EDITORIALS : Tattoo clue
Posted on Saturday, May 20, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/155188/
OKAY, LET’S say the folks at the
Benton County Jail were just
having a bad day. That’s the explanation first offered for their failure to document the tattoos on a suspect in a fatal road-rage case. The tattoos are significant. They seem to be gang-related and there’s long been an undercurrent of worry about gangs getting established in Northwest Arkansas. So when Manuel Camacho-Ambriz was jailed and accused of driving the car from which shots were fired, and his tattoos were overlooked, an anti-gang group got concerned. Could this indicate law enforcement in these parts was in denial ?
Not so, the sheriff’s department assured everybody. The department said it routinely records inmates’ distinguishing characteristics for identification purposes—features like tattoos and scars, for example. But this time, according to the sheriff’s office, the suspect’s tattoos were overlooked, perhaps by an inadequately trained jail employee.
But the problems inside the sheriff’s office got more involved when our reporter Michelle Bradford asked the sheriff’s spokesman about the tattoos. At first Tom Brewster used the original booking sheet and reported that the suspect had none. When pressed, Captain Brewster went to the jail to check for himself. Then he reported again that Manuel Camacho-Ambriz had no tattoos. Asked one more time, the captain said the inmate had one tattoo, the number 831 on his neck.
But the spokesman for the sheriff’s office didn’t mention the number 13 that’s tattooed on Manuel Camacho-Ambriz’s arm, or a third tattoo spotted on his other arm. The 13 appears to refer to Sureno-13, an Hispanic gang that’s said to have its origins in Mexico and California, and has had a violent history. The 831 tattoo apparently refers to a California area code that has shown up in graffiti in Northwest Arkansas.
In the investigation of the road-rage shooting that left Daniel Francis, 32, of Little Flock fatally wounded, it was difficult at first to identify Manuel Camacho-Ambriz. When he and two other suspects were arrested, he gave police three different names. When they finally determined his real identity, it turned out he was in the United States illegally and was under an outstanding deportation order.
The goof at the jail comes at an especially inopportune moment for Keith Ferguson, the incumbent sheriff. He’s been called soft on gangs by his opponent in the Republican primary, who’s Andy Lee, the former sheriff. It’s the kind of accusation a campaigner like Andy Lee could exploit politically, and the sheriff’s office now has left itself vulnerable to such a charge.
The anti-gang group that was concerned about Manuel-Camacho-Ambriz’s tattoos, and their going unnoticed at the sheriff’s department, may be onto something. The folks in this group are close to the community, and have a right to be worried about an increasing gang presence in these parts. Happily, there’s no indication things have reached the point of gang wars and turf battles in Northwest Arkansas—yet.
But good law enforcement doesn’t take things for granted. Those overlooked tattoos may say less about this suspect than they do about the need for law enforcement to stay alert. Andy Lee’s warnings about gangs in Northwest Arkansas may sound a little over-the-top, but failing to take note of what’s right in front of you isn’t the right approach, either.