A convicted Los Angeles County murderer who fled California custody and fled to Mexico — he reportedly shot dead a police officer who was trying to arrest him, but was arrested in Tijuana this week, Mexican authorities said.
The Baja State Attorney General’s Office in California announced that 35-year-old Cesar Hernandez was captured Thursday in a special operation called “Gasela.” He was appointed in Mexico in connection with the April 9 shooting death of Mexican police commander Abigail Esparza Reyes, which took place when he tried to arrest him in Tijuana.
Cesar Hernandez fled from detention in December as he was transported to Delano to appear in court.
(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Reyes was a member of the professional research department known as the “Gringo Hunter,” according to a report from Reuters. Authorities told Wire Services that Reyes led the unit’s regional team for eight years, running more than 400 businesses.
“Abigail’s life is respected and her death is not punished,” Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Avila Ormeda said in Spanish in a social media statement earlier this month.
In 2019, Hernandez was sentenced to 80 years in prison for killing a man, the second attack outside a bar in southeastern Los Angeles, according to the California Department of Amendments and Rehabilitation.
According to the CDCR, Hernandez escaped custody in December. After arriving at the courthouse, he ran out of the van, evaded the staff and escaped the area on foot.
Despite important law enforcement efforts to catch him, he arrived in Mexico.
Hernandez “has been fleeing justice in both Mexico and the United States, making it a top priority for law enforcement,” the Baja California Attorney General’s Office said in a Spanish statement.
“In Baja California, if you break the law, there are consequences,” the statement concluded.
Authorities have not yet announced whether Hernandez will be charged in Mexico or California.
According to the CDCR, 99% of offenders who have left an agency, camp or community-based program without permission have been arrested since 1977.
Source link
