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Police: Smuggling Fees Spur Drop House Shooting
POSTED: 7:00 am MST February 12,
2008
UPDATED: 7:11 am MST February 12,
2008
PHOENIX -- Phoenix police are investigating a shooting at a suspected immigrant drop house.Police were called to a house near 43rd Avenue and Earll Drive around 9:50 p.m. Monday on reports of shots fired.Officers arrived to find a large blood trail coming from the home and a large amount of blood inside. Police said the house was unoccupied.Police received a second call from a house several doors down, where officers found a man with several gunshot wounds outside the home. He was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Police said they believe the man was shot inside the first home.Officers canvassing the neighborhood then found a person with numerous cuts and lacerations. Police said they believe the person had been inside the home where the shooting took place and jumped through a glass window to escape.Police said they detained four illegal immigrants in the neighborhood who were also believed to have fled the home after the shooting. Several others fled from police and were unaccounted for.Police said preliminary information indicated that the home was being used as a drop house where the "coyotes" were demanding increased smuggling fees and were holding the immigrants at gunpoint. Police believe the shooting took place when one or more of the immigrants got into an argument with the smugglers over the increased fees.Police said there were up to a dozen illegal immigrants in the home, all of whom had recently paid to be smuggled into the country.No arrests have been made.
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