These were Victoria’s words—”I won’t live in fear of the police.” For more than one year, Victoria has courageously been working at trying to get the Merced County Jail to provide needed medical help for her husband. She explains that her husband was shot in the leg while on a car chase by a few law enforcement officers last February 2013. He has not been charged with any crime. Court dates are postponed for no apparent reason. Public Defenders have been changed and do not return her calls.
Victoria wonders if this delay is due to the fact that one of the sheriffs involved in the chase was running for Merced City Council at the time and didn’t want to get this negative publicity. He now sits on the Merced City Council while her husband is still in jail.
After a year, her husband still has the bullet in his leg and according to her he is looking very bad, pale, with pain and loss of motion. She is worried for him and has been filing petitions with the court, public defender’s office and has now appealed to the Merced County Board of Supervisors and the Merced City Council at their public meetings.
There has been no action to this day. She wonders about the “protect and serve” motto not applying to all. She recalls that as a teen, she figured out that officers size you up by what you are wearing, where you live, and how you look. She says that law enforcement “profile the poor people” who they know don’t have money to get good representation.
Officers have cussed at her husband and mistreated him for a long time. She also knows that some people are offered jobs as informants in exchange for looking the other way and to nail others that are under suspicion of illegal activities. She has two children and she says she will never give up on her husband who was already focusing on being a father and husband. Her family is her life and she will continue to do whatever she can to help her husband. Beware of who are the real criminals.
