i had no way of anticipating his reaction, whether it was outrage, whether it was anger, whether it was i don t believe it, it s all [ bleep ]. i was ready for just about anything. when i was contacted by lise olsen, whom i did not know, i had no idea that there had ever been a question about the result in the cantu case or that anybody was looking at it for that matter. i met with him in his office in a quiet room. we spent an hour. i took him through it step by step slowly. i showed him the fact that juan moreno had said that he had never believed that ruben cantu was the shooter. that he felt that he had to identify cantu because that s who police wanted him to identify. lise had also uncovered information about officers bill ewell and joe de la luz, who both had a vested interest in fingering ruben cantu as the killer. both bill ewell and joe de la luz had a history of disciplinary problems. bill ewell said to me that the
my brother, ruben, felt threatened. he shot the officer, not knowing he was an off-duty officer. officer de la luz, who was shot four times, would survive. but after ruben was arrested, police realized they had a problem. the fact of the matter is, ruben was never prosecuted in that bar fight where he shot a police officer. there was no case that could be made against ruben, which implies that joe de la luz drew his gun on ruben before ruben fired. otherwise, why wouldn t they have prosecuted ruben cantu for attempting to kill a police officer? rather than letting ruben go, sergeant bill ewell, who supervised homicides for the san antonio p.d., had another idea. the gomez murder had gone unsolved for four months. bill ewell was a friend of
joe de la luz, the officer who was shot, and he also ended up being the person who was in charge of this murder investigation. so after the shooting of bill ewell s friend, bill ewell decides to take another look at ruben cantu. by now, juan moreno had twice failed to identify ruben cantu as the shooter. but with ruben in custody, ewell sent a detective to juan s home. i took the photos, the forms and a portable typewriter. i showed juan this array. he sat there and looked at them and looked at them and looked at them and he shoved them aside and looked away from them. he said, look, i know who did it. i know who shot me. so why do i have to identify anyone out of this photo array? i said, well, who did it? he said, ruben cantu. we went round and round.
evidence, none whatsoever. richard also discovered that police had only focused their attention on ruben after he was involved in an unrelated crime. i saw where ruben had been involved with a police officer in a shootout at some bar, not pertaining to this murder. i think ruben was arrested because of something that happened after that murder. he and a couple of his friends were at a bar shooting pool. and they had a conflict with an off-duty officer. he accidentally hit him with the pool stick. words were exchanged. the off-duty officer was joe de la luz, a 16-year veteran of the force. the officer showed him his weapons. he was in regular civilian clothes, so they didn t know.
outrage, whether it was anger, whether it was i don t believe it it is all [ bleep ]. i was ready for just about anything. when i was contacted by lise olsen, whom i did not know, i had no idea that there had ever been a question about the result in the cantu case or that anybody was looking at it for that matter. i met with him in his office in a quiet room. we spent an hour. i took him through it step by step slowly. i showed him the fact that juan moreno had said that he had never believed that ruben cantu was the shooter. that he felt that he hado identify cantu because that s who police wanted him to identify. lise had also uncovered information about officers bill ewell and joe de la luz, who both had a vested interest in fingering ruben cantu as the killer. both bill you ll and joe de la luz had a history of disciplinary problems. bill ewell said to me that the