Sheriff blames California's sanctuary city policies for illegal alien's crime spree - here's why

The arrest of an illegal alien could have been accomplished with far less threat to the public had it not been for California's sanctuary city policies, says a local sheriff.

"This person is not a legal citizen within the United States," said Merced Sheriff Van Warnke.

"We had him in our custody in January of this year," he continued. "And because of the folks in Sacramento limiting our ability to cooperate with ICE, we could not turn him over."

51-year-old Guadalupe Lopez-Herrera shot a sheriff's deputy on Wednesday and fled the scene. Police later caught up with him after a high speed car chase on Thursday.

He sped away at speeds reaching 120 mph and fired more shots at the police before being foiled by a spike strip.

Van Warnke indicated that Lopez-Herrera will be charged with attempted murder of the sheriff's deputy, among other charges.

California is among the worst states when it comes to "sanctuary city" policies that aim to hamstring federal efforts to enforce immigration laws by forbidding cooperation from local law enforcement agencies.

"Bottom line is our immigration policies need to be revamped because we're gonna continue to have more of this situation happen," said Van Warnke.

"We knew ahead of time this guy's potential for violence was there," he added.

Here's the media briefing with Sheriff Warnke:

09-05-2019 Sheriff Press Conferencewww.youtube.com