X-Ring 2: The Hunters

By Jeff Habermehl

Members of Southern Californias Hispanic community are being stalked by a sniper. His targets? Criminals; Street gang members; and Those who have escaped justice for their crimes. It takes a sniper to catch a sniper. Sergeant Dan Rodriguez, a Homicide Bureau detective of the L.A. County Sheriffs Department, and a former US Marine sniper, who is part of a task force directed to find and stop him.

Rodriguez is no stranger to death: From the ruined streets of Beirut; to the mountains of Peru; and as a deputy sheriff in the streets of LA County. But who is really to blame for the mounting deaths? The husband whose wife and daughter were collateral fatalities during a gun battle between rival gangs? A vigilante cop? Or is it someone else, yet unknown? The story unravels on three continents and the lives of three men intertwine. (150 words)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524548971

Jeff Habermehl

Jeff Habermehl is a retired educator and law enforcement officer of thirty-two years in Southern California. He has retired to a small town in southwestern Oregon. He lives there with his wife and family, and enjoys living “rural.”

Book preview

PROLOGUE

S ENIOR DEPUTY CARL the Professor Higgins walked down a hallway in the Industry Sheriff Substation, looking in vacant and darkened offices for a quiet place to write his report of the death of Juan Jose Chicle Rosas Sosa and those of his cousins. He wished he could start his report with The motherfuckers are finally dead! That jerk and his cousins Romeo and Yo-Yo. However, the Watch Commander would turn it back to him.

The Professor had first arrested Chicle and his cousins when they were juvies. It was one of his first arrests as a freshly minted patrol deputy graduated from his training officer. He had been put out on the streets without his training wheels to ride as second man with a veteran patrol deputy in the area where Chicle and his cousins lived. They were drunk on their grandmother’s beer and had broken into a neighborhood school. They trashed one of the classrooms and, unbelievingly, stole some marking pens from a cabinet. They weren’t the best of burglars. Ever since then, any trouble with the law had been an ascending spiral of transgressions as juveniles and sentences to California Youth Authority Camps. As an adult, however, Chicle’s probation was violated, and the charge put him in county jail for a year and a day—the maximum sentence for county time.

Higgins found an interrogation room with a large table and chairs for him and his trainee to use. They were going to need sufficient room to lay out evidence and organize it. He saw a telephone, and with it, he paged his probee. Afterward, he took off his Sam Browne holster and pistol and laid it out of the way in a corner of the room. He took a seat and set down his notebook on the table in front on him.

Higgins leaned back in the chair, looking tiredly at the ceiling. God, I wish I still smoked, he thought and sighed regretfully. Johnston needs to do the major part of this report. He’s gotta learn soon. The training officer began planning his report-writing lesson, but his thoughts wandered. That asshole Chicle. This time, his gang tattoos didn’t intimidate anyone. But why he was working for his cousins so soon out of county is the question. Why did they let him work for them? He was a psycho. They were afraid of him. Now the sucker is dead. Shit! How am I going to write this report? He thought it rather ironic that the Sniper got him and that he was writing the report across from the task force office, where the shooting would be investigated from. It really couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. I can’t forget his two cousins either.

It was a triple homicide, and as the first deputy on the scene, it was important that his report be accurate. He needed to give all the information the detectives needed for their investigation. His trainee, Howie Johnston, found him and carried in their briefcases and large paper bags of evidence from the crime scene.

Start doing the evidence reports, Howie. Weigh and bag the dope. Make sure that twenty-two of Sosa’s is bagged and tagged, as well as the weapons from Rosas and Guzman. Let’s use Sosa as the master report name. You have the case number, don’t you? Seeing Johnston nod his assent, he continued. Get everything together, and we’ll go over it twice to make sure you have everything. Since it’s a Sniper case, Rodriguez will want everything by the book for chain of evidence. Then I want you to read the report to see if there’s anything I missed. This last surprised Johnston. He was being treated as an equal partner instead of the probee he actually was. They both looked at each other and then sighed at the same time, anticipating the enormity of their task.

CHAPTER 1

It Begins Again

I T HAD BEEN a great weekend for the Los Angeles County Sheriff detective sergeant Jose Daniel Rodriguez. Relaxing but somewhat short, it was a three-day respite from the job . He had told his lieutenant that his time off would be a minivacation in Santa Barbara. With this small fib in place, his lady friend—a Juvenile Homicide Unit detective, Sharon Collins—and he had stayed ensconced in Sharon’s 1950s - style California bungalow. He had gone out alone once and then only for a few hours. The white lie to his boss spared Rodriguez and Collins any midnight callouts to investigate the gristly remains of the usual weekend gang deaths, especially if the on-scene supervisor thought it had, in any way, to do with the serial killer, the Sn iper.

The Sniper was believed to be responsible for a series of deaths of Hispanic gang members and criminals in the San Gabriel Valley. Because the killer recognized no lines between cities and the rest of the Los Angeles County Sheriff–patrolled areas, the LASO (Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office) took primary charge of the case and formed the Sniper Task Force. Police departments from the involved city jurisdictions assigned personnel and furnished partial operational funding to the LASO for the investigation. Together with his lieutenant, Mark Haroldson, Rodriguez was the lead administrative investigator of the task force.

The lieutenant was standing at the entrance to Rodriguez’s office cubicle, looking in on the task force’s number two man. The Sniper hit again over the weekend while you were in Santa Barbara, Dan. Haroldson walked the rest of the way into the cubicle and dropped a bundle of reports on the desk before his sergeant.

Another one? He already knew of the shootings but asked anyway. How many does this make? Rodriguez sat back in his chair and looked up at his boss, who just sighed and shook his head in disgust.

Too many. The Feds will be coming in now. Shit! The fucking FBI! He handed over a sheaf of computer printouts. Here, this is for briefing. Read over it so you can answer any questions the guys have about it. Rodriguez reached for the reports. Haroldson turned to leave and then stopped to look back at Rodriguez. Briefing’s at 0900. The C of Ds will be there.

Rodriguez groaned in obvious displeasure at hearing the news. He watched Haroldson leave and then began reading the report, remembering that the Chief of Detectives, Capt. John Vincent Xavier Murphy, would be there to poke his nose into anything that could give him good or, god forgive, bad press. He’d have to do his homework. Murphy had risen in the ranks of the LASO by looking out for Murphy; anyone else be damned. Either you were good for his image or you were toast. Those who worked for him and who were not pro-Murphy were ignored. Those who didn’t follow the Murphy line and ran afoul of him were often transferred to permanent midnight watch in the jail. That usually and effectively stopped career advancement. Or he simply ran the person out—somehow.

After eighteen years of writing and reading police reports, Dan Rodriguez was always amazed how so much drama, so much involved passion, so much tragedy could be distilled into the first paragraph of a report with run-on sentences and poor punctuation. He knew that its function was to set the reader up for the who did it happen to, when, where, what, how, and hopefully who did it and why it was done of the total report. However, the emotionless and matter-of-fact distillation process still bothered him at times. To step outside your humanity to render a very human occurrence into concise, factual language forced many law enforcement personnel to put their humanity aside when they actually needed it most. Humanity was often left in their locker along with their civilian clothes at the beginning of the workday.

On the above date, time, and location, while on uniformed patrol, partner deputy H. Johnston (ID no. 45615) and I were dispatched to 13549 Alicante Street to investigate a report of shots fired, man down. Upon arrival, we found victim Juan Jose Rosas Sosa (aka Chicle, DOB 7-14-89, CDL no. H0696585, 5-9, 165 lbs, blk & brn) lying facedown on the pavement. He was not breathing, and had no carotid pulse. Arriving para-medics pronounced him dead-at-the-scene. Cursory examination found three bullet wounds, tightly grouped (all three in a space the size of my fist, 4–5 across) in the upper, center of the victim’s back. There was no indication that the vic had been shot at close range, but that he’d been shot while running. Scrapes to the vic’s face indicated that he may have fallen face first to the pavement, and sustained the lacerations while sliding to a halt from the fall. An area search did not find any spent shell casings or other evidence of the shooter or shooters.

The sheriff detective closed the report file on his desk, leaned back in his chair to cross his arms, and reflect upon what really happened.

Juan Jose Rosas Sosa, a.k.a. Chicle (chee-clay), had been out of the Biscailuz Honor Farm for three weeks. Sentenced to twelve months for possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamines), he was already working as a lookout for his two cousins Simon Romeo Guzman Rosas and Ramón Yo-Yo Huerta Guzman. They were continuing the family business of selling rock cocaine and meth from a neighborhood street corner.

* * * * *

Chicle, you got tha’ gun I tol’ you to bring wi’ you? Juan Jose was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was as forgetful as he was the psycho his cousin had always known him to be. You also had to watch your own back around the cousin; he was crazy.

"’Course, pendejo. I’m not some stupid asshole, like you think I am. Being called a stupid fuck" made Juan Jose’s cousin bristle at his relative’s jibe.

’Member, when you see anyone come up, watch ’em close. I don’ wan’ that fuckin’ Tirador guy shootin’ or stabbin’ me. El Tirador, or the Shooter, was the nickname given to the Sniper by the locals. He was the boogeyman, Chester the Molester, and the chupacabra (the mythical bloodsucking Mexican night creature) rolled into one. El Tirador, the scary and very real predator who stalked the barrio.

"Don’ worry, Buey [pronounced bway], I keep a good watch out for ’im." He felt the twenty-two-caliber, short-barreled old revolver in his pocket for reassurance. Juan Jose and his cousins called one another by animal names. Buey was a castrated bull. However, being called one, although vulgar, was accepted as everyday language. Juan walked over to a nearby low brick wall to sit on while he watched his cousin Romeo stand on the street corner under its lamppost, waiting for drive-up customers.

Ramón Huerta Guzman, or Yo-Yo, also watched Romeo from the darkness of some overgrown landscape bushes in the yard of the corner house. Yo-Yo kept the dope and the cash. Romeo was the greeter. Romeo did the deal; he sold the product, sometimes argued with the buyer (but most often not), and took the order money to Yo-Yo. He would return to the buyer with the dope. That was the way Romeo’s old man wanted them to sell the dope, and that was the way they did it. Chicle was there to put some muscle into anything that looked like it was going bad. Romeo wondered if Chicle had learned anything new while at the arm. Even though he was a psycho, he was sort pussy sometimes.

* * * * *

While going from house to house on Alicante Street looking for possible witnesses to the shooting, I was contacted by Wit. Ezekial Mendoza (DOB 12-21-68, CDL no. M0565060, male, Hispanic, 5-6, 185 lbs, blk & brn). He said that he found the dead bodies of two neighborhood men, known drug dealers, in some bushes on the S/E corner of Alicante & Ferndale while he was walking his dog. Wit Mendoza led me, and other deputies, to the site. With the probability that the three deaths were inter-related, a second crime scene was established, homicide detectives were called out, and additional units were called in. Because narcotics were involved, Narcotic Unit Detectives were also notified.

The identities of the vics’ were established through personal IDs. Victim no. 2: Simon Rosas Guzman (AKA- Romeo, DOB 3-31-93, CDL no. W2215899, male, Hispanic, 5-10, blk & brn, 190 lbs) and Victim no. 3: Ramón Huerta Guzman (AKA- Yo-Yo, DOB 9-16-95, Cal ID no. W3450987, male, Hispanic, 5-8, blk & brn, 170 lbs). Both vics had been shot twice—double-tapped—at close range, and a third, Failure Drill shot to the forehead. Further, Victim no. 2’s body had been mutilated by having his throat slit and tongue pulled out through the opening—a Colombian Neck Tie. Either of Victim no. 2’s wounds could have been fatal. As an informed observation: with the lack of copious amounts of blood from Victim no. 2’s neck wound, leads this deputy to suspect the throat wound was post mortem.

The identities of Victims no. 2 and no. 3 were positively established by Victim no. 2’s father (Alejandro Rosas Vega DOB 8-20-70, Cal ID no. M5239331, male, Hispanic, 6-0, 205 lbs, blk & brn) who arrived after neighbors had told him of the shootings. He subsequently identified Victim no. 3 as his nephew living with him while Vic no. 3’s parents were visiting native Honduras on family business. He knew of no threats on the vics’ lives.

* * * * *

The streetlights had just come on. The corner drive-up dope sales would increase now that the lowered visibility allowed a more anonymous feel to the transactions. A few cars with older white guys had come and gone, adding to the night’s profits. Chicle heard the ringing of bicycle bell and looked to its source to see a paletas vendor pushing his cart toward Romeo. Juan Jose slid off his low-wall perch and began to walk closer to Romeo and the approaching vendor. Romeo seemed truly happy to see the vendor and greeted him like a friend. He waved off Chicle not to bother walking over.

"Hey, Carnal! Did you bring the stuff like you promised?" Romeo asked. The vendor was reaching into the cart and pulled out a glass bottle from its depths. It wasn’t the ice creams like the cart’s logo proclaimed.

Here it is, just like I tol’ you. You got my money? Money and bottle were exchanged. Romeo opened and drank from the bottle. He expelled the liquid in a spray and coughed.

"Hijo de la madre! Son of a bitch, that was gooood!" said Romeo in a breathless squeak.

The spray cloud of liquor had missed the vendor. He chuckled and said to the dope dealer, Yes, I tol’ you so. I got good stuff. I bring you some more tomorrow. I got more people who wanted some of this stuff. I gotta go.

Romeo watched as the mojado left, pushing his cart of illegal liquor down the sidewalk. He opened the bottle once more, looked at it, took a deep breath in anticipation, and took another swallow. It wasn’t as big a swallow as the initial drink, but he swallowed the liquid and then took another swig. It was more drinkable this time. He turned to Yo-Yo. You wan’ some of this stuff? He motioned to the bottle and its contents that the wetback had brought.

Yo-Yo shook his head and waved a dismissive hand at his cousin. Not me. I’m not goin’ blind.

Romeo turned to Chicle. You want some? Chicle shook his head and waved off the offered bootleg tequila too.

Well, there’s more for me then. He sat down on the curb to wait for more customers and took more, but shallower, sips of the fiery liquid. Engrossed in his drinking, he heard neither the metallic cycling sound of the forty-caliber semiautomatic Glock pistol as it fired three times in the darkness nor the three quickly spaced sounds that were like a hand slapping your chest. Moments later, however, he did hear the urgent call of his name.

Romeo! Come here! I need your help! He clambered clumsily to his feet and turned to walk toward the darkness from where his cousin had been waiting. He stopped halfway into the darkest part of the corner lot. The street vendor was standing there in front of him. He was holding a plastic jug, but it tilted like it was pouring it contents from it. Something was wrong, though. Even in the semidarkness, Romeo could see it had three holes in its bottom.

This time, the metallic cycling sound of the pistol was muffled by the clapping sound of two dull reports of the exploding cartridges. Firing the pistol through a homemade plastic jug silencer, the double-tapped rounds tore through the plastic to cross the short ten feet between the wetback vendor and Romeo. He was struck in the chest and went down immediately to lie half in and half out of the circle of light from the streetlamp. Through a dimming consciousness, Romeo watched the paletas vendor walk up to stand over him. He didn’t hear the third shot, but its crushing blow to his chest canceled out any other feeling.

Juan Jose heard the dull report of the pistol firing and the sound of a body slumping to the ground. He turned to the noise to see Romeo on the sidewalk and the paletas vendor standing over him with a gun sticking out of a plastic jug. Chicle slid off the fence top and took one step toward the fallen Romeo, and then he stopped. He hastily turned around and began running down Alicante Street, away from the shooting, to escape a similar fate.

The Sniper swore and tore the clumsy and now-useless jug from the pistol. He gave chase after the fleeing Chicle. After twenty yards, the Sniper stopped, knelt, and—in a two-handed grip on the pistol—took careful and deliberate aim at the running gangbanger. A long-ago range master’s commands on the pistol course came to the Sniper: From the twenty-five-yard line in a kneeling position, all ready on the firing line! The Sniper fired three times.

All three bullets struck Chicle, transferring the kinetic energy from the projectiles to his back. The force, absorbed in his chest and torso, slammed his body forward. He didn’t drop to the ground immediately lifeless. He continued forward a few steps, with his arms windmilling and legs struggling to keep up with the forward-thrusting force. The energy from the three shots finally carried him off his feet. He fell with nothing to block his fall. His face acted as a brake and stopped the body’s momentum. Within scant inches, Chicle slid like a rag doll to a crumpled stop and lay not breathing and still.

* * * * *

All witnesses interviewed stated that they heard the shots, but didn’t come out of their homes for fear of injury from further violence. Many said they didn’t want to get involved, and refused comment. One Wit. Emanuel Solorsano, (Male Mex, 58 yrs, 5’8’ Blk & Brn, DOB 9-16-46) did look out his window to see a man dressed like a recently arrived Mexican immigrant on his knees searching for something on the ground around him. He then got up and ran off N/B up Alicante Street. He disappeared from sight. Wit. Solorsano could give no further information. For further witness info, please refer to the attached Witness Contact List. Although they refused to give information or said that they didn’t have any for the deputy, further personal contact with them, and general vicinity neighbors by a Spanish speaking Deputy could be beneficial.

For further information, refer to connected reports from Coroner, CSI, and Narcotics Divisions.

* * * * *

There was a soft, polite cough from a detective standing at the door of Rodriguez’s office cubicle. The task force sergeant looked up to see one of the gang unit duo of Heckle and Jeckle. They got their monikers from a jail prisoner because they looked alike, and they were always together. Rodriguez didn’t like them much, as their successes in patrol and later in the gang unit had made them arrogant beyond their self- assessment. However, aside from their obnoxious personalities, they got results. That was why they were a part of the Sniper Task Force. So close in resemblance that most confused one with the other, the deputy at the cubicle entrance could have been Heckle or Jeckle. Rodriguez didn’t know. He really didn’t care to know them, so he didn’t learn who they individually were. Rodriguez looked up to acknowledge the man. Yes?

Sergeant? I just wanted to let you know there’s gonna be a watch party tonight at the Starlight. The Starlight Lounge was the local cop bar. Rodriguez had spent a lot of time there. It was