Congressional Testimony – A Review of the Department of Homeland Security’s Policies and Procedures for the Apprehension, Detention and Release of Non-Citizens Unlawfully Present in the United States
February 25, 2015, delivered by Michael Ronnebeck for the Ronnebeck family
Good morning Distinguished Committee members, my name is Michael Ronnebeck. I am here on behalf of the Ronnebeck Family. I’d like to tell you about my nephew, Grant Ronnebeck . . .
Grant was a 21 year old son, brother, nephew, and grandson. He was a bright young man, with an infectious smile and love of life. He had a positive outlook on life, and everyone he met knew it.
As a 21 year old American, he was just starting out in life; starting out to realize his dreams, starting to follow his heart in manners of career choices, and just discovering his life choices. His desire was to work his way up at the job he loved, working for the QuikTrip Corporation as he had for the previous 5 years, or possibly later to become a member of the law enforcement community.
He loved 4-wheeling in the desert around his home near Mesa, Arizona, and spending time with friends and family watching the Broncos play during the football season. He was a pretty typical young American man, but to us he was a very special family and community member.
At 4:00 a.m. on January 22, 2015, while working the overnight shift at his Quiktrip store, Grant assisted a man buying cigarettes. The man dumped a jar of coins on the counter and demanded cigarettes. Grant tried explaining that he needed to count the coins before he could give the man the cigarettes. The man then pulled a gun, and stated “you’re not gonna take my money”, and “you’re not gonna give me my cigarettes.”
Grant immediately offered up the cigarettes to the man, who shot him in the face, killing him. Seemingly unaffected, the man then stepped over Grant’s body, grabbed a couple of packs of cigarettes, and then left the store.
After a 30 minute high speed chase through the streets of Mesa and Phoenix, Arizona, the man was taken into custody. Inside his car were the cigarettes, at least two handguns, and the shell casings from the 9mm handgun believed to have been used to kill Grant.
Apolinar Altamirano, the alleged murderer, is an illegal immigrant. According to a news article detailing his 2012 arrest, he is a self-proclaimed member of the Mexican mafia, and says he has ties to the Sinaloa drug cartel.
The news article states that in August of 2012, he was arrested with two others after kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and burglarizing a woman in her apartment. He took a plea deal, and pled guilty to a charge of felony burglary for that incident. He was sentenced to two years of probation and turned over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency due to his undocumented status in the United States. He never served any time in custody.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency released the now convicted felon Altamirano on bond pending a deportation hearing.
In the two years since then, while awaiting his deportation hearing, Altamirano has had two orders of protection filed against him, including one from a woman who claimed he threatened to kill her, and pointed a gun at her boyfriend.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was notified of the protection orders by a Mesa Superior Court judge.
Altamirano was still allowed to be free in our Country.
Your peer, Rep Matt Salmon (AZ-05) said it clearly in a Colleague letter to you.
“I believe there is simply no excuse for ICE to be releasing individuals like this back onto our streets to endanger and kill hardworking Americans.”
I have to agree with Mr Salmon’s assessment. My family also agrees with Mr. Salmon.
ICE should be doing its job for the American people, with the American People’s safety and security first and foremost in mind.
It is my family’s greatest desire that Grant Ronnebeck’s legacy will be more than a fading obituary, a cemetery plot, or a fond memory. Instead, we want Grant’s death to be a force for change and reform in the immigration policies of this great nation.
In closing, I am asking you, our elected scholars, lawyers, and community leaders, to make these changes; to rise above your political differences, to set aside your personal interests, and to use your resources to make sensible immigration reform a reality in the coming months, so that tragedies like this might not ever occur again.
Biography – Michael Ronnebeck
Michael Ronnebeck is a 52 year old United States citizen who currently resides in Sacramento California. He attended Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, California, and studied Administration of Justice at San Jose State University in San Jose, California. Michael has worked in the Retail Loss Prevention Profession for the past 30+ years for companies such as Neiman Marcus, and Target Corporation and has been involved in thousands of criminal apprehensions and investigations. He is also an aspiring Photographer.
This is relevant to guns? I can see the tangential relationship of the Left’s lack of regard for Constitutional limits on power, but this site is The Truth About Guns, not The Truth About Democrats.
I was thinking that.
It’s relevant because the Demanding Moms blame this young man’s death on a “lack of common sense gun laws”, while cheering on our legal system for allowing predators such as Mr. Altamirano free reign.
It is about guns, carry one or be a victim. This kid should not be dead because this illegal should have been shot and killed long before this holdup murder…..democRATS do suck.
It’s relevent in that those same democrats use the stats for the murder victims piled up by their pet illegals to argue for more gun control.
I’m for legal immigration. But no way the killer in this case could have qualified to be here legally. He was in continous contact with law enforcement and was still not deported.
The current administration has had 6 years to do something about our borders. And they were involved in illegal gun running, fast and furious, which got both American and Mexican citizens murdered.
This same administration that refuses to enforce our laws on immigration is trying to deny me my rights as a citizen to own and carry firearms.
Well stated JWM and I couldn’t agree more with every bit of what you said, in particular the last paragraph.
The Truth About Democrats would be a pretty awesome site though…
No, it isn’t relevant.
Aren’t we always saying that “gun violence” is a sham? Well, it works both ways. Guns have nothing to do with this.
Criminals exist in the United States and some of those criminals are also illegal immigrants. Our federal government is ineffective at addressing either of these issues.
Beyond these tenuous links, this post is not gun related.
This is a story of a 21 year old *shot in the face* because of multiple failures in or “justice” system, failure to deport (or better yet, execute) a known murderer, and failure to have a secure border in the first place. Part of the reason I have as much hardware as I do is a direct result of my proximity to Mexico. And that we lack border security. And we fail to deport or execute murderers.
Anyone within 300 miles of the U.S. / Mexico border better be aware of the violence south of the border. Ranchers in border states certainly are. Also, illegal immigrant violence affects our entire nation. I’ve personally investigated hundreds of crimes – including murder – which involve illegal immigration and our porous border.
If you think this stuff isn’t relevant than your OPSEC needs improvement.
It might have been helpful to preface the article. The article illustrates the shortcomings of government and why we should seriously consider arming ourselves for self-defense.
Yeah, an explanatory note for antis to the effect of “this is the government you think will protect you?”
The Obama Administration and the Permanent Governing Class within the various Federal Departments are using illegal immigration + amnesty to achieve an electorate more supportive of their aims, a major one of which is disarmament of law-abiding civilians.
TheTruthAboutImmigration
You beat me too it…
Any story involving firearms is fair game for this site. That’s how we roll.
So it seems.
And so it should be. We citizens who believe in and exercise (or attempt to exercise) our freedoms under the Second Amendment protections of the Bill of Rights do not exist in our own little vacuum. Innumerable day to day events impact our protected and inalienable rights.
The tone of various government entities toward gun rights starting with this stinkin’ ‘progressive authoritarian’ administration is just one facet in an overall attack on our security and freedoms leading us toward national decline. The erosion of our gun rights is one aspect of an overall anti freedom government overreach by national, state and local elected and regulatory bodies, and even if the gun rights element is only ancillary to the particular issue at hand it should not be ignored.
You should totally ask for your money back from RF.
All true, and all off-topic.
I am amused by the outrage here that TTAG dare post about something other than guns.
The truth about guns is they are tools to safeguard your family. The truth is there are those running wild and in power that wish for nothing more than you to be a good sheep.
This article serves to point out that truth. If you cannot see that, then go join the other ostriches with their heads in the sand.
Word.
We pay a very high price to be PC in the USA and it is only going to get worse. The illegal immigrants, La Raza, the ICE, the Border Patrol, BATF, DEA, Drug Cartels, and other entities are quite political chess pieces in this vast political game being led by the Donkeycraps.
How this story should have and could have read was the young man did himself, his community, and his nation a favor by shooting and killing a would-be robber who turned out to be another in a long line of illegal alien criminals who were never dealt with properly. Instead we have another case of a crook using an indubitably illegally-obtained firearm in the course of a heinous crime which only adds to the cooked statistics used by gun control kooks to bang their victim-skinned drums for the advancement of further violation of every American’s God-granted and Constitutionally-affirmed right to defend themselves.
If you can’t see how this is gun-related you are a fool.
It’s the War on (Some) Drugs that made the cartels rich.
It’s the War on (Some) Drugs that made the cartels dangerous.
It’s the War on (Some) Drugs that drives their violence.
It’s the War on (Some) Drugs that needs to end.
If you end the War on (Some) Drugs, you end most of the violence. If you end most of the violence, you also end most of the current (and fading) support for gun control.
+1.
The only drug apparently involved in this particular violent episode was nicotine. Somehow I doubt legalizing drugs will make violence disappear–or even “most” violence, as the usual drug-related violence seems to keep pretty much under the national radar. . Same as I don’t think criminalizing guns will make violence disappear. And if drug-related violence did disappear, the top-rank gun controllers would use that as an excuse for more gun control (e.g. now you don’t need them for self defense, so there’s no reason they can’t be locked away until hunting season, right?), not as a reason to diminish their efforts. As for the rank-and-file sheep–it’s not the everyday drug-related violence that motivates them, it’s the occasional multiple shooting. Whether the War on Drugs is a good or bad thing is debatable, but I just don’t think it is determinate of the gun-rights issue.
+1
You forget about the 18th amendment & the violence that resulted from enforcing it. How can anyone forget Al Capone or any of the other mobsters from that period.
+2
I think you are forgetting that the killer is at least probably connected with Mexican drug cartels, if there were no illegal drugs he would not even be in the US.
I have first hand experience at shooting scenes were legal and “prescription” marijuana was sold in CA. Every drug there was legal, but the armed robbery and attempted murder were not. Even if drugs are legalized, they will still be abused, and there will still be crime.
With that being said, I see no reason why we should not severely curtail the war on drugs.
We’ve actually seen an interesting situation in Colorado. Banks won’t do business with the new legal MJ shops, because MJ is still an illegal drug under Federal law, and they don’t want to get hauled up for laundering “drug money.”
Therefore the MJ stores are cash only businesses, which makes them magnets for armed robbery, either during business hours, or when all the cash is being moved to wherever it is going. This is a case of crime continuing to occur after legalization, but it’s STILL the result of a government trying to ban the trade.
I kinda agree. the “war on drugs” has been a dismal failure. prohibition facilitates an underground economy, which requires criminal violence to determine market winners and losers.
The open border policy is allowing Mexico to flood America with high-grade, inexpensive heroin. Last year there were 44,300 drug overdose deaths. This is more than all gun accidents, murders and suicides combined. These deaths are happening in every community and to families you would never expect such a horror to befall.
Yet you mention sealing the southern border and deporting illegal alien criminals and you are branded racist.
The vast majority of drug overdose deaths in the US are from prescription pain-killers pushed by big pharm and approved by the government.
Freaking out about heroin is ironic in the extreme.
Condolences to the family and friends of Grant Ronnebeck.
He was over 18, 21? Perhaps giving his nephew a gun, to protect himself, would have been a great gift while working a kwik emart.
You cannot succeed or survive without the necessary tools to do so.
Given that the so-called ongoing ’GUN CONTROL CONTROVERSY’ is often focused on Criminal use of ‘GUNS’, — every criminal act in which ‘GUNS’ are used affects every American.
That said, no more than cursory research is necessary to discover that highly-significant numbers of criminal acts involving ‘GUNS’ are in fact perpetrated by people who are NOT U.S. Citizens.
Among them are people who have entered the U.S. without inspection ( that’s ‘illegally’ ), people who have been granted Visas or otherwise authorized or allowed by ‘government’ to be in the country or stay illegally.
Quickly to mind come a few high-profile cases.
Lee Boyd Malvo and his mother entered the U.S. illegally as stowaways on a ship. An incident at a residence resulted in their apprehension by agents of the I.N.S.
I.N.S. then had the two in custody, and despite laws which required that ‘ship jumpers’ be detained until deported, I.N.S allowed bail to be posted for the mother and Lee Boyd was released on his own recognizance. John Allen Williams / Muhammad ( a ’convert’ ) and Mr. Malvo stole a rifle from a shooting supply store. Mr. Malvo proceed to shoot innocent people from the trunk of a car driven by Muhammad in terrorist acts as part of a jihad-for-extortion racket. Media headlined it as ‘The Beltway Sniper’.
The murderer at Virginia Tech was a South Korean National, known to law enforcement and feared by both students and teachers alike. ( Student visa or ‘green card’. He was reportedly offered but refused U.S. Citizenship )
Some might recall the Long Island Railroad murderer. A Jamaican National who ‘married into Citizenship’, defied virtually every GUN CONTROL LAW nameable and murdered unarmed-by-law passengers on a commuter train. Carolyn McCarthy launched her political career on a GUN CONTROL platform.
Does it matter that every day in America, GUN CRIMES are committed by Illegal alien criminals? Or that there are many areas in the U.S. where members of gangs are comprised primarily by illegal aliens who commit murder with GUNS? Not to mention trafficking in humans and drugs, rapes, robberies, burglaries and destruction of property?
And what exactly was ‘Fast and Furious’ all about again?
Out of curiosity, with all the stats kept by federal and state agencies, is the absence of a column specifying the Nationality of alleged or actual perpetrators of criminal acts who are NOT U.S. Citizens simply an oversight, or does the question of “What Difference Does it Make” apply to this also?
Knowingly ‘off topic’ — some might have once thought that immigration and control of U.S. borders was one of those necessary functions of the federal government, along with the duty to repel invasion.
Now exactly what constitutes an ’invasion’ is of course, open to interpretation, but some might suggest a few million people having illegally entered the U.S. without inspection might be thought about as an ‘invasion’. Others might simply view it as say, in the case of California for example, re-colonization.
Conspiracy minded types have suggested that flooding the U.S. with persons from the south is all part of an agenda to culminate in the formalization of a North American Union. Final stages to involve appointed bureaucrats with taxing and law-enforcement authority and erasure of the southern border entirely. The NAU will then enact registration of all firearms and their owners for future confiscation, and those in the federal congress will simply say the new laws are out of their hands. But that’s just a theory.
If such “new laws” within the US are out of Congress’ hands, then they are in mine, and we can begin registering the gravesites of those NAU bureaucrats. I’m not real worried about that scenario, however realistic the left thinks they may be. They’d better keep “flying over” my state.
Stuff like this is the reason I joined TTAG. I don’t hunt and I can get gun reviews a gazillion other places. However to blame only dumbocrats is a bit myopic. Yeah this was directly their fault but what about Reagan,Bush 1 and W? We shoulda’ secured our southern border instead of “nation building” in Asia…and do you suppose some of those illegal “immigrants” may have an Islamic jihad bent?
The relevancy comes from the fact that we are in the midst of a debate over funding of a federal department that since it’s inception, meant to coordinate the actions of 22 separate agencies, hasn’t appeared to provide any more security than those separate agencies, and hasn’t accomplished anything except threaten and further violate our constitutional rights. And this is, or should be important to gun owners.
This story cannot be true. Everybody knows that it is illegal for an illegal to possess a gun, so he couldn’t possibly have had one.
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