Pubdate: Wed, 12 Feb 2003
Source: San Antonio Express-News (TX)
Copyright: 2003 San Antonio Express-News
Contact:  http://www.mysanantonio.com/expressnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/384
Author: Maro Robbins, San Antonio Express-News
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

GIRL SHOT AT DEA STAKEOUT IS DEAD

As Ashley Villarreal lay in the hospital and drew her last breaths Tuesday,
a friend challenged the official version of how federal agents days earlier
shot the 14-year-old daughter of a drug trafficking suspect.

The eyewitness account came as Ashley's family requested that she be taken
off life support. She died at 6:14 p.m., a hospital spokesman said.

Daniel Robles, a family friend and housemate who was with the teenager
during Sunday's stakeout by agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration,
offered the conflicting narrative.

The agents were there to get the girl's father, Joey Angel Villarreal, a
three-time convicted drug offender who turned himself in and was charged
with cocaine trafficking a day after the shooting.

Federal authorities have said an agent opened fire when a darkened car
accelerated toward him.

But Robles said that, to him, in the passenger seat, and to the girl behind
the wheel, it looked like a darkened car was accelerating toward them.

The unmarked vehicles that emerged moments after Ashley steered the
Mitsubishi Eclipse out of the driveway and onto a darkened South San Joaquin
Street appeared to be pursuing them, he said.

"It makes me really angry," Robles fumed. "This girl's dying and there are
these reports that she threatened them."

Robles' story reflected one side of the polarized narratives and charged
emotions that will be sifted by investigators with two law-enforcement
agencies examining the shooting incident.

DEA investigators fresh from Washington visited the scene Tuesday afternoon
while San Antonio police officers continued their own inquiry by questioning
Ashley Villarreal's grandmother.

Throughout the day, family members lingered at Wilford Hall Medical Center,
keeping a vigil over the girl who once dreamed about being a model or
singer.
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