[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15801-15802]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    SHATAVIA ANDERSON--MURDER VICTIM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. In early August, August 7 to be exact, in Houston, 
Texas, right after the sun had gone down, about 9 o'clock p.m. on a hot 
summer night, a young girl was walking home. Shatavia Anderson. She 
went by Ta. And she was walking down the street not far from where she 
lived in a very modest community; 14-year-old, happy, spirited child.
  She was confronted by two individuals who ambushed her, who taunted 
her, who robbed her, and as she tried to get away, one of them shot her 
in the back and murdered her not far from where she lived. This is who 
Ta was. This is her in the pink. She is next to her mother, Keisha 
Lambert. She's a real person, Mr. Speaker, a real victim of criminal 
conduct, died in the early teenage years. Ta's father, Leroy Anderson, 
said that his beautiful daughter loved life. And you can tell by 
looking at her that she is a happy, spirited child.

                              {time}  1720

  It could have been any of our children.
  Over the years in my career as a judge in the courthouse in Houston, 
Texas--22 to be exact--I've seen a lot of criminal cases, tried a lot, 
came across many victims, but this case has bothered me a great deal. I 
don't know the reason, maybe it's because I have four children--three 
of them are girls--eight grandkids--five of them are girls, but this 
one has bothered me a lot just by looking at who this young lady was. 
Ambushed by two individuals that were caught by the Houston Police 
Department, Melvin Alvarado, he was the cowardly shooter who shot her 
in the back. It is not his first experience with the criminal justice 
system in Texas. He likes to drink and drive. It turns out, of course, 
like some others, he was illegally in the United States. He had been 
deported twice before to his native country of El Salvador, but that 
didn't make any difference to him. He came back to Houston and 
committed this crime and robbed this precious child of not only some 
money, but he stole her life when he came back and shot her in the back 
not far from where she lived.
  There was another individual, Jonathan Lopez-Torres, the getaway 
driver of the car as they snuck away in the darkness of the night after 
murdering this beautiful child; he's from Honduras, although he was 
legally in the United States. He had been arrested for auto theft. The 
Houston Police Department said when these criminals were arrested they 
showed no remorse, no sadness, almost arrogant in the crime that they 
committed here in the United States. Melvin Alvarado confessed to this 
crime and told the police what he had done.
  Joe Lambert, the uncle of Ta, said this about this crime: ``Illegals 
are a big problem in Houston. It is really senseless what happened to 
my niece, and I don't like it. They are starting to come over here and 
they do whatever they want to do. What is happening is they are given 
the green light and saying to the rest of us, hey, you can do whatever 
you want.'' Yes, that's what these two arrogant criminals did, but they 
can do whatever they want. They wanted a little property from this 
young lady, they shot her because she tried to get away. These are real 
people, real children, real victims of crime.
  The duty of government, Mr. Speaker, is to protect the public. That's 
why we have government, to protect us. The national government has 
failed totally in protecting people in the United States from those 
criminals who come over here to commit crime. We give a

[[Page 15802]]

wink and a nod to border security, but it doesn't happen. They cross 
back and forth, they get caught, they get sent back home, they come 
over again because the border is not secure, Mr. Speaker. It's time for 
the Federal Government to secure the border so more children don't get 
murdered by those illegals who come over here for the purpose of 
committing crime. I'm certainly not talking about all people who come 
here illegally, but we are talking about one child that was murdered by 
one.
  The answer is not, of course, amnesty--as some advocate in this House 
who know nothing about the real world--the answer is securing the 
border by putting the National Guard on the border immediately to 
prevent people from crossing, and make sure that when we deport those 
people, they don't come back to the United States.
  These individuals, Alvarado, stole the most precious thing we have, 
that is a human life. No parent wants to lose their child before its 
time, and the worst thing that can happen is for us to see a child die. 
And when this young lady was murdered by these criminals, they stole 
everything she was and everything she will be, and that ought not to 
be. That should hopefully make us, as a body, do something about cross-
border crime. The time is now. And that's just the way it is.

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