Mt. Juliet couple was killed after being struck by an SUV driven by illegal immigrant Gustavo Reyes Garcia?
June 23, 2006
The criminal justice system in Davidson County failed the late Sean and Donna Wilson. It was a systematic failure, from top to bottom, that cost two innocent Tennesseans their lives.
The Mt. Juliet couple was killed after being struck by an SUV driven by illegal immigrant Gustavo Reyes Garcia on June 8. Court records and accounts from regular Nashvillians demonstrate Garcia should have been taken off the road long before his fateful encounter with the Wilsons.
In an article in our edition today, we document 17 arrests in the last nine years including multiple DUI charges, numerous incidents of driving on a revoked license and even assaulting a police officer.
Perhaps to no one’s shock, Garcia had also been arrested for more than one automobile accident where he struck another vehicle causing injury. In at least one case he fled the scene.
Altogether, Garcia spent less than 170 days in jail during those nine years. It is not a fact that can be placed at the feet of any one department or player in the criminal justice system. Instead, they all own part of the blame – from Metro Police all the way to the Tennessee General Assembly.
Metro Police maintain they simply arrest the bad guys and others in the system decide the offenders’ fate. That is not entirely true. In one key case against Garcia, charges of assaulting an officer were dismissed because police did not show up to a hearing for Garcia.
District Attorney Torry Johnson’s office insists it can only prosecute offenders to the extent the law allows. Yet, time and time again assistant district attorneys allowed deals for Garcia to go free despite what would appear to any average citizen to be a pattern of chronic lawlessness and disregard for the safety of Nashville citizens.
Of course, most of Garcia’s sentences were suspended by general sessions court judges to time already served after his arrests on each incident – a tactic that simply returned him to the street to offend again.
The questions then turn to the system itself. Is it the fault of Metro government for not providing jail cells for the likes of Garcia? Is it the fault of the Tennessee General Assembly for not providing tougher laws? Are generations of Washington D.C. politicians to blame having allowed illegal immigration to become a problem of epic proportions?
The death of the Wilsons and the case of Gustavo Reyes Garcia exposes everything that is wrong with our government, from the halls of power in Washington D.C. to the committee rooms of the Tennessee General Assembly to the streets of Nashville.
The Wilson family, Tennesseans and the American people deserve better.
Still think everyone should be allowed in the country Illegally ?
vanessa ( according to our laws immigration has nothing to do with accident cases or criminal activity did you not know that? ) Yes it does he broke the law by being here illegally or did you know it’s against the law to be here illegally ?At least two of you understand . Thanks Girls!
Tex Now i agree maybe he should have been punished a little more severely-Maybe we should put him and rehab let him recover set him free then will you be happy and he can have that better life we keep hearing about.Glad Tex is incline to send care packages to this man.
17 ARRESTS!!!!!!????????!!!!!!!!! And still NOT deported???? Geez to think those 2 people would be alive today if this man would have been deported a long time ago!!! Another example of the Government failing the People!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is sad to read that. I think they should all be deported. But there will be ones who will think he should stay and walk free.
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ok so what? white folks murder,rape,abuse,slaughter,and kidnap people all the time.
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according to our laws immigration has nothing to do with accident cases or criminal activity did you not know that?
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I don’t think that’s exclusively Illegals my brother was killed by a hit and run drunk driver killed while holding my sisters hand.The man was an American and if wasn’t for a witness we would not have known who it was.
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17 ARRESTS!!!!!!????????!!!!!!!!! And still NOT deported???? Geez to think those 2 people would be alive today if this man would have been deported a long time ago!!! Another example of the Government failing the People!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Americans commit the same crimes, BUT if the government did their job in stopping at the border and deporting illegals look how many Americans would still be alive! Illegals kill 10(avg) Americans a day in this country
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my nephew has mangled leg from one hitting him so it does effect peoples lives . yes legal people rob kill and so forth but we have enough problems without carry the brunt of the illegals also
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did you know a guy that worked for gibson guitars, got killed nashville last night by an illegal also.
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Would you still be as upset if it were John Smith? Accidents happen, whether people are illegal immigrants or not. What is your question? This post is a racial and political rant.
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ANOTHER BAD APPLE THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THROWN OUT OF THE BUSHEL A LONG TIME AGO!!!!
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Illegals is local terrorist , they murder rape,breeder theft and free loader, Time to secure the border and STOP benefits for all scums free loader NOT WORTHLES we feed for all illiterate theya re all leeches and criminal no brain.
Drunk Driving NO insurance after hit and run go back to mexico and comeback make hundreds fake ID.
Jorge proud america: NO good people come here illegaly like all 99,9 % mexicans. They are criminal moron…brain dead!
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I feel really bad for these people. This is a horrendous story, but really, would they feel any better if the man had not been an illegal?
I have a friend whose child was killed by a drunk driver who left the scene and was later apprehended. Surprise, surprise, he was not illegal. I think her pain was just as bad as the pain of these people’s families.
His being illegal was not the cause of the accident. Really, the two things are not related at all. I understand that you are saying that if he had been deported these people might still be alive, but no matter how many illegal immigrants we deport, we are not going to stop the problem of drunken driving.
I am totally for deporting illegal immigrants, but not because they are killing people in motor vehicle accidents. We would have to deport a lot of Americans to solve that problem. And the more you use this as an argument for deporting illegal immigrants, the more the real argument loses strength.
For every one of these news articles you can post on this forum, a thousand ones just like it exist about non illegals causing deaths on the highway, and those can be posted as a counter argument. Just as the counter argument is not related to the real issue, neither is this one.
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i cant believe all you people do is look for someone who does something wrong and right away you all think everyone else is the same. if it had been a white man causing that accident we would not have heard of this terrible accident. but since it was an illegal alien all of a sudden all illegal aliens are reckless drunk murderers out to kill us on our highways. Come on people quit hating each other, you are no better than that person who caused the accident and you know it, the only reason you are posting this is because you are a racist just like the majority, and have nothing better to do with your pathetic lives than find the faults in us all. Now i agree maybe he should have been punished a little more severely. it still doesn’t make it right for you to say whether or not he belongs here or in his country.
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Illegals will always be accomated…god forbid anyone wants to punish them…once again they wonder why we hate them
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If that would have been Americans that hit and killed those people, would you have posted this?
It’s fine that people don’t want illegal aliens in the country. They defiantly need to do it the right way if they want to come to the States, but to try and blame them for everything wrong with America is ridiculous. There are far more Americans arrested each year for DUI’s, hit and runs, vehicular homicides then there are illegal aliens! And many of those people don’t get the time in jail they deserve, and many of them are repeat offenders. Drinking and driving isn’t an illegal alien problem, it’s a society problem that we need to take a firmer stand on, and the courts need to put these people behind bars for a long, long time.
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What the PRO-illegals will NOT admit to, is that crimes like this one should NOT have happened!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes,Americans get drunk and kill people with cars,etc, But, the thing is, these crimes committed by ILLEGALS would NOT have happened, if they had NOT been in this country ILLEGALLY in the first place!!!!!!!!! And, sadly, this is just ONE crime out of MILLIONS!!!
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