Celebrating a life too short
Parque remembered as suspect nears trial
Afleet of doves sliced through the gray sky Tuesday afternoon in honor of fallen North Las Vegas Police Department detective Chad Parque, whose life was cut short a year ago by a wrongway driver.
At least 50 people — members of Parque’s family and colleagues — gathered Tuesday to celebrate his life at the North Las Vegas Justice Court, where the on-duty detective was hit Jan. 6, 2017, while exiting the court’s parking lot. He died from his injuries a day later.
“The terrible event that took his life was witnessed by some of the staff here at the court that day,”
Judge Natalie Tyrrell said. “His final duties as a police officer were spent at the North Las Vegas Justice Court.”
It took more than nine months to charge Kokoe Akouete-ekoue, who for more than a year had been identified by North Las Vegas police only as a 62-year-old woman. In the year since Parque’s death, the police department had not released the driver’s name.
According to a criminal complaint obtained Tuesday by the Las Vegas Review-journal, Akouete-ekoue faces one misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter in connection with the crash. She pleaded not guilty Oct. 24.
The complaint alleged the fatal crash was caused by “an act or omission that constitutes simple negligence.” Akouete-ekoue was driving south in the northbound lanes of Martin Luther King Boulevard, near Carey Avenue, when she allegedly crashed into Parque’s car.
The 10-year North Las Vegas police veteran had to be cut out of his vehicle.
During Tuesday’s celebration of his life, three city judges surprised Parque’s family with a large memorial placard displayed on a wall in the heart of the courthouse’s lobby.
The words engraved onto the
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tus families, those with both legal and undocumented members, being split up by deportation. They also warn that local businesses could face a labor shortage, as the pool of undocumented local residents increases overnight when the program expires.
That would be the worst outcome for Valle, who lives in Las Vegas with his wife, Fatima Choto, and their three children, Alex, 9, and twins Byron and Carlos, 7.
“I don’t know how hard it’s going to be without the TPS,” Valle said. “I haven’t lived without TPS all this time.”
Martha Menendez, a Las Vegas immigration attorney for the local office of the city of New York’s Citizenship Now program, said the impact could spread beyond those directly threatened with deportation.
“Some of them have started their own businesses, so what happens not just to them but the people they
employ?” Menendez said.
Salvadorans make up about 60 percent of TPS holders in the U.S., by far the largest cohort of the program’s beneficiaries. The 5,700 Salvadoran TPS holders in Nevada have lived in the United States for an average of 24 years and contribute $255.3 million to the state’s annual GDP, statistics compiled by the left-leaning Center for American Progress show. About 30 percent of Nevada’s Salvadoran TPS workers are in the accommodation and food industries, it estimates.
The Culinary union has sent letters to Las Vegas gaming industry executives asking for their support for immigrant workers. Geoconda Arguello-kline, secretary-treasurer of the local, said they’ll continue to ask politicians and corporations to press Congress to protect TPS holders.
Valle gained TPS protections in 2001, when a magnitude-7.6 earthquake rocked El Salvador, and has been working as an auto mechanic since. The money he sends to his family in Central America has helped his sisters attend college and his mother put food on the table.
Though his wife has a green card and his children, born in the United States, are citizens, they cannot petition for Valle to be granted legal status.
Few avenues for legal stay
TPS for Salvadorans doesn’t expire for 18 months, so Laura Barrera, an immigration attorney at UNLV’S Immigration Clinic, is urging them to see an attorney to renew their papers once renewal dates are announced.
TPS holders can apply for legal permanent stay through a green