‘Illegal Alien’s’ Deportation Requested After 2nd Arrest

SARASOTA, FL — Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight is calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take a hard look at a 24-year-old El Salvadoran man who has been arrested twice by his deputies in the past two months. The man in question was arrested in connection with a January road rage shooting in North Port. He, however, wasn’t the shooter in that case.

Knight on Thursday announced Carlos Echeverria-Pena's second arrest. Deputies say during the original road rage investigation Echeverria-Pena provided them with a permanent resident card with his name, date of birth and an identification number on it. The card, an arrest report said, had information that matched a suspended Maryland learners’ permit Echeverria-Pena was carrying.

Detectives, however, suspected the resident card was faked and contacted Homeland Security, the arrest report said. As it turned out, the card was “counterfeit,” the arrest report said. Echeverria-Pena also provided detectives with a Social Security card that had an unreadable seventh digit. That card, the report said, also turned out to not be his. The number was used, however, when Echeverria-Pena was arrested in Hagerstown, Maryland, in March 2016, the agency noted.

Based on the two falsified cards, Echeverria-Pena was charged on Wednesday, March 1, with criminal use of personal identification. He faces burglary and battery charges in connection with the Jan. 6 road rage incident in North Port. In that case, Echeverria-Pena is accused of approaching another motorist at the intersection of U.S. 41 and Ridge Road and then punching the man through the window.

The victim, identified by deputies as Michael Justin Garza, reached for his licensed firearm and “fired two shots in self-defense,” the agency said.

Echeverria-Pena was taken to a local hospital following the shooting. He was later booked into the Sarasota County Jail and released in lieu of $15,000. The sheriff’s office with help from the U.S. Marshals Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force brought him back to jail on Wednesday after locating him in Nokomis.

According to Echeverria-Pena’s second arrest report, he is a native of El Salvador. He listed his occupation as a “cleaner.”

“This is the second time our taxpayer dollars have gone toward feeding and providing medical services to an illegal alien prone to violence,” Knight said in a Thursday statement. “During Echeverria-Pena’s first arrest which by all accounts, is considered ‘violent’ in my book, we called on the federal government to deport him. Today we are still waiting on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take a look at his criminal history that connects him to crimes around the country and for our purposes, asking that his removal is made a priority for the safety of our community.”

It is unclear if ICE will act on the request.

Booking photo courtesy of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office