A DEADLY DRUG RAID REIGNITES DEBATE

After Suspect Dies In Shootout, Critics Question Need For Surprise Busts

The shootouts were almost a year apart, but they took place in the same
part of town - Del Valle - and under the same set of circumstances - a drug
raid. Both times, children were inside the mobile homes when SWAT teams
showed up at the door. And both raids ended in death.

In February, the victim was the law officer, Travis County sheriff's Deputy
Keith Ruiz. On Thursday, it was the suspect, 19-year-old Antonio Martinez.

Although the sheriff's office has said little about the circumstances of
Thursday's raid, the known similarities between the two incidents already
have fueled an argument that surprise drug raids on private homes are an
unnecessary and far too dangerous means of enforcing the law.

Sheriff's spokesman Roger Wade said the raids are inescapable: to make the
best case, deputies must make the arrest where the drugs are being kept.

"We'd love to call them up and say, 'Come on down here, and bring your
dope.' " Wade said. "But that's not realistic or logical. We need to keep
doing what we're doing."

Martinez died at Brackenridge Hospital three minutes before 6:30 a.m.
Thursday from a gunshot wound suffered when deputies stormed a mobile home
on Cornflower Circle in Southeast Travis County.

Deputies arrested the home's owner, 28-year-old Arturo Alvarez, but are
still working on the charges against him, which likely will include the
possession and distribution of a controlled substance, Wade said.

"Narcotics were found at the house," Wade said. "As to what type or how
much, we're still working on that."

Wade said Alvarez's wife and as many as four children were at home when
deputies knocked on the door early Thursday.

"We took appropriate measures to make sure they didn't get hurt," he said,
but he would not elaborate.

The details of the raid, including who fired first and how many shots were
fired, were still fuzzy later Thursday. Sheriff's deputies and internal
affairs investigators spent most of the day interviewing witnesses,
including members of the county's SWAT team and the Capital Area Drug Task
Force, a multicounty agency that assisted with the raid.

Almost a year ago, the tables were turned, and a late-night drug raid in a
nearby trailer park ended with the death of Ruiz, a 36-year-old husband and
father.

Drugs were found during that raid, too.

According to court documents, Ruiz, a member of the county's SWAT team, was
attempting to break down the door of Edwin Delamora's manufactured home
during the Feb. 15 raid when the 21-year-old shot at deputies through a
small diamond-shaped window in the door.

One bullet, the documents say, struck Ruiz in the shoulder - which was not
covered by his bulletproof vest - and perforated his aorta. Delamora's wife
and two children were asleep in the home when the raid started. Delamora
was charged with capital murder.

Violence could have been avoided in both incidents had uniformed deputies
made the arrests during the day and away from the homes, said Ann del
Llano, spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union's Texas Police
Accountability Project.

"It doesn't make sense that law enforcement can't make the drug case unless
they find the person at the home with the drugs at the moment," del Llano said.

"They can arrest the person and then execute a search warrant in a safe
circumstance . . . while the person's not barred up in their home ready to
shoot," she said. "The sad part is, you're not only risking the citizen's
life but the officer's life, too. We don't need any more officers dead in
Austin."