Suspect in Deputy’s Slaying Is Arrested

Jorge “Armando” Arroyo Garcia, the fugitive accused of the killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy nearly four years ago, was arrested in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, on Thursday, according to Los Angeles County and Mexican authorities.

Garcia is alleged to have killed Deputy David March at a traffic stop in Irwindale in April 2002 and has since been at large.

His was one of the most high-profile and controversial fugitive cases involving Mexico in recent years. Extradition had remained a sticking point between the U.S. and Mexican governments until last year, when the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that murder suspects wanted here could be returned.

“Terrific,” is how Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca characterized the news Thursday night that Garcia had been apprehended.

He said that sheriff’s homicide detectives would be sent to Mexico immediately to pursue the case.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley struck a similar note: “We don’t forgive. We don’t forget. Justice will now be done.”

U.S. marshals and Mexican police working together were instrumental in locating Garcia, Baca and Cooley said. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed that a task force had been working on the case.

Baca said that marshals and Mexican police had been staking out the home of an uncle of Garcia when, to their surprise, Garcia himself walked out of the house. He surrendered peacefully, Baca said.

According to a statement released by Mexico’s attorney general on Thursday, Garcia was arrested in Tonala, Jalisco, by Mexican federal agents following an investigation that spanned three states. The statement said Garcia’s criminal history included drug offenses and domestic violence.

He has been transferred to a Mexican detention facility, the statement said.

U.S. authorities have 60 days to file an extradition request.

March, 33, was a seven-year department veteran who stopped a black Nissan, allegedly driven by Garcia, during a routine morning patrol on April 29, 2002. March, who lived with his wife and stepdaughter in Santa Clarita, was shot several times and later died at a hospital.

Investigators soon after identified Garcia, who they said was an illegal immigrant and drug dealer, as a suspect.

But by then, it appeared that Garcia had fled to Mexico. And although Mexican police were said to be helping in the search, at that time extradition of fugitives to the U.S. from Mexico was a point of dispute. Mexican judges had balked at allowing Mexican nationals to be returned to a country where they could face the death penalty or life in prison.

But in November, Mexico’s Supreme Court ended a four-year argument with the U.S. over extradition by ruling that thousands of slaying suspects could be returned.

Opinion in Mexico on the issue had changed, as Mexican states began imposing harsher penalties on criminals in an effort to curb violent crime.

Garcia had been at the top of the list of extradition targets in Mexico wanted by local authorities.

Cooley, reached by phone late Thursday, would not give further details on how the case would proceed. In the past, he has declined to say whether he would seek the death penalty against Garcia.

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Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.