” at a nearby hospital. Police issued a “reverse 911 call” and advised residents to stay indoors. They also called out two K-9 units for assistance in their search and were eventually flagged down by the husband of Margaret Kostelnik, who informed them he had found his wife dead in their home, the victim of “several gunshot wounds.”

(The Kostelnik home was directly behind the bike path where the first shooting occurred.)

Police later received a call from a man claiming that another man, who turned out to be Razo, was pointing a rifle at his son in the back yard of their home.

Three deputies responded, and claim that Razo fired on them. They returned fire as Razo hid behind a boulder and then decided to give himself up.

He has officially pled not guilty to the attempted murder charge.

His preliminary hearing will be held on Aug. 3.

As to why Razo was released prior to the allegations, there haven’t been any answers quite yet. The Daily Caller reached out to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency and were told by spokesman Jamie Ruiz that the agency was “looking at the facts of the case to find out exactly what happened.”

The website also reports that in the Lake County Sheriff’s report “Emmanuel Razo was secured while we spoke with Officer Rivera of U.S. Border Patrol, who later decided not to respond to take Emmanuel Razo into custody.”

This crime follows on the heels of the murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, who was killed by illegal immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez on July 1. Lopez-Sanchez has admitted to the crime, which occurred after five previous deportations.

These two crimes have, in part, fueled GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s climb to the top of early polls for the 2016 presidential Republican nomination.

Trump made controversial remarks that the illegal immigrant element in the U.S. are largely “murderers” and “rapists.” While many on the right and left have decried those remarks, his dominance atop the GOP field indicates that many right-leaning Americans have not.

Do you think the fact that Razo is an illegal immigrant is irrelevant in this case, or do critics like Trump have a point? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via Lake County Sheriff’s Office c/o Cleveland.com, linked above]