Wilmjax News

The Association of Mexicans in North Carolina is holding a leadership summit today and Friday, aimed at informing and strengthening the state’s Latino community.

Juvencio Rocha Peralta, president of the association, said the goals of the summit are to promote leadership, culture, education and health as well as helping the community understand more about these areas.

“We feel like it is time for Latinos to organize around the issues that affect us,” Peralta said. “It needs to be a collaboration between the community in general.”

The two-day event features guest speakers, including Angela Sanbrano, president of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, and Juan Andrade Jr., president of the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute.

Also, the agenda for Friday’s event includes two panel discussions focused on African Americans and Latinos uniting for social justice in North Carolina and the economic benefits of building Latino leadership and partnerships.

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SAMPSON COUNTY –  Sampson County Deputies seized more than $140,000 in cash after pulling over a Mount Olive man in a traffic stop.

Deputies say 25-year-old Rigoberto Rivera was pulled over Thursday afternoon for a window tint violation.

Rivera attemped to run away when officers stopped his car but he didn’t get very far.

The cash that was seized is believed to be drug money.

Rivera is being held on a $3,000 bond.

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DUNN — The search continues for Joaquin Rangel Ramirez.

The only sign of the 31-year-old accused of shooting his estranged wife in a hospital parking lot here Saturday night is the 2002 Cadillac Escalade he was driving.

It was found Tuesday at the home of his brother on Rod Street in Fayetteville. The area is off Wilmington Highway near East Mountain Drive.

The vehicle was towed back to Dunn and searched, Police Chief B.P. Jones said.

“We did find some spent cartridges in the vehicle,” Jones said. “That pretty well confirms the shooting took place from the vehicle.”

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HARNETT COUNTY — The Dunn Police Department is trying to locate 34 year old Joaquin Ramirex.

Officials tell us he shot a woman, the mother of two children who he abducted and then fled the scene.

The children have been found but the hunt is still on for their father wanted for attempted murder.

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Jose Aguilar told Onslow County Sheriff’s Department deputies that his 2-year-old son had slipped in the tub, falling and hitting his head. The boy was rushed to the hospital in a coma.

But investigators said two things bothered them: the evidence at the scene did not match Aguilar’s story and Aguilar had been charged with abusing his son when the boy was 10 months old.

When the boy died nine days later on April 10, 2006, deputies arrested Aguilar and charged him with murder.

Aguilar, 26, pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree murder and felony child abuse resulting in serious injury and was sentenced to a combined total of 28 to 35 years in prison by Superior Court Judge John Nobles.

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A Catawba County man charged with driving drunk through downtown Hickory was sentenced Friday to at least 13 years and five months in prison in connection with a crash that left a woman dead.

Jurors deliberated for five hours before deciding to find 21-year-old Enrique Cardenas Zavala guilty of second-degree murder in the Sept. 29, 2006, death of 55-year-old Rena Moore. Her husband, 59-year-old Jerry Moore, was critically injured.

Attorneys on both sides said they agreed on the facts — that Cardenas Zavala had gone to Hickory High School’s homecoming football game and decided to drink alcohol. Afterward, they agreed, he stopped at a convenience store and bought some beer.

He was speeding through downtown Hickory’s streets, going 62 mph in a 25 mph zone, when he drove his 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix through a red light and slammed into the Moores’ pickup truck.

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HICKORY, N.C. — After deliberations continued this morning in a drunken driving case in Catawba County, 21-year-old Enrique Zavalas is found guilty of second degree murder in the killing a woman last September near downtown Hickory.

Police say Zavalas’ blood alcohol level was above the legal limit and he was driving at more than twice the speed limit when he crashed into Jerry and Rena Moore’s truck.

Rena Moore was killed and Jerry Moore was seriously injured.

Prosecutors say the jury was to decide between second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

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Raleigh — Wake County plans to launch its own crackdown on illegal immigration. Sheriff Donnie Harrison said Wednesday he is working out plans to have deputies start policing immigration issues.

Harrison is among a growing group of North Carolina sheriffs getting into the business of enforcing federal Immigration laws. They are part of a partnership that gives local authorities access to an immigration database.

State troopers said an accident on Interstate 40 in July is an example of a tragic pattern playing out on North Carolina’s roadways and involving illegal immigrants.

The man charged in the fatal accident turned out to be an illegal immigrant driving drunk. At the time of his arrest, Michael Delatorre had a fake ID and had already been deported twice in the past three years.

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CAROLINA BEACH — Crimes committed by illegal immigrants in North Carolina are a concern for law enforcement agencies all around the state, and on Tuesday that issue was discussed in Carolina Beach. 

Sheriffs from all over North Carolina as well as officials from the immigration and customs enforcement attended a conference on Tuesday at the Courtyard Marriott in Carolina Beach.

The group met to discuss new programs that would outline how to handle illegal immigrants that commit crimes in the state.

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Carolina Beach | U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and many of the state sheriffs attending the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association’s fall meeting in Carolina Beach see a proposal to increase cooperation between federal immigration officials and local law enforcement as a way to boost safety and security.

“Where the rubber hits the road, we are going to make a difference,” said Steve Bizzell, Johnston County sheriff and association president.

But others see it as a dangerous precedent that could easily mushroom into something much more sinister.

“It undermines the very principles of community policing and really creates a hostile environment, not just against illegal immigrants but against people who look like one,” said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.

Dole, the sheriffs and immigration officials talked Tuesday about ways of developing new partnerships and relationships to help weed out illegal immigrants among the state’s criminal population.

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CARTHAGE — Two people were arrested on drug charges after lawmen searched a home on West Vermont Avenue in Southern Pines and found drugs, money and paraphernalia.

Officers with the Moore County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Unit and the Southern Pines Police Department’s Special Response Team searched the home at 247 W. Vermont Ave. on Monday, a news release said.

Officers found approximately 11 grams of powder cocaine, $1,135 and drug paraphernalia. The estimated street value of the cocaine is $810, the release said.

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HENDERSONVILLE — Buncombe and Henderson County sheriffs announced Wednesday their plan to become a national model and regional hub for a program that would give local law enforcement officers power to enforce immigration policy at county jails.

The N.C. Sheriff’s Association said this week it would partner with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to help train local detention officers. The plan would allow deportation of illegal immigrants charged with crimes to begin on the local level.

The program in both counties should be rolled out within a year with progress made at the 90- and 180-day marks, said Henderson County Sheriff Rick Davis at a press conference.

North Carolina, which will spend $750,000, is the first state to work with the federal government on starting statewide implementation of the program also known at 287(g).

“Nobody can argue with the deportation of a criminal,” said Davis, who pointed out that there are an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants living in North Carolina.

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Police are looking for two men wanted in connection with a carjacking Sunday evening in southwest Charlotte.

The incident happened shortly after 9:30 p.m. in the 6600 block of Montcrest Drive, off Archdale Road near Archdale Park.

According to police, two men carjacked the victim at gunpoint. They took the victim’s 1995 GEO Prizm. The car is a cream-colored four-door model, with N.C. license tag VRM-3920.

The suspects are described as Hispanic males, about 19 to 20 years old, each weighing about 120 pounds and wearing white shirts.

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A district court judge has revoked an earlier bond and set a new one for a Jacksonville man who is accused of committing a sexual assault while out on bail from a previous sexual assault charge.

Leonel Humberto Saballos, 35, of Broken Oak Court, is in the Onslow County Jail under a $700,000 secured bond. He would have to present the full amount of his bond to the court to be free prior to his court date, which has not been set. He was ordered by the court to surrender his passports or other documents he could use to leave the country, said Dewey Hudson, district attorney for the 4th Prosecutorial District.

Saballos was arrested by the Onslow County Sheriff’s Department on Sept. 2 and charged with breaking into a home and sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl. He had been charged in June with 14 other sex charges and was released July 9 on a reduced bond, law enforcement officials said.

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