Latest news with #HamiltonPoliceDepartment
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Yahoo
Mexican cop 'El Diablo' arrested in 2004 deadly shooting says he was shot at first
Investigators waited nearly 20 years to interview Antonio Riano about a fatal shooting outside a Hamilton bar and when he finally sat down with police, he admitted to opening fire on 25-year-old Benjamin Becerra Ramirez during a skirmish. Butler County Common Pleas Judge Michael Oster Jr. ruled during a hearing on Friday that the 63-year-old Riano knowingly and intelligently waived his constitutional rights when speaking with investigators at the Hamilton Police Department last August. Riano is expected to be tried on a murder charge April 1 and prosecutors will likely present his statements to police as evidence to the jury. Prosecutors say Riano shot Becerra Ramirez in the head with a .38-caliber revolver outside a bar on East Avenue in December 2004. Riano was indicted on a murder charge in 2005 and arrested last year by Mexican law enforcement in his hometown of Zapotitlan Palmas in Oaxaca, where he was working as a police officer. After being extradited to the U.S., Riano told police during a roughly 90-minute interview that he went to confront a group after getting word that his younger brother had been assaulted, according to a transcript of the interview displayed in court. The group attacked Riano while outside the bar and he retrieved a gun from his truck and fired two shots toward the group, the transcript states. Riano's attorney, Kara Blackney, said that Riano also told police that he'd been shot at first. After interviewing witnesses, investigators identified Riano as the suspect and learned he was commonly referred to as 'El Diablo,' a former Hamilton police detective wrote in an affidavit. Prosecutors said surveillance video also showed Riano pull out a revolver and open fire on Becerra. Police searched a house on East Avenue where Riano had parked his vehicle and found a box of ammunition matching the weapon used in the shooting. When police later searched Riano's home, they learned he used several fake names and had papers to create false documentation to obtain different identifications. Prosecutors have said Riano was in the country unlawfully at the time of the shooting. A teacher at the elementary school Riano's daughter attended told police they overheard the child's mother say they were moving to New Jersey, where the family had lived previously. Investigators contacted New Jersey authorities to help locate Riano, however, they were told that he had just left the country. Police said they interviewed the mother of Riano's daughter, who said she'd fought with Riano the night before the shooting and had left him. She told police that a friend had driven him to Mexico. Two years after the shooting, the owner of the East Avenue home found the revolver used to shoot Becerra under the floor of a bathroom closet, investigators said, adding that Riano bought ammo from a local Walmart less than an hour before the shooting. The Butler County Sheriff's Office listed Riano as a wanted fugitive and the case was even profiled on Fox's "America's Most Wanted,' however, an earlier attempt to arrest him in Mexico was unsuccessful. Paul Newtown, lead investigator with the Butler County Prosecutor's Office, eventually stumbled upon Riano's Facebook account, which included a video of him. Riano's attorney argued in court on Friday that his statements to the police should be thrown out because detectives failed to properly advise him of his constitutional rights in Spanish, his native language. In a February court filing, Blackney said Riano has lived the majority of his life in Mexico and has a limited understanding of the English language. She added that the officer who interviewed Riano 'appears to not be fluent in Spanish' and that Riano was not asked if he understood his rights before signing a waiver form. She also pointed to the English transcript of the interview, in which a third-party translator notes multiple times that the officer used either non-Spanish words or words that were grammatically incorrect. However, Lt. Eric Taylor, who performed the interview, testified he was born in Columbia and that Spanish is his first language, adding that he regularly uses Spanish in his capacity as a police officer. Taylor noted several discrepancies between what the translator heard and what he remembers telling Riano while reading from a Miranda warning card written in Spanish. 'He understood it clearly,' Taylor said in court. The judge ultimately found that Riano answered the detective's questions directly and never expressed concerns that he did not understand his rights. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Mexican cop says he returned fire in Ohio fatal shooting decades ago
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Yahoo
Police searching for man considered armed, dangerous
The Hamilton Police Department is searching for a man they believe to be armed and dangerous, according to a post on their social media. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] According to police, Cristian Pujols is 5′11″ with black hair and brown eyes. TRENDING STORIES: Dayton Police Department recruit arrested on solicitation of minor warrant 3 injured after crash causes car to overturn into church in Auglaize County 'It was terrifying;' Bystanders open fire to protect themselves from dog attack Hamilton police are asking anyone with information on Pujols to contact Detective Katherine Johnson at 513-868-5811 or email her at [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
