The Mexican government announced Thursday that it will immediately hand over to U.S. authorities Raul Gomez-Garcia, the accused killer of Denver Detective Donald Young.
Juan Marcos Gutierrez-Gonzalez, the counsel general of Mexico in Denver, said that Gomez-Garcia had decided not to appeal the Mexican government’s decision to extradite him to the United States and that his government has made Gomez-Garcia available to U.S. authorities for transfer back to Colorado.
“Without prejudging Raul Gomez-Garcia’s legal situation, these facts confirm the commitment and cooperation of the government of Mexico with justice,” Gutierrez-Gonzalez said at a news conference. “It has once more demonstrated that Mexico does not harbor people running from justice. In spite of much criticism in this case, it has once more been proven that the treaty of extradition in force between Mexico and the United States of America serves its purpose to the benefit of both countries.”
The counsel general was joined at the press conference by Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey and Police Chief Gerry Whitman.
Whitman said that officials were going to move as quickly as possible to bring Gomez-Garcia back to Denver, noting that it is only a four-hour plane flight between Mexico City and Denver.
The chief emphasized, however, that the actual task of moving Gomez-Garcia is up to the U.S. Marshals Service. He said his detectives would provide any assistance the marshals want.
Whitman said he had spoken to both Young’s widow, Kelly, and Jack “John” Bishop, a Denver detective, who was shot along with Donald “Donnie” Young, on May 8, when the two uniformed off-duty detectives were providing security at a party at the Salon Ocampo social hall, 1733 W. Mississippi Avenue.
“I talked to Kelly and Jack and it brings some emotion back,” Whitman said. “It’s been about seven months since she was knee-deep in this operation and Jack Bishop was in it every day. She is excited. This is a good time of year to resolve some of these issues for her and her daughters. She is the person I’m going to report into when he gets into Denver police custody and when he is back in Colorado in Denver sheriff’s custody.”
The announcement of the handing over of Gomez-Garcia culminated months of delicate negotiations between Denver and Mexican officials. Morrissey was told by Mexico that Gomez-Garcia wouldn’t be extradited if he charged him with crimes that carried the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
So Morrissey made a conscious decision to charge Gomez-Garcia with second-degree murder in Young’s death and attempted first-degree murder in Bishop’s shooting, neither of which carry a death sentence of mandatory life. On conviction of both, however, Gomez-Garcia could receive up to 96 years in prison, or 48 years on both counts.
Morrissey said he chose that course in full consultation with those closest to the case.
“We’ve always respected the rule of law both in our country and the country of Mexico,” Morrissey said. “That’s why I wanted to make sure that Donnie Young’s widow, that Jack Bishop, that Chief Whitman, that all the homicide detectives that worked so hard on this case understood what my options were and understood the situation I was in in light of the law in Mexico.
“And I certainly intended all along to respect the law in Mexico and make my decision based on the confined of the law I had. We do that every day, in all kinds of different situations. We live with the restrictions that we have with our constitution with the law and certainly when we are dealing with a foreign country the same kind of situation. Everyone I spoke with was in agreement with the way I did it,” Morrissey said.
That was why, Morrissey said, he felt comfortable going forward in trying to bring Gomez-Garcia back under the constraints placed on him both by U.S. and Mexican law.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
