An illegal alien, previously deported three times and with a violent criminal record, has been charged with a double murder after allegedly going on a stabbing spree at a San Jose, California, Baptist church.
Illegal alien Fernando De Jesus Lopez-Garcia was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder, battery, and protective order violation after he allegedly stabbed five people inside Grace Baptist Church, killing two of them.
According to San Jose Police Department officials, Garcia stabbed five people — four homeless and one church volunteer — before fleeing the scene. An eyewitness told a dispatcher at the time that there was “blood everywhere” in the church. One man died on the scene while a woman who was stabbed later died from her injuries in a nearby hospital.
Police quickly located and arrested Garcia after he fled. Garcia, according to police, was homeless himself and had often volunteered at the church to help other homeless people.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency confirmed that Garcia is an illegal alien with a violent criminal record who has already been deported three times. California’s sanctuary state policy, which shields criminal illegal aliens from arrest and deportation, helped keep Garcia in the state, according to ICE.
“Our deepest condolences go out the victims and their families in this case,” ICE official David Jennings said in a statement. “Here we have catastrophic proof of the abject failure of California’s sanctuary policies.”
Garcia was previously convicted for battery of a spouse, assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, battery of an officer, and vandalism. His convictions date back almost 15 years.
Most recently, Garcia had benefitted greatly from California’s sanctuary state policy.
In July 2019, for instance, Garcia was arrested for inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant, kidnapping, and threatening crime with intent to terrorize. The next day, ICE placed a detainer on Garcia, asking that the local police department release him to their custody so he could be deported. Instead, the police department released Garcia.
About a month later, Garcia was arrested and two days later ICE placed a detainer on him. Rather than turning him over to ICE, the police department released him again back into the community.
Nearly six months before the alleged murders, a California court convicted Garcia of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse and sentenced him to less than a year in jail and five years probation. Less than a month later, despite an ICE detainer, the county jail released Garcia.
“The only person this policy protected was a criminal; permitting him to re-offend over and over again. Had those immigration detainers been honored, or had ICE been notified on any of the other multiple occasions he was arrested and released from local jails, we would have taken him into custody,” Jennings said. “Regrettably, politics continues to prevail over public safety, the detainers were ignored, and De Jesus Lopez-Garcia was released to the street.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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