SAN
ANTONIO - A teenage girl, shot and killed by federal drug
agents, was a victim of excessive force from law officers
who were investigating her father, relatives and friends
say.
Ashley Villarreal, 14, died on Tuesday evening after
family members requested that she be taken off life
support at Wilford Hall Medical Center.
A friend challenged Drug Enforcement Administration
officials' account of how agents on Sunday had shot the
daughter of Joey Angel Villarreal, a three-time convicted
drug offender who turned himself in and was charged with
cocaine trafficking a day after the shooting.
Ashley Villarreal had been hospitalized in critical
condition since being shot once in the back of the head.
One of the agents at a drug stakeout in plain clothes and
unmarked vehicles were watching a house on the city's
west side where they believed a suspect was hiding when
they saw a man get into the passenger side of a car, San
Antonio police Sgt. Gabe Trevino said.
"A girl got into the driver's side of the vehicle,
and when they started leaving without the headlights on,
and at a high rate of speed, the agents felt certain that
this was their suspect and he was trying to escape,"
Trevino said after the shooting.
When agents boxed the car in and attempted to arrest the
man, they said the girl who was driving the car continued
toward them and slammed into their vehicle, then shifted
into reverse and rammed the DEA vehicle behind her.
Agents fired at least four times, and the girl was struck
in the head.
Trevino said the man was not the drug suspect agents were
seeking, but he was booked into jail on a charge of
public intoxication.
Daniel Robles, a family friend and housemate who was with
the teenager during the stakeout, said the unmarked
vehicles that emerged moments after the girl pulled out
of the driveway appeared to be pursuing her. "It
makes me really angry," Robles told the San Antonio
Express-News earlier Tuesday. "This girl's dying and
there are these reports that she threatened them."
Investigators from the DEA arrived Tuesday afternoon to
begin reviewing the death. San Antonio police officers
continued their investigation, questioning the shooting
victim's grandmother.
Robles said the agents opened fire immediately after the
crash and didn't identify themselves until afterward.
"The first shot was fired and Ashley didn't say a
word," he said. "She didn't scream or anything
and I knew she was hit with the first shot."
Robles said the girl had not tried to back up unless,
somehow in the collision, her automatic transmission was
knocked into reverse. He said there was no way for the
car to have endangered the agents. - "How could they
feel threatened when we were jammed in between (their
vehicles) like a sandwich?" he said.
Law officers declined to respond to Robles' version or to
discuss details of the case Tuesday, citing the pending
investigation.
Robles said that after the gunfire, the agents pulled him
out through the passenger side and handcuffed him. Then
they reached in and lay Ashley on the grassy curb.
"They knew. I could see it. They had made a big
mistake," Robles said.
