Mexico Murder Suspect Flees INS

A Mexican national suspected of murder remained at large Tuesday after he bolted and ran from federal immigration agents near the downtown Federal Building Monday evening, law enforcement officials said.

Jamil David Jacome-Iza, a 25-year-old from the state of Puebla, sprinted away from U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents as they escorted him and 13 other illegal immigrants from a jail bus into the Federal Building at 300 N. Los Angeles St. for a deportation hearing, said INS spokesman Joe Flanders.

Jacome-Iza, wanted in a robbery and fatal shooting in Mexico in 1986, ran down Main Street, while still handcuffed, about 5:45 p.m. Monday, Flanders said.

“The agents chased him but lost him around Main and Temple streets,” Flanders said.

Los Angeles police, alerted by INS officials, sealed off and scanned the area bounded by Los Angeles, Temple and 4th streets and Broadway. But a police helicopter, canine search teams and police foot patrols were unable to find Jacome-Iza, said police spokesman Roger Mora.

Jacome-Iza was last seen wearing a white dress shirt over a black T-shirt. A jacket was draped over his wrists to conceal the handcuffs.

INS spokesman John Brechtel said his agency, which is handling the investigation alone, is “checking all of the addresses we have for him and talking to everyone who knows him.”

Jacome-Iza, who was named in an arrest warrant, is suspected of shooting law student Daniel Avila Gomez, 25, during a fight over a woman in a Veracruz disco April 8, 1986, according to police in Veracruz.

“The dead guy beat the other one in the fist fight, so since the suspect could not beat him with his hands, he went out . . . to his car, and got a gun,” said Jose Alonzo Quintero, deputy commander of the Veracruz Judicial Police. “He shot one bullet into the other man’s head.”

Details of the alleged robbery were not available.

Jacome-Iza fled the country shortly after the shooting, illegally entering the United States through Calexico. Los Angeles police arrested him earlier this month and turned him over to INS, which planned to hand him over to Mexican officials after the deportation hearing.

Jacome-Iza was placed in a holding cell at the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s substation in Blythe, where he and the 13 other illegal immigrants were awaiting deportation hearings. The jail bus had taken them to the rear entrance of the Federal Building, when he dashed away from the agents.

Veracruz police officials said they had not been notified of Jacome-Iza’s escape.

“They called us about 15 to 25 days ago to say they had captured him,” Alonzo Quintero said. “We were making plans for how we were going to transport him here from Tijuana, because that’s where they were going to turn him over, and from there to Veracruz it’s very far away.”

Since his arrival in this country, Alonzo Quintero said, Jacome-Iza had married, had a child and had been working as a bricklayer.