Sanctuary Cities Failed Laken Riley – and all – Latest News
Ethan Curreri is a former New York City police workplace who arrested Laken Riley’s killer for a lesser crime six months earlier than the unlawful migrant was launched — due to New York’s sanctuary insurance policies — and moved to Georgia. Curreri was invited by President Trump to talk on the Angel Family occasion on the White House in February 2025, the place the households of victims of legal migrants gathered. Curreri is now a an officer with the Juno Beach Police Department in Florida.
I started my law enforcement profession with the NYPD assigned to the 113th Precinct in South Jamaica, Queens.
I’ve walked into many tough scenes as a police officer, however nothing compares to standing in a room full of damaged hearts on the White House.
President Trump shakes arms with former NYPD Officer Ethan Curreri on the Angel Families Remembrance Ceremony. Aaron Schwartz – Pool by way of CNP
On Feb. 23, 2026, President Donald Trump hosted the Angel Family Remembrance Ceremony honoring those that misplaced their lives by the hands of unlawful immigrants. The President gave me the chance to share the story that connects me to the households of these victims.
In August 2023, my companion and I noticed a male recklessly driving a bike with a 2-year-old little one.
The little one was not carrying a helmet, and there have been no security restraints in place. We carried out a routine stop, recognized the person working the vehicle, positioned him underneath arrest for endangering the welfare of a little one, and processed him accordingly.
It was a commonplace law enforcement motion, one which officers make day-after-day. I didn’t count on to listen to something additional about it — till I did.
In late February of 2024, I used to be watching the information concerning the brutal homicide of a younger Georgia nursing scholar. The suspect’s image flashed on the screen, and I acknowledged him instantly.
It was Jose Ibarra, the person my companion and I had arrested and booked six months earlier. He was now recognized as the person chargeable for murdering Laken Riley whereas she was out for a morning run in a park close to the University of Georgia.
Nursing scholar Laken Riley was murdered whereas jogging on the University of Georgia campus. Allyson Phillips/fb
My coronary heart sank. I instantly replayed Ibarra’s arrest in my thoughts – what went incorrect? Why wasn’t he in jail, or deported? Why was he in Georgia?
One factor I felt sure of is that I did my job, but Laken’s life was taken as a result of somebody did not do theirs.
Our justice system is a sample of a failure. Individuals cycle via the system, face minimal penalties, and ultimately reoffend. Many of these legal encounters start as routine, just like the one I carried out, and they escalate and escalate till it’s too late.
It is the job of law enforcement to arrest criminals — however we need judges, district attorneys and politicians to ship them to jail.
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The dialog additionally can not ignore immigration enforcement. The particular person I arrested had entered the nation unlawfully and, at a number of factors, may have been returned to his home nation. These missed alternatives matter. Federal companies like ICE are tasked with an already tough mission: figuring out, detaining, and eradicating people who’re within the nation unlawfully and pose dangers to public security. This mission turns into considerably tougher in so-called sanctuary cities — like NYC — the place there may be a lack of cooperation on the native stage.
Policies that restrict native cooperation with federal immigration authorities create actual gaps in enforcement. Individuals who must be flagged, detained, or transferred can as an alternative be launched back into the neighborhood. This will not be a failure of law enforcement, however a failure of coordination — and it’s what price Laken Riley her life.
Standing in that room on the White House, surrounded by households carrying unimaginable loss, strengthened a easy fact: behind each failure within the system is a human price. These usually are not summary debates — they’re actual lives, actual households, and actual futures which are modified without end.
Jose Ibarra was sentenced to life in jail with out the likelihood of parole. Robin Rayne for NY Post
Every officer who pins on a badge carries with them a promise, a solemn vow to carry the road between order and chaos, to stand between the harmless and those that would do them hurt. That promise endures on each avenue nook, in each heartbreaking circumstance, via each failure of the systems meant to assist it.
Americans have a duty to make sure that the systems meant to guard our communities are pulling in the identical direction. Law enforcement can not stand alone on the edge of justice whereas inefficient courts, negligent prosecutors, and radical policymakers neglect their constitutional obligation.
Laken Riley paid for each failure of that system along with her life. Her all too short life won’t ever be forgotten — and it’s now our duty to make sure her death was not in useless.
