The police shooting of Leonardo Barquin, an unarmed 17 year old boy, was the case that started the process that eventually cost David Ranck his job as an assistant state attorney.
Agree or disagree with Ranck's analysis and subsequent actions, Ranck saw something he didn't like and he spoke out about it. How easy it would have been to join the cosy club of police officers protecting one of their own. But Ranck went where he believed the evidence was taking him, and along the way he incurred the wrath of both the police and the supervisors in his own office.
Sometime during Sunday a woman purporting to be the mother of Leonardo Barquin somehow found our blog and posted a comment.
The comment serves as a reminder that when all the legal analysis and politics are over, a boy is dead and a mother grieves.
Even if Leonardo Barquin was doing something wrong, he had the right to live and this police officer the responsibility to arrest him, so a judge could determine if he was guilty or not. But justice sometime is betrayed and perverted by some unscrupulous people as this former police officer.
Jorge Espinosa is a violent and unscrupulous man who does not know about limits. After “he left” the Police Department and with a murder in his back and as I mentioned a record of police brutality, this man was able to run for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives. When I found out this, I went to one of the Polling House and to my surprise he was there. At the beginning he was laughing at me, but far a way, but with a cynical smile in his face he approached to me and took pictures of me, probably to intimidate me. But definitely he didn’t know that the love of a mother exceed any type of intimidation or fear.
At first I was skeptical about the “Blue Code” in the Police Department, but not anymore since every time I have seen in the news that a police killed a person, the investigation concluded that the shoot was justified. The translation to the “Blue Code” is corruption and we with our silence are allowing this few people to corrupt our justice system.
Katherine Fernandez-Rundle won’t be all her life the prosecutor of Miami, but unfortunately I think we need to way until she leaves her office for justice returns to Miami. I think that David Ranck is a prosecutor that believes in the justice system of this country and I would like to have his faith, and one day see Jorge Espinosa paying for his crime. I’m Leonardo Barquin’s mother, a boy that with only 17 years old was graduated from High School. He was looking for a University to enroll. He had a lot of plans, a future that was killed with him by a murder dress with a police uniform. I’ll love him forever and will fight for justice the rest of my life if it’s necessary.
Beatriz Luis-Garcia