Luis Enrique Monroy Bracamontes is a Mexican convicted murderer who killed two police officers in Northern California. On October 24, 2014, Bracamontes opened fire on three
Sacramento metropolitan area
The Greater Sacramento area refers to a metropolitan region in Northern California comprising either the U.S. Census Bureau defined Sacramento–Roseville–Arden-Arcade metropolitan statistical area or the larger Sacramento–Roseville combined ...
sheriff's deputies, killing two and wounding the third, while a civilian was also wounded in the shooting. Bracamontes is a citizen of
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
and a convicted drug dealer who was in the United States
illegally. Bracamontes was sentenced to death in 2018.
Bracamontes' case earned attention during the
2018 midterm elections
The 2018 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. These midterm elections occurred during Republican Donald Trump's term. Democrats made a net gain of 41 seats in the United States House of Representatives, gaining a majo ...
when the
Trump administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
ran an ad blaming
Democrats for the murders by Bracamontes.
Cable channels such as
Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
,
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
, and
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
stopped airing the ad; and
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
banned it from its platform.
Arrests and deportations
Bracamontes is an illegal immigrant who had been previously deported twice. He was first deported in 1997 after being convicted in Arizona on charges of possessing narcotics for sale. In 1998, he was arrested again on drug charges in Phoenix, but was released "for reasons unknown" by former
Maricopa County Sheriff
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) is the law enforcement agency that serves Maricopa County, Arizona, and is the largest Sheriffs in the United States, sheriff's office in Arizona. The MCSO provides patrol services and criminal investi ...
Joe Arpaio
Joseph Michael Arpaio (; born June 14, 1932) is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He served as the 36th Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017, losing reelection to Democrat Paul Penzone i ...
.
Bracamontes was arrested and deported to Mexico again in 2001.
Shootings and criminal conviction
Bracamontes was using the name Marcelo Marquez when he, with a female accomplice, shot and killed a sheriff's deputy, Danny Oliver of the
Sacramento County Sheriffs Department, in the
Arden-Arcade
Arden-Arcade is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sacramento County, California, United States. The population was 92,186 at the 2010 census, making it the second most populous census-designated place in California. It is east of the city of Sacr ...
neighborhood of Sacramento. He then carjacked several vehicles and shot a driver. Bracamontes then fatally shot another police officer, Detective Michael Davis of the Placer County Sheriff's Department, when he was located in the Auburn Area; he also seriously wounded Davis' partner. He was eventually taken into custody after an extensive manhunt in the area.
After a lengthy courts process of about four years, which was highlighted by his repeated outbursts and other actions in the courtroom, Bracamontes was sentenced to death in 2018.
Responses
The shooting came to national attention in debates over the Obama administration's policies on immigration in the fall of 2014. The shootings came to national attention again when President Trump invited Jessica Davis and Susan Oliver, the widows of slain officers Detective Michael Davis and Deputy Sheriff Danny Oliver, to attend his first address to a joint session of Congress on 28 February 2017.
Trump administration advertisement
Approximately one week before the 2018 midterm elections, the Trump administration ran an advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
that linked Bracamontes to Democrats, accusing Democrats of letting Bracamontes and other dangerous, undocumented immigrants into the United States. The ad drew widespread and bipartisan condemnation and was compared to the infamous Willie Horton ad during the 1988 presidential campaign. Republican Senator Jeff Flake
Jeffry Lane Flake (born December 31, 1962) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current U.S Ambassador to Turkey. A member of the Republican Party, Flake served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013 and ...
said the ad was "a new low in campaigning" and "sickening", Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich
John Richard Kasich Jr. ( ; born May 13, 1952) is an American politician, author, and television news host who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 2001 and as the 69th governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019. A Republican, Kasic ...
said "all Americans should reject this ad and its motives" and Representative Carlos Curbelo
Carlos Luis Curbelo (born March 1, 1980) is an American politician who served as the United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative for Florida's 26th congressional district from 2015 to 2019. In 2018 United States House of Represen ...
condemned the ad as part of a "a divide-and-conquer strategy".
Fact-checkers at PolitiFact
PolitiFact.com is an American nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, with offices there and in Washington, D.C. It began in 2007 as a project of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' (then the ''St. Petersburg Times'' ...
, ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' and ''The Sacramento Bee
''The Sacramento Bee'' is a daily newspaper published in Sacramento, California, in the United States. Since its foundation in 1857, ''The Bee'' has become the largest newspaper in Sacramento, the fifth largest newspaper in California, and the 2 ...
'' found that the assertions "Democrats let him (Luis Bracamontes) into our country" and "Democrats let him stay" were false. CNN refused to air the ad, describing it as a "racist anti-immigration commercial". NBC and Fox News aired the ad, but later said they would not air it. Facebook pulled the ad from its platform, saying it violated community standards.
See also
* List of homicides in California
This is a list of notable homicides in California. This list includes notable homicides committed in the U.S. state of California that have a Wikipedia article on the killing, the killer, or the victim. It is divided into four subject areas as fo ...
* Colorado sanctuary city controversy
Sanctuary city (; ) refers to municipal jurisdictions, typically in North America, that limit their cooperation with the national government's effort to enforce immigration law. Leaders of sanctuary cities say they want to reduce fear of depor ...
* Illegal immigration to the United States and crime
The issue of crimes committed by illegal immigrants to the United States is a topic that is often asserted and debated in politics and the media when discussing Immigration policy in the United States.
There is scholarly consensus that illega ...
* List of death row inmates in the United States
, there were 2,414 death row inmates in the United States. The number of death row inmates changes frequently with new convictions, appellate decisions overturning conviction or sentence alone, commutations, or deaths (through execution or otherw ...
*
* Murder of Jamiel Shaw II The murder of Jamiel Shaw II occurred on March 2, 2008, in Arlington Heights, Los Angeles, California. Shaw, a 17-year-old Los Angeles High School football player, was shot by two Hispanic men while returning home from the Beverly Center. Shaw was t ...
* Office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement
The Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office was a U.S. government agency established within the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration in February 2017. President Donald Trump directed it be established by E ...
* Shooting of Kathryn Steinle
On July 1, 2015, 32-year-old Kathryn "Kate" Steinle was shot and killed while walking with her father and a friend along Pier 14 in the Embarcadero district of San Francisco. She was hit in the back by a single bullet. The man who fired the gun ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bracamontes, Luis
1970 births
Living people
Prisoners sentenced to death by California
Mexican murderers
People convicted of murder by California