|
|
|
|
: 3/2 large brick home, with large shop on 1 ac corner lot. $259,900. See pics @ or 576-4069.
Victoria police and Sheriff’s officers busted into the house at 2515 Putney St. at 8 p.m. Friday after throwing eight flash bang devices into the home, Police Chief Bruce Ure said. Officers overtook 43-year-old Marcus De Leon Garza and arrested him.
Police knew they needed the element of surprise to keep from entering a gun standoff with the Victoria man, known for his aggressive criminal history, Ure said. They found 12 loaded weapons – pistols, assault rifles and shotguns - with ammunition throughout the home.
“Quite frankly, it’s a little bit scary knowing they had that much out there,” Ure said about the gunpower.
Photos of the house revealed to police that the house had cameras around the outside angled to show cars pulling up from Bloomington Highway, Ure said. They found live-feed monitors inside.
“Those cameras were meant for us,” Ure said.
Before officers established a perimeter around the house, the police caravan drove past an unknown vehicle carrying one of the suspects they received a search warrant for just four hours earlier, Ure said.
A police car broke off and stopped the vehicle, taking down 40-year-old Kenneth L. Parsons at gunpoint, Ure said. Police were fortunate to stop him in a vehicle they weren’t looking for, he said.
Garza was alone in the house when police decided to act, but not before they called in air support from the Department of Public Safety in Houston. The helicopter provided air surveillance as well as more distraction for the suspect, flying as low as 150 feet off the ground, Ure said.
Because of the exploding noise and light from the flash bang devices, Garza was “spinning,” Ure said. Hundred-dollar bills were thrown and flying everywhere.
Ure believes Garza was counting money when they entered.
Investigators said they confiscated between $3,000 and $3,500.
“When I looked at the residence it reminded me of the ‘Scarface’ movie,” he said.
Police found several flat cakes of cocaine, each worth $450, drying inside. They found more chips of cocaine, a jar filled with marijuana and prescription pills throughout the house, in addition to drug paraphernalia, Ure said.
Police confiscated about another hundred items believed to be stolen, Ure said.
Ure won’t reveal how police knew about the drug-dealing and burglary operation on Putney Street, but said investigators worked starting 8 a.m. Friday to verify the information and obtain search warrants.
Garza and Parsons spent Friday night in Victoria County Jail, but local law enforcement contacted the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to take over the case.
Federal authorities said they charged both men with felon in possession of a firearm and possession with intent to deliver cocaine. The men were transported to a federal facility in Rockport on Saturday.
Garza and his cousin Fernando De Leon Jr. were alleged to be involved in a shootout with Victoria police in January 1983 in the parking lot of Quality Inn on Houston Highway, that expanded into a pursuit by state narcotics officers. More than 50 rounds were collected from the officers’ vehicles, but no officers were injured.
Tara Bozick is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact her at 361-580-6504 or tbozick@vicad.com.