BELLEVUE, WA – Held as a suspect in the June 24 slaying of a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy, Jose Luis Orozco should not have been on the streets at all considering his criminal background, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) said today.
Orozco was arrested for the murder of Deputy Jerry Ortiz, a crime committed while Orozco was out of prison on parole.
“It is sheer lunacy,” said SAF Founder Alan Gottlieb, “that a career criminal like Orozco has been cycled repeatedly through the criminal justice system at the same time California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and anti-gun state legislators have pushed every kind of gun control demagoguery they could imagine, from outright bans on some firearms, to cockamamie schemes like bullet serialization. While they’ve been working overtime to disarm law-abiding Californians, Orozco and people like him seem to get an abundance of ‘second chance’ opportunities to victimize people.”
According to published reports, Orozco was put on three years’ probation in 1996 for vehicle burglary, and later that year jailed for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He reportedly spent time in jail in 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003 and last year. His charge sheet includes arrests for possession of marijuana and cocaine, burglary and assault with a deadly weapon. Last August, Orozco drew a 16-month prison sentence for resisting arrest and obstruction, yet he was released Jan. 4 and had not contacted his parole officer since then.
“California voters, and especially law-abiding gun owners, need to ask Lockyer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and every state legislator why it’s so easy for repeat offenders to get out of prison, when it’s so difficult for an honest person to buy a gun for personal protection,” Gottlieb stated. “They should also demand to know why many sheriffs and police chiefs do not issue carry permits except to celebrities and other connected elitists, when revolving door justice puts people like Orozco repeatedly back on the streets, where they prey on average citizens.
“Whether this man is eventually charged in the murder of Deputy Ortiz is almost a post script,” Gottlieb stated. “Jose Luis Orozco is a symptom of a bigger problem. He should be in prison right now for past crimes. His history shows him to be literally a one-man crime wave in Southern California.
“Instead of locking up the gun rights of honest California citizens,” Gottlieb concluded, “Lockyer and his soulmates in Sacramento should concentrate on locking up recidivist criminals, and keeping them locked up.”