Virgilio Aguilar Méndez, an immigrant from Guatemala, has been charged in the United States with a prison sentence of up to 30 years, Noticias Telemundo reports.

They accused him ‘of involuntary manslaughter for the death of a police officer who died of natural causes’, but at the end of December 2023 he was “A judge has determined that the young man is not competent to stand trialafter we couldn’t understand the charges or the sentences.”

Aguilar Méndez, 18, does not speak English and worked in the fields. The young man speaks moman indigenous Mayan dialect.

He is accused in the death of Michael Paul Kunovich, a sergeant with the St. Johns County (Florida) Sheriff’s Department, the EFE agency said. To secure their release, they collect signatures on digital platforms.

What happened to Virgilio Aguilar

On the night of May 19, 2019, according to court documents, Kunovich said “there was a suspicious individual standing outside a business and ordered him to stop.”

That person was Virgilio Aguilar, who did not immediately obey him when they saw him walking down the street in Jacksonville.

According to EFE, the sergeant’s body camera video was released and shows Aguilar Méndez “moments later trying to answer Kunovich’s questions even though he doesn’t speak English.”

The Guatemalan, they say, “apologized to the officer and pointed out the hotel where he was staying.” But, in the words of the Spanish agency, “the encounter escalated when Kunovich attempted to search the Guatemalan migrant’s pockets.”

Two other officers arrived on the scene and helped Kunovich subdue Aguilar Méndez to the ground, “after applying several electric shocks.” Telemundo details the video: “The young man can be heard telling the officers, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak English.’”

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An officer decides to search him and Aguilar resists; Several officers struggle with him and one shoots him in the leg with a Taser.

The released images, plus the way the 18-year-old was prosecuted, sparked “outrage from users on social networks who brought the case into the public debate,” Telemundo said.

That network reports that several people formed a movement to demand the release of Aguilar Méndez. Noticias Telemundo specifies that they started collecting signatures on January 3, 2024 and “they have collected almost 400,000.”

On jacksonville.com they add that “Aguilar Méndez screams for his family and tries to take control of the Taser gun.”

The battle lasts approximately six minutes. Ultimately, “officers observed that the handcuffed suspect was carrying a small pocket knife and disarmed him.”

What happened to Kunovich?

Sergeant Michael Paul Kunovich, who arrested the young Guatemalan, suffered from high blood pressure, Telemundo reports.

In addition, he had a “cardiovascular disease that caused a cardiac arrhythmia, which was affected by the effort he made” in subduing the young man who has been in custody for more than half a year.

That night of May 19, Kunovich “suffered a massive heart attack and died,” Aguilar’s lawyer, Phillip Arroyo, explained to Noticias Telemundo.

According to the news network, Arroyo is someone who believes the crimes Virgilio Aguilar is facing “are shameless.”

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Judicial process

According to EFE, the League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac, in English), the largest and oldest Latino group in the United States, criticized what is happening to Guatemalans in late December.

Lulac described the accusation as “premature and unfair” given the circumstances surrounding the altercation, the agency added.

“We should not blame this death on this young man who was the target of excessive force by the police and group tactics of other officers who arrived on the scene,” Domingo García, president of the police force, said in a statement quoted by EFE. Lulac.

On January 4, 2024, Prensa Libre published that a Florida judge, R. Lee Smith, had declared Guatemalan Virgilio Aguilar “not competent” to stand trial for murder.

That media outlet quotes jacksonville.com to report that several experts testified last December 22 that Aguilar cannot understand the charges he faces or the possible punishment he faces because of “the limited Spanish and English he speaks.”

It emerged that Virgilio Aguilar “will have to undergo treatment and observation to determine whether he can learn enough of the language to stand trial,” local media reported, Telemundo reports. A report is due in two months, or sooner.

The migrant also faces a detention order from immigration authorities for being undocumented.

In addition to the competency-based training at the Volusia County Jail, “the judge ordered Aguilar Mendez to receive prescription psychiatric medications.”

Last December, Eliseo Santana, director of Lulac Florida, opined that “the charges against Aguilar Méndez should be thoroughly ‘re-examined’.”

According to Aguilar’s lawyer, the young man was considered “suspicious” without reason and that his arrest is part of the “hostile climate” that exists in Florida due to the anti-immigrant law SB 1718.

(JO)