Imagine you're working on a roof when, out of nowhere, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) armed with automatic weapons descend on the jobsite.
That was the scene at a home near Marion County, Kan. on May 19 when law enforcement sought to arrest two roofing contractors accused of murder.
In a story from the Hillsboro Star-Journal, a roofing crew was working on the home of Heath Shields last week in Kansas. That’s when ATF agents appeared, brandishing guns with the intent of arresting two of the crew members on murder warrants from Aurora, Colo.
Officers apprehend Enrique Juarez-Gonzalez, 19, right away. The other suspect, Rafael Rodriguez-Lopez, fled before officers could capture him. In a May 20 article from the Marion County Record, it’s reported that more than a dozen officers from a variety of agencies searched for Lopez, but he managed to escape.
Marion County Sheriff Rob Craft told the Marion County Record that the ATF were after the pair in relation to a homicide case. Juarez-Gonzalez is being charged with a pair of first-degree murder counts as well as a charge of tampering with a corpse for an incident that occurred Feb. 28, 2019. According to the Sentinel in Colorado, the details of the crime haven’t been revealed, and it’s unknown as to whether Juarez-Gonzalez will be extradited from Kansas to Colorado.
According to the Hillsboro Star-Journal, the roofing contractor fired the entire crew that was working on Shields’ home and brought on a different crew the following day to finish the job. Two of the original crew members returned to the home a week later, and sheriff’s deputies had to respond to tell them to not return.