Thalia Huynh relives the memories of June 21, 2017 every day. Huynh and her daughter, Dalena Bustos, were both under arrest, twisting and turning on the floor of a west Houston Walmart.
“Oh my gosh, I was so humiliated,” Huynh recalled. “It’s very embarrassing.”
According to Huynh, around 6:30 that night, she and her daughter went to the Walmart at 2700 S. Kirkwood to buy food.
Huynh said they left after her sister called and told them she had already started making dinner. As the pair was leaving, police records show a plain-clothes loss prevention officer approached them.
Huynh said she didn’t know at the time that the man worked for Walmart.
“We’re walking out and a man approaches me, and he grabs my purse, right before we walk out of the store, and I’m grabbing my purse back from him,” she remembers.
A tussle ensued between the loss prevention officer and Huynh. The cell phone video published on social media shows what happened after both women were on the ground.
Huynh’s pants even fell off during the struggle. She is seen on video with a large group of people looking on, in handcuffs, and only wearing thong underwear. At one point, a Walmart employee used a shopping bag to try and cover her private areas.
Huynh can be heard screaming about her medical condition, as well as a battery on her back during the altercation. She said she has had several back surgeries, and the officer’s treatment of her impacted her health.
“Do you feel like you tried to assault a police officer?” we asked.
“No, no,” said Huynh. “As you can see in the video, we weren’t resisting arrest, I was trying to tell him about my back.”
Both women were charged with assault of a peace officer.
Bustos, the daughter, was also charged with robbery. The robbery charge was dismissed after both women agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. They were sentenced to one year deferred adjudication.
Huynh said they pleaded to a lesser charge only because they were running out of resources to fight the charges, and she did not want her daughter to risk jail time.
Huynh gave Eyewitness News permission to speak to her defense attorney. The attorney said it was her belief, looking at the evidence, that taking a plea deal would be the best course of action. She did not go into further details about the charges against Huynh.
As for the officer’s conduct, court records show a Houston Community College Officer, Marcus McNeil, was the one working an extra job on June 21. He is seen as the main uniformed officer on the video. Police reports indicate McNeil then called Houston Police for help. HPD responded to the scene as an “assist the officer” call.
In the video, an officer can be seen using his baton to position the women as they lay on the ground in handcuffs. HPD said that officer is one of two Westside Patrol officers who responded to the call. As is standard HPD procedure, because a baton was used, an investigation was conducted. HPD said its investigation found the HPD officer to be justified in using the baton as a positioning tool.
Huynh said her main concern is the actions of HCC officer working the extra job. McNeil is identified as the officer the women allegedly kicked at Walmart. HCC would only confirm that an Officer McNeil was on its staff. It was not otherwise aware of the video.
Currently, Huynh and her daughter Bustos are on one year deferred adjudication and will have to pay court ordered fines. She said, in her opinion, she and her daughter did nothing wrong, and only pleaded guilty because they felt like they had no other options.
“It’s something that I would never want anyone I care about to go through,” Huynh said.
Please contact Yong J. An, Attorney/Abogado, if you are charge with any crime at 832 428 5679
Counties Represented:
Brazos (Bryan, College Station),
Brazoria (Alvin, Angleton, Dickinson, Freeport, Lake Jackson, Manvel, Pearland),
Chamber (Anahuac),
Jefferson (Beaumont),
Galveston (Friendswood, Galveston, League City, Texas City)
Harris (Baytown, Deer Park, Galena Park, Katy, Humble, Houston, Memorial, Pasadena, South Houston, Spring, Webster),
Fort Bend (Katy, Missouri City, Richmond, Stafford, Sugarland), Liberty,
Peter Rockwell with family members in Canada. His health issues were ignored while he was in detention.
Faulty procedures and subpar medical care contributed to at least two deaths at a for-profit Houston immigration detention center that is among those with the most reported immigrant deaths in the country, according to a new human rights report.
In one case, Clemente Mponda, a 27-year-old asylum-seeker from Africa who’d repeatedly threatened suicide was left in an isolation cell with more than enough hoarded psychiatric medications to kill himself – which he promptly did, according to Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s own records.
In the other case, no one administered CPR or called 911 immediately after a 46-year-old Canadian detainee, Peter Rockwell, who suffered from high blood pressure, collapsed in a crowded lunchroom in the Houston Contract Detention Center.
The detention center’s handling of both fatalities is criticized in the new report, issued jointly last week by Human Rights Watch and the California-based Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC).
Medical experts reviewed ICE investigations into 18 deaths in immigration detention nationwide and found subpar medical care or other problems contributed to 10 deaths from 2013-2015 – including those of Mponda and Rockwell.
The Houston detention facility in a sprawling complex near the city’s international airport, has reported eight detainee deaths since 2003. Nationwide, only two other immigration detention centers have reported more – Eloy Detention Center in Arizona with 15 and the Columbia Regional Care Center in South Carolina, which doubles as a mental hospital, with nine, according to a Chronicle analysis of ICE data on detainee deaths at 80 facilities since 2003.
The detention of immigrants has taken on new urgency since President Donald Trump ordered stepped-up efforts to round up and deport those in the country illegally and revealed plans for the construction of more centers.
Both Eloy and the Houston CDF are run by a for-profit company called Core-Civic (formerly known as CCA). In response to questions, Jonathan Burns, director of Public Affairs for Core¬Civic, emphasized that other contractors provide medical care at their facilities and that ICE employees have unfettered access and provide extensive oversight.
The numbers of deaths are small given that nationwide, more than 40,000 immigrants are held at any one time by ICE – 75 percent in privately owned facilities like Houston’s. But most detainees are relatively young and spend only months locked up. ICE has discretion to release the sick or dying and ICE generally defended the level of care provided to detainees in a statement issued this week.
ICE itself found multiple problems in its own investigations of both Mponda’s 2013 suicide and Rockwell’s 2014 death. Houston ICE spokesman Gregory Palmore declined to comment.
In both cases, ICE’s own death reports weren’t released until 2016. Because ICE keeps most of its death reports under wraps for years or forever, some relatives are only now learning troubling details.
“I would agree that there is cause for concern regarding Peter’s treatment while in custody,” said Peter Rockwell’s brother Kris in a phone interview from his home in Canada. “There’s a lot of indications of incompetence and borderline abuse.”
Wants accountability
Christina Fialho, co-founder and executive director of the immigrants rights group CIVIC, argued that ICE itself should stop placing immigrants at facilities that repeatedly report deaths and should hold facilities more accountable especially when ICE’s own death investigations find violations of government standards.
“The Houston Detention Center … is one of the deadliest immigration detention facilities in the country,” Fialho said. “CIVIC believes it is past time to shut down Houston Detention Center.”
Burns said it was important to look at the deaths at the facility “in context.”
“The Houston Processing Center is one of the largest detention facilities used by ICE in the country,” he said. “The number of deaths on a per-capita basis would indicate that it is on a comparable level to other ICE facilities.”
Mponda emigrated to the United States legally as a student from Mozambique in 2007, but suffered a mental breakdown and ended up homeless here, according to ICE records. He was placed in deportation proceedings after a misdemeanor conviction.
He filed an asylum claim, but was improperly classified among the most dangerous offenders in detention and repeatedly locked in an isolation cell, ICE’s own investigation shows.
As he waited 15 months for courts to review his case, he repeatedly threatened suicide before he successfully overdosed on hoarded medications. He left behind extra doses of the drugs with his suicide note.
In the Human Rights Watch/CIVIC report, Dr. Marc Stern, a physician at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and a correctional care expert, described Mponda as “the poster child for misuse of isolation for mental health patients.” Both he and another expert also found Mponda’s ability to repeatedly hoard potentially lethal medications without detection represented a “dangerous failure of the facility’s security system.”
ICE’s investigation of Mpdona’s death – released in 2016 – uncovered more than a dozen violations of government detention standards, including improper documentation of the use of isolation cells; failure to perform an adequate search as well as failure to follow guidelines for medical care, suicide prevention, facility security and contraband. But the report includes no record of improvements made in Houston CDF procedures after that death.
Had health problems
Rockwell had lived in the United States for more than a 20 years when he was arrested in Beaumont on a Canadian criminal arrest warrant. He landed in Houston CDF in February 2014 and was immediately flagged by a medical team for high blood pressure and a family history of heart problems, ICE records say.
But the staff failed to follow up on orders for daily blood pressure checks and an EKG. They did little to investigate when Rockwell complained of blurred vision, which can be a symptom of a cranial bleed, Stern said.
After two weeks, Rockwell collapsed while heating food at a microwave. An emergency response team arrived, but no one brought oxygen, a defibrillator or other emergency equipment required by ICE. Nor did anyone immediately administer CPR, though Rockwell lost consciousness, foamed at the mouth and had no measurable blood oxygen level. Instead, a team hauled him through a hallway on a stretcher that they could not raise. It took eight minutes before anyone called 911.
Both Stern and another medical expert quoted in last week’s Human Rights Watch/CIVIC report found substandard care contributed to Rockwell’s early death.
In an email to the Chronicle, Dr. Dwayne Wolf, who performed Rockwell’s autopsy at the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, separately confirmed the brain lesion that killed Rockwell was an “intracerebral hemorrhage … a direct consequence of small vessel damage in the brain caused from high blood pressure (hypertension). It’s a complication of high blood pressure.”
Medical team assailed
ICE’s own death investigation cited problems with emergency equipment, medical response, facility record-keeping and follow-up. The report faulted the medical team, which ICE directly oversees. It also found detention center staff failed to render aid, keep adequate supplies, fill out required reports, review the incident with staff and retain videos.
Rockwell’s stepmother and brother who live in Canada had never seen the ICE death investigation until it was sent to them by the Houston Chronicle.
“We could never find out what happened,” said Sandra Rockwell, Peter’s stepmother. “I really felt the whole thing was very suspicious. We received no death report, no paperwork. Nothing to my knowledge.”
In another case, Nho Thi Nguyen, 61, originally from Vietnam, collapsed in a shower and died after only three days in Houston CDF in 2015, according to a Harris County autopsy records and an ICE news release. Her death was not evaluated by experts in the Human Rights Watch/CIVIC report because ICE has never released its death investigation. Palmore declined comment.
The Houston Chronicle asked Stern, one of the experts who reviewed other immigrant death records, to review Nguyen’s autopsy and a death investigation report – and he identified troubling potential signs that Nguyen too may have received inadequate care for high blood pressure before her death.
Arrested upon return
Nguyen emigrated to the United States legally in 2000, according to federal court records. She lived with her husband in a two-story townhome near a section of Bellaire Boulevard where the street signs are posted in Vietnamese. Nguyen had traveled to Vietnam and was returning home when she was detained at the Houston airport in 2015. She was placed in deportation proceedings based on a five-year-old misdemeanor conviction. Court records show she had lied to an immigration official to help a 14-year-old sister, who used false immigration papers.
Her husband later told investigators that Nguyen was not getting medication for high blood pressure while in custody. Before her death, she’d been identified as a “fall risk” and her blood pressure readings had skyrocketed to 230/110 – a life-threatening level generally considered the highest risk category for heart attack, stroke or other crisis, county records show.
She collapsed in a shower and died in a hospital of an aneurysm, an autopsy record shows.
Based on county records, Stern said that if the detention center officials had identified Nguyen as a fall risk – as indicated by a bracelet she wore – they should have investigated and not allowed her to shower alone. He also said untreated high blood pressure could have contributed to her death from an aneurysm, though limited public records do not provide a complete picture.
Call Attorney/Abogado Yong J. An at 832 428 5679 for Criminal or any immigration issues:
Counties Represented:
Brazos (Bryan, College Station),
Brazoria (Alvin, Angleton, Dickinson, Freeport, Lake Jackson, Manvel, Pearland),
Chamber (Anahuac),
Jefferson (Beaumont),
Galveston (Friendswood, Galveston, League City, Texas City)
Harris (Baytown, Deer Park, Galena Park, Katy, Humble, Houston, Memorial, Pasadena, South Houston, Spring, Webster),
Fort Bend (Katy, Missouri City, Richmond, Stafford, Sugarland), Liberty,
Montgomery (Conroe, Woodland), and
Waller (Hempstead).
Mientras respondían a la llamada sobre una pareja conflictiva, la policía de Berkeley reportó que el Lunes ellos encontraron casi 700 libras de psilocibina, también conocidos como hongos “mágicos” con valor en las calles de $1 millón dentro de la casa. La policía también descubrió un cultivo masivo y operaciones de venta de las drogas ilegales.
La policía llegó a la casa en la calle 1700 de la Avenida Alcatraz a las 10 pm del Sábado, después de recibir una llamada de violencia doméstica. En una declaración del Lunes, la policía dijo que una mujer de 37 años y su esposo de 35 años de edad se rehusaron a abrir la puerta. Pero, después de un rato, la pareja obedeció y salió de la casa y fue arrestada. Los oficiales después entraron a la casa para ver si había alguien más adentro.
Los oficiales comenzaron una orden de allanamiento e incautaron un total de 677 libras de alteradores-de-la-mente de hongos mágicos, y más de $3,000 en efectivo. La declaración también decía que la evidencia indicaba una operación de procesamiento a gran-escala de hongos psicodélicos u hongos “mágicos”.
La pareja fue enviada a la Prisión del Condado de Alameda por cargos relacionados-narcóticos. Sus nombres no han sido revelados todavía.
SI has sido arrestado o enfrenta cargos penales, una defensa efectiva puede ser un factor decisivo entre una sentencia de prisión y un cobro reducido o anulación de cargos. Si usted ha sido arrestado o enfrenta un caso de defensa de derecho penal (tales como inmigración, acto criminal, deportación, DWI o DUI, robo, asalto, asaltos relacionados con drogas, etc.), también es crucial que usted sepa sus derechos. Yong J. An es un ex fiscal federal y estatal y especializado como abogado de delitos, quien le proporcionará toda la representación que necesita. Su prioridad debería ser encontrar un abogado en derecho que conozca el sistema de justicia penal, particularmente las leyes de Texas. Yong J. An también proporciona asistencia para clientes que hablan coreano, vietnamita, chino y español. Yong J. An tiene dos despachos de abogados con oficinas en ubicaciones de conveniencia en el centro de la ciudad y está disponible en el teléfono 24/7 y puede ser contactado al 832 428 5679 por llamada o texto.
Yong J. An DWI, Abogado de Defensa Criminal, Pearland, Angleton, Lake Jackson, Manvel, Alvin, Freeport, Sugarland, Missouri City, League City, Ciudad de Texas, Friendswood, Galveston, Dickinson, Waller County, Hempstead, Chamber County, Anahuac, Montgomery County, Woodland, Conroe, Jefferson County, Beaumont, Liberty County, Brazos County, College Station, Bryan, Harris County, Brazoria County, Galveston County, Fort Bend County.
El jueves, una unidad K-9 incautó con $237,576 en efectivo durante un control de tráfico en la US 59, según los reportes de la Oficina del Alguacil del Condado de Fort Bend.
Una madre de Mission, Texas, con cuatro hijos, estaba dentro del vehículo al momento de la detención. Los policías liberaron a las cinco personas en la escena, pero se inició una investigación en relación al arresto. La Oficina del Alguacil aclaró en un comunicado que la madre podría ser acusada de lavado de dinero. El SUV fue detenido a causa de una infracción de tránsito por uno de los miembros del equipo de interdicción de la Fuerza Especial anti Narcóticos del Condado de Fort Bend, al momento en que el vehículo se dirigía en al sur por Rosenberg. El dinero fue incautado en una investigación en el camino, dijo la oficina del alguacil.
La unidad de trabajo está conformada por agencias locales y trabaja bajo la dirección de la Iniciativa para el Tráfico de Drogas de Alta-Intensidad de Houston.
Si ha sido arrestado o enfrenta cargos penales, necesitará que alguien esté de su lado. Una defensa efectiva puede ser el factor decisivo entre una sentencia de prisión y un cargo reducido o rechazado. Si ha sido arrestado o enfrenta un caso de defensa penal (como inmigración, acto criminal, deportación, DWI o DUI, robo, asalto, asaltos relacionados con drogas, etc.), de cualquier forma es crucial que conozca sus derechos.
Yong J. An es un ex fiscal federal y estatal y abogado de defensa penal, quien le proporcionará la representación que necesita. Su prioridad entonces debe ser encontrar a un abogado que conozca el sistema de justicia penal, particularmente la ley de Texas. Yong J. An también proporciona asistencia para clientes que hablan coreano, vietnamita, chino y español. Yong J. An tiene dos despachos de abogados en lugares convenientes en el centro de Houston y está disponible por teléfono las 24 horas, todos los días de la semana, también puede contactar al 832 428 5679 por llamada y mensaje de texto.
Yong J. An DWI, Abogado de Defensa Criminal, Pearland, Angleton, Lake Jackson, Manvel, Alvin, Freeport, Sugarland, Missouri, League City, Ciudad de Texas, Friendswood, Galveston, Dickinson, Waller County, Hempstead, Chamber County, Anahuac, Montgomery County, Woodland, Conroe, Jefferson County, Beaumont, Liberty County, Brazos County, College Station, Bryan, Harris County, Brazoria County, Galveston County, Fort Bend County.
Un hombre Sospechoso de Robo está demandando a un Buen Samaritano que trataba de parar un robo en un Starbucks en Julio, quién ahora podría estar siendo demandado por el sospechoso, por las heridas que el supuesto ladrón recibió del Buen Samaritano.
Ryan Flores, 30, está enfrentando cargos por asalto y robo en Segundo grado con un arma letal, el cual se derivó de un asalto en Fresno Starbucks. Flores fue arrestado después que el presuntamente intentó robar a un barista con una pistola falsa y usando una máscara de Transformers — y en el proceso, él fue golpeado por un cliente y apuñalado con su propio cuchillo.
Cregg Jerri, de 58 años, era ese cliente, e intervino en el intento de robo golpeando a Flores con una silla desde atrás. Flores sacó un cuchillo y luchó, con los dos hombres que luchaban por el arma. Jerri sufrió una herida de arma blanca en el cuello, pero esto no bastó para que fuera capaz de tomar el cuchillo y apuñalar a Flores 17 veces durante la pelea.
La madre de Flores, Pamela Chimienti, describió las acciones de Jerri como “fuerza excesiva” y dijo a KSEE que Flores planeaba abrir una demanda.
“El tipo en mi opinión, fue de Buen Samaritano a vigilante,” Chimienti dijo a la estación de noticias. “Apuñalar a alguien tantas veces, no hace falta herir a alguien tantas veces para que sucumba.”
El video del robo más tarde se volvió viral y mostró el encuentro entre Jerri y Flores, y la pelea que resultó en lesiones para ambos hombres.
El padre de Flores, Mark Flores, le dijo a Fresno Bee: “Entiendo que él (Ryan Flores) robó la tienda pero (Jerri) apuñaló a mi hijo 17 veces”.
Ryan Flores, actualmente está en la cárcel del condado de Fresno, no confirmó ni negó directamente la demanda, y en cambio le dijo al periódico que está tomando las cosas “paso a paso”.
“no me gusta juzgar a las personas,” Flores dijo, “pero habían un montón de heridas de puñal.”
El jefe de la Policía de Fresno Jerry Dyer, quien inicialmente elogio las acciones de Jerri para frustrar el robo, califico la idea de Jerri de ser demandado de “ridícula” Los comentarios de analistas legales comentaron sobre el caso y expresaron que la demanda no tendría mucho fundamente, diciendo que “malicia irrazonable” sería difícil de probar.
Yong J. An, DWI, Abogado de Defensa Penal, practica ante Houston, Pearland, Angleton, Lake Jackson, Manvel, Alvin, Freeport, Sugarland, Missouri City, League City, Texas City, Friendswood, Galveston, Dickinson,Waller County, Hempstead, Chamber County, Anahuac, Montgomery County, Woodland, Conroe, Jefferson County, Beaumont, Liberty County, Brazos County, College Station, Bryan, Harris County, Brazoria County, Galveston County, Fort Bend County.
