"Way Back Jack" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:1115828006.cbc267d53cccb7be13bcd2418e4c64ec@bubbanews...
Quoted message said:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3768485,00.html
Quoted message said:
Slaying suspect worked at Hickenlooper eatery
By April M. Washington And Sarah Langbein, Rocky Mountain News
May 11, 2005A man suspected in the killing of a cop and the target of a massive
manhunt worked with false documentation at the Cherry Cricket, a
restaurant co- owned by Mayor John Hickenlooper, police said Tuesday.Raul Garcia-Gomez, 19, an illegal immigrant, failed to show up for
work Monday morning at the restaurant in the Cherry Creek retail
district after the fatal shooting of police Detective Donald Young and
the wounding of Detective John Bishop early Sunday morning.Lee Driscoll, the mayor's business partner, said Tuesday that the
company learned last month that Garcia-Gomez provided the restaurant
with two forms of identification, but the Social Security number he
provided turned out to be false.Driscoll said Garcia-Gomez's name was on a list he receives annually
from the Social Security Administration. It indicated Garcia-Gomez's
information did not match its records."I learned this morning (Tuesday) that he worked for the restaurant
when I got a call from the general manager . . . who said the police
were questioning people," said Driscoll, president of the Wynkoop
Brewing Co., the parent company of the mayor's restaurants."He worked as a dishwasher. He worked for us about 10 months. He
looked like a stellar employee from what I can determine from his
file."Driscoll is among three business partners who manage Hickenlooper's
trust that oversees 10 restaurants and other financial holdings.The restaurant is owned in part by Hickenlooper, but the mayor is not
involved in day-to-day operations at the Cherry Cricket.Driscoll said neither he nor the restaurants' managers had spoken to
the mayor about Garcia-Gomez's employment.Hickenlooper said Tuesday that he learned of Garcia-Gomez's ties to
the Cherry Cricket after he was briefed by his chief of staff, Michael
Bennet."Certainly, in the restaurant business everyone is like family," he
said. "It's stunning to believe someone a part of the family could
commit such a heinous crime."Hickenlooper said he will not get involved in addressing the hiring
practices at the restaurants in the trust.He said those decisions will be made by Driscoll and each
establishment's general manager."I'm not instructing the restaurants to do anything," Hickenlooper
said. "They're their own ship, running their own course. The reason I
put them in trust was so that I could focus my attentions on running
the city. My only interest is catching the guy and bringing him to
justice."Cherry Cricket managers told police that Garcia-Gomez presented a
resident-alien card when he applied for the job, according to a police
source close to the investigation. The card was handed over Monday and
gave the police their first photo of the suspect - albeit an unclear
one."You could see that this card was fake," said the police source, who
added that the card was falling apart and typewritten.Police continued to stake out the Cherry Cricket on Tuesday to see if
Garcia-Gomez would be brazen enough to return for a paycheck he hadn't
picked up.Driscoll said he believed the restaurant complied with the letter of
the law. It took a copy of Garcia-Gomez's Social Security card and a
copy of his resident-alien card that appeared to be in order and
legal. The card included his photo, fingerprint and a seal from the
U.S. Department of Justice that appeared official.Driscoll said the company is currently meeting with the management of
all its restaurants to provide them with a list of workers whose
information did not match Social Security's records, but had not yet
met with the Cherry Cricket's management.Employers need only check two forms of identification "that reasonably
appear to be genuine," according to federal immigration rules.U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo on Tuesday blasted the Hickenlooper
administration's handling of the case.The Littleton Republican said U.S. immigration officials should have
been contacted after each of three traffic citations issued to
Garcia-Gomez in Denver because police could not confirm his legal
status."Denver's sanctuary policy prevents local law enforcement from
cooperating with federal officials on immigration matters, despite
federal law which explicitly prohibits such a policy," Tancredo
charged in a news release.Tancredo also questioned whether the Cherry Cricket had taken proper
steps to verify Garcia-Gomez's legal status when he was hired.Tancredo had his own brush with such questions in September 2002 when
reports surfaced that some of the workers who helped on a basement
remodeling project at Tancredo's home were illegal immigrants.Tancredo maintained at the time that he simply hired a contractor and
didn't have "the foggiest idea of whether the people hired by the
company I hired were illegal."Driscoll said the restaurants in Hickenlooper's trust employ more than
500 employees in an industry in which turnover is common."Everyone knows there's an issue of illegal aliens working a bunch of
jobs in this country, and particularly in the restaurant business," he
said."Once John decided to run for mayor, we did the research to make sure
we understood the law clearly in this office."
How long will the public support the Washington DC scum who have exposed
American's to harm's way?
Hank
http://www.fairus.org/ Federated Americans for Immgration Reform