Bexar County D.A.’s Sense of Justice
The public should ask the George Soros-funded Bexar County District Attorney about handling two recent cases involving career criminals. The public should ask if the message these two cases send to criminals is that it is open season to do as they wish.
In one case, Manuel Cantu was originally charged with capital murder. On Monday, October 23, that charge was waived, and he was sentenced to eight years in prison on the lesser charge of tampering with a human corpse.
Cantu was one of three people accused of taking part in a murder-for-hire plot in February 2019 that ended in the death of Mike Perez. His brother, John Cantu, and his wife, Christina Rodriguez, were also charged in the case. This was a cold-blooded murder.
However, the DA’s office amended the indictment to include the second-degree felony charge and then motioned to have count 1 of the indictment, the capital murder charge, waived. Cantu then pleaded no contest to a lesser charge.
186th District Court Judge Kristina Escalona accepted the plea and sentenced Cantu to eight years with credit for time served, which means Cantu is already eligible for parole. Why such a lenient plea deal for a murderer?
Where is the outrage from victim groups and the local media?
The second case involved Erik Cantu Jr., 18 (no relation to the previous Cantu), a teenager who was shot by an SAPD officer last year but has been named as a suspect in two recent felony evading arrest cases that occurred less than a week apart in September 2023. While Cantu was portrayed in the news media as a victim of a brutal police shooting, his behavior reflects a different character. Meanwhile, the police officer was publicly crucified.
In the first incident on September 2, an SAPD officer around 11 p.m. spotted the vehicle traveling 100 miles per hour in a 65-miles-per-hour zone. After confirming the license plate, the officer attempted to pull over the vehicle, an SAPD incident report states. The vehicle failed to stop and instead performed “evasive maneuvers” and began traveling even faster.
The officer ended the chase because SAPD has a strict “no vehicle pursuit” policy. This investigation remains pending because Cantu was not positively identified as the driver, but his vehicle was.
The second incident, on September 8, occurred downtown at E. When an SAPD bike patrol officer attempted to stop a BMW playing loud music on Market Street and Navarro Street. The officer motioned the vehicle to stop, but the driver turned to the right and began accelerating. The vehicle continued eastbound on Market Street out of the downtown area.
The officer, who visibly identified the driver as Cantu at the scene, was later able to confirm the car’s license plate using his body-worn camera footage, according to the report. SAPD investigators plan to file the September 8 evading case against Cantu with the DA’s office.
Besides investigating him for these two “felony evading arrest” cases, SAPD also investigated two alleged physical attacks in March and August on a woman claiming to be pregnant with Cantu’s child. However, the assault case was closed after the woman stopped cooperating with the investigation.
Last year, when then-SAPD officer James Brennand shot Cantu for dragging him as he attempted to flee in his vehicle, Cantu was recognized by Brennand from a previous high-speed chase the night before. Cantu has a pattern of running from the police and endangering the public. Will George Soros-funded D.A. Gonzales consider these facts this time in sentencing and prosecuting Cantu?
Justice must not be blind and not a “respecter of persons” because of race, age, or income. The Black Lives Matter movement has made the administration of justice all about race, age, and income and villainized the police and the laws they enforce.
Career criminals are repeat offenders, and we must understand that light punishment for a career criminal rarely rehabilitates him. Giving light sentences to repeat offenders is part of the systemic problem. Bexar County D.A. Gonzales has decriminalized many “low-level crimes” and reduced punishment for major crimes in the name of “social justice.”
However, when there is “no punishment” or “delayed punishment” with little to no consequences, the public should wonder what message the Bexar County D.A. sends to criminals. When you ignore, tolerate, or excuse crimes, you soon get more and worse crimes. That is why Bexar County has a crime problem.