Psychiatrist beaten with bat, records show
A California doctor found dead in a desert area east of Las Vegas in March had been beaten with a baseball bat in a south valley home, according to court documents made public Tuesday.
The roommate of a man and woman facing murder charges in the death of 71-year-old Thomas Burchard told a Las Vegas grand jury that she was in the house at 7474 Puritan Ave. when he was killed, according to transcripts of her testimony.
Diana Pena, who this month pleaded guilty to a charge of accessory to murder, said she watched Jon “Logan” Kennison kick in the door to a room of the house and swing a baseball bat at Burchard after Kelsey Turner became upset about images and messages she found on Burchard’s phone.
“Thomas had like a big like red and purple bruise right here on his head,” Pena said, indicating his right temple. “And then I took the bat from Logan, and Logan started wrestling with Tom and I told him to calm down, like he’s clearly hurt, and so Logan calmed, like stopped and he was on top of him for a little while and then he got up.”
Turner and Kennison initially planned to take Burchard to a hospital after he was struck with the baseball bat, the 31-year-old Pena testified.
Burchard rinsed off in a bathroom and waited in the back of
tear families apart,” said Rep. Dina Titus, D-nev.
The president has praised Mexico for cracking down on immigration from Central American countries and blamed Democrats in Congress for not doing enough to stop the flow of immigrants coming from those countries.
“The Democrats should get together and solve the asylum problem, which is very easy to solve,” Trump told reporters Tuesday at the White House.
Some Senate Republicans attending party luncheons on Capitol Hill on Tuesday downplayed the president’s surprise crackdown announcement. They noted a similar announcement by Trump months ago was not carried out by ICE or the Department of Homeland Security.
“I don’t know any more than I’ve read,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, R-KY., brushing the subject away during his weekly news conference.
But Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the surprise launch of deportations was just another chaotic move by the Trump administration just hours before he was scheduled to speak at his re-election rally in Florida, a key electoral state in 2020.
“He seems to be doing it for political purposes,” Schumer told reporters.
Chaos theory
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-minn., said Trump could have achieved comprehensive immigration reform when he was first elected and Republicans held majorities in the House and Senate.
“This is just one more example of the chaos he causes,” said Klobuchar, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, one of two dozen in a large field of candidates.
“He creates this chaos, and then goes out and talks about it at a rally,” Klobuchar told reporters.
ICE officials said earlier this month that they anticipated deportation actions and that those would include humane efforts dealing with families.
An administration source said the deportations announced in Trump’s tweets would be people who have received final deportation orders from immigration judges, according to The Associated Press.
Trump, in the past, used immigration to drive his voters to the polls. In the 2018 elections, he used the wedge issue to gain Republican seats in the Midwest, but his use of the issue was also credited with losses in suburban House districts that became part of the “Blue Wave.”
Illegal immigration falling
The number of undocumented immigrants in this country is shrinking, according to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank that studies immigration and Latino issues.
The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States in 2017 was estimated to be 10.5 million, a 14 percent drop from the 12.2 million thought to be here in 2007.
And Mexico, now accounts for less than 45 percent of undocumented immigrants, with larger influxes of immigrants coming from the “Northern Triangle,” the troubled violence-prone countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, according to the Pew Research Center.
While undocumented immigration populations continue to grow in Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois, fewer immigrants are going to Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, California, Oregon and New Mexico, the Pew Research Center found.
“Every piece of his anti-immigrant agenda is cruel and counterproductive. The president needs a reminder that the United States is a melting pot and the symbol of our nation is the Statue of Liberty,” Titus said.
Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@ reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.