A North Texas drug dealer will spend the next 19 years in prison for his role in a 2015 armed assault where he opened fire on undercover federal agents in southwest Dallas.
Edgar Solorzano, 24, was sentenced on Monday to serve 231 months, or 19 years and three months, in federal prison for repeatedly shooting at two Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) plainclothes officers. On April 7, he pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance; two counts of assault on a federal officer; and one count of using, carrying, brandishing and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence stemming back to his actions in 2015. Solorzano has remained in police custody since his August 2016 arrest.
Back in 2015, his cousin and co-defendant, Victor Manuel Solorzano, 32, was under federal investigation for trafficking methamphetamines. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, the cousins lived across the street from each other in the west Oak Cliff section of Dallas. On November 19, the undercover officers drove a pickup truck to Victor Solorzano’s residence to install a court-ordered tracking device on his vehicle; however, Victor confronted them in the street with an AR-15 pistol and began shooting at the federal agents. Edgar Solorzano joined his cousin in ambushing the feds. He came armed with an AK-47 rifle. The cousins fired repeatedly at the HSI officers using these high-powered firearms, semi-automatic weapons, riddling the officers’ pickup truck with bullets.
The federal agents did not return fire. Instead, they sped away in the truck to save their lives. The officer who installed the tracking device, however, sustained four non-fatal bullet wounds to one of his hands and feet. According to evidence later presented in court, the Solorzano cousins fired at least 42 gunshots at the federal agents’ truck in a residential neighborhood. Their gunfire purportedly struck other vehicles and pierced a home located on the street.
Following this shooting, Edgar hid the AK-47 he used in the attack inside his residence and discarded the AR-15 used by Victor in a neighbor’s backyard. In a subsequent police search, investigators found both firearms, the one used by Edgar was hidden in the attic. While inside the home, detectives discovered in Edgar’s bedroom more than eight grams of methamphetamine, drug distribution paraphernalia, and a treasure trove of weaponry and ammunition. Detectives seized 16 pistols, four rifles, and two shotguns, as well as magazines, suppressors, and scopes, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Following a four-day trial this April, a federal jury convicted Victor Solorzano on five charges stemming to his actions in the 2015 assault on the officers: one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, two counts of assault of a federal officer, and two counts of using, carrying, brandishing and discharging a firearm. Then, on November 2, he was sentenced to 567 months, or 47 years and three months, in federal prison.
In a previously prepared statement, U.S. Attorney John Parker commented: “These convictions clearly demonstrate that violent drug traffickers will be vigorously prosecuted by this office, particularly when their violence is directed at law enforcement officers, and the punishment they face upon conviction will be substantial.”
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated both of these cases with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Dallas Police Department.
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