Page 39 - Florida Sentinel 9-30-22

Crime
Construction Worker Charged In Death Of Pinellas County Deputy Was Illegal Immigrant
Clearwater Man Pleads Guilty To Drug Charges
DEPUTY MICHAEL HARTWICK
Detectives have arrested a Tampa forklift driver and charged him with the hit and run death of a Pinellas County Deputy Michael Hartwick.
On September 23, 2022, detectives say Deputy Hartwick arrived to his traf- fic detail at approximately 10:40 p.m., located near Exit 30 on southbound I-275.
Deputy Hartwick was assigned to assist a construc- tion crew and provide safety for them during their overnight roadwork on the in- terstate. He parked his cruiser facing south in the south- bound lanes of I-275, with his emergency equipment on.
Moments later, Deputy Hartwick exited his cruiser, walked to the shoulder of the road and stood facing north.
Detectives learned a worker driving a large front loader with forklifts carrying a concrete barrier was traveling northbound and struck Deputy Hartwick. The con- struction worker driving the vehicle, was later identified as 32-year-old Juan Ariel Molina.
Deputy Hartwick was pronounced dead at the scene. According to reports, Molina continued to drive north for a quarter of a mile before coming to a stop. Molina allegedly told an- other construction worker that he “just killed a deputy,” gave his construction helmet and vest to him, and then Molina fled the scene on
foot.
The co-worker, later iden-
tified as 31-year-old Elieser Aureilio Gomez-Zelaya
JUAN ARIEL MOLINA-SALLES
ELIESER AURELIO GOMEZ-ZELAYA
hid the helmet and vest in a wooded area to the west of the scene.
After a nine-hour man- hunt, Molina was located by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Of- fice hiding in a brush area. He was taken into custody and charged with one count of leaving the scene of a crash in- volving death.
Gomez-Zelaya was charged with one count of ac- cessory after the fact. Both were transported to the Pinel- las County Jail.
According to the Pinellas sheriff’s office, Molina Salles is an illegal immigrant who crossed into the U.S. last year. According to the sheriff, he gave a fake name and showed fake ID from N. C. when he was arrested after a 9-hour manhunt.
Hired in 2003, Deputy Hartwick served as a Pinel- las County Sheriff’s Office Deputy for 19 years, assigned to the Patrol Operations Bu- reau.
He is survived by his mother and two adult chil- dren. The investigation con- tinues.
A Clearwater man pleaded guilty last Wednes- day to possession with the intent to distribute metham- phetamine. He is facing a minimum mandatory penalty of 10 years to life in federal prison.
A sentencing date has not been set for 34-year-old Justin Roberson.
According to the facts presented at the change of plea hearing, in 2021, law enforcement officers initi- ated an investigation into the distribution of methamphet- amine within the Middle District of Florida. Agents received information that Roberson was distributing methamphetamine in Clear- water.
On September 15, 2021, Roberson called a confi- dential source (CS) working with law enforcement and said that he (Roberson)
National Crime
JUSTIN ROBERSON
had “a lot” of methampheta- mine and was selling it “by the pound.” Through coded conversation, Roberson and the CS agreed to meet at a business associated with Roberson, on North Me- teor Avenue in Clearwater, to complete the purchase of the methamphetamine.
During the drug transac- tion, Roberson sold four individual plastic baggies,
each containing a crystal- lized substance inside. The substance was later analyzed by the DEA and found to be approximately 893 grams (1.96 pounds) of metham- phetamine hydrochloride, a controlled substance.
On July 8, 2022, agents executed a federal search warrant at the North Meteor Avenue location and located a fully loaded AR-15 rifle, ammunition, a kilogram of cocaine, numerous pills—in- cluding more than 579 grams of MDMA, a quantity of marijuana, digital scales, baggies, a currency counter, and cash. On that same date, agents also conducted a con- sent search of Roberson’s residence and located an AK- 47 rifle, additional rifle mag- azines, a Glock handgun, several AR-15 style rifles, and more cash.
Black People Are Being Falsely
Convicted Of Serious Crimes At
Alarming Rates, Report Finds
Black people in the U.S. are seven times more likely to be falsely convicted of a se- rious crime like murder than white people, according to a new report published Tues- day by the National Registry of Exonerations. The finding is based on an analysis of ex- onerations for serious crimes in the U.S. over the last four decades, which found that Black people make up less than 14% of the U.S. popula- tion but account for 53% of exonerations in the country.
“[The report] focuses on how it’s dangerous, in a par- ticularly disturbing way, that there’s a possibility of being convicted of a crime that you didn’t commit,” Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor and the lead author of the report, titled "Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United
States 2022," told Yahoo News. “The general conclu- sion is no surprise. Black people are much more likely to get the short end of the stick than white people.”
Data gathered from exon- erations for murder, sexual assault and drug crimes from 1989 through August 2022 highlighted significant chal- lenges in obtaining national criminal justice statistics, in- cluding finding clear answers
on who reports data to whom and how this data is dissemi- nated to react to trends. Most often, Gross said, counties rather than states are re- sponsible for reporting crimes, which results in mis- reporting and/or a lack of ac- countability because of sheer volume.
“Criminal justice statis- tics in the United States are not bad,” Gross said. “They’re abysmal.”
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