Sheriff Carmine Marceno in Lee County, Florida announced this week that some Hurricane Ian looters arrested in Fort Myers Beach turned out to be in the U.S. illegally.
Marceno made the announcement in a press conference on Tuesday. Reportedly, the four individuals were arrested on charges of burglary of an unoccupied structure during a state of emergency. The four alleged looters were Omar Mejia Ortiz, 33, Valerie Celeste Salcedo Mena, 26 and 20-year-olds Brandon Mauricio Araya and Steve Eduardo Sanchez Araya, according to Fox News. Three of the four were reportedly in the U.S. illegally.
"All three of these subjects are here illegally in this country — Robert Mena, Brandon Araya, Stephen Araya — all arrested for stealing bottles on Fort Myers Beach during the hurricane. They were located and arrested. And I'm going to tell I'm not tolerating it again,” Marceno reportedly said during the press conference.
In a Sunday press conference, Marceno had said that he has a “zero tolerance” policy on looting.
“This last thing our residents need to worry about, the great state of Florida residents, is people looting,” Marceno said in the press conference. “I took a very aggressive stance on zero tolerance. We have deputies from all over the state with our local, state and federal partners to ensure there’s no looting.”
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Several times, Marceno noted that people who choose to loot in the aftermath of the hurricane will likely be “carried out” upon entering a storm-ravaged building.
“When I say zero tolerance, I stand with our great residents in zero tolerance because law and order and safety and security is No.1. If someone makes the error, the error to walk into someone’s house and rob, steal and loot, they’re going to be carried out. Carried out. And I’m certain about it.”
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded to the report about the looters who were in the U.S. illegally.
“If I could, I would take those three looters, I would drag them out by the collars and I would send them back to where they came from,” he said during a briefing on Tuesday, according to the New York Post.
“I mean, they should be prosecuted, but they need to be sent back to their home country. They should not be here at all,” he added. “These are people that are foreigners, they’re illegally in our country — and not only that, they tried to loot and ransack in the aftermath of a natural disaster.”
DeSantis said late last week that Florida is a “Second Amendment State,” a warning to those who might loot homes and businesses during the hurricane.
“Don’t even think about looting. Don’t even think about taking advantage of people in this vulnerable situation,” DeSantis said. “You never know what may be lurking behind somebody’s home…we’re a Second Amendment State.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warns people not to loot homes amid hurricane recovery: "You never know what may be lurking behind somebody's home...we're a Second Amendment state." https://t.co/zEQTa6EZra pic.twitter.com/EZaVPNXPDq
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 1, 2022
As of Tuesday, at least 109 people have been reported killed by Hurricane Ian in the United States. So far, 105 of the deaths have been reported in Florida and 55 reported in Lee County, according to CNN. Four people in North Carolina have been reported killed by the catastrophic hurricane.
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