TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Slain Men Remembered For Loyalty

ADVERTISEMENT

By GEOFF FOX

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 22, 2008

DADE CITY - They spent their lives in the orange groves, toiling long, arduous hours to earn money for families they rarely saw.

Sometimes, work required them to spend hours on a bus to and from Tommytown, the impoverished area north of Dade City, where they often spent evenings socializing with their fellow migrant workers and roommates - 12 of them in a four-room dwelling.

At 46, Quirino Velasquez was the unofficial head of the house, as well as a crew of orange pickers. A Mexican citizen, he came from a small mountain village in Veracruz.

"He was pretty smart, like a moral leader," said Antonio Tovar, a field coordinator with the Farmworkers Association of Florida. "People went to him to ask for advice."

Tovar met Velasquez and his roommate, Santos de la Cruz, 33, a couple of years ago through an eye-safety program the farmworkers association runs with the University of South Florida's College of Public Health.

Tovar said he was shocked Sunday when he received a call telling him that Velasquez and de la Cruz were killed in a double shooting outside Tommytown's Resurrection Park about 10 p.m. Friday.
Farmworkers Self-Help on Lock Street coordinated a vigil Wednesday outside the park. Also memorialized was Miguel Arellano, 22, of Dade City, who was shot fatally about 2:30 a.m. Sunday near 14th and Lock streets after a fight at the nearby La Onda nightclub.

More than 100 residents, local pastors and community leaders attended the event, where three crosses, made by local men and painted by neighborhood children, were erected at the entrances.

"When this park was created, it was created for happiness," said Margarita Romo, executive director of Farmworkers Self-Help. "We never wanted there to be a moment like this. All our lives, at any moment, God can call us - and we need to prepared."

Information Sought

The Pasco County Sheriff's Office is seeking information about the killings of Velasquez and de la Cruz.

"We're continuing to investigate and hoping someone from the public will step forward," said sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin. "Even if someone doesn't think any information they have is important, maybe they saw someone walking down the street or saw a vehicle in the area. Those things are important as we look at the timeline leading up to the shooting."

No motive has been released. The men apparently were returning from a convenience store when they were killed.

Tobin said several witnesses were interviewed after Arellano's death, precipitated by a brawl at La Onda, but no arrests have been made.

On Wednesday, Velasquez and de la Cruz were remembered for their loyalty to friends and co-workers. Eye injuries are common among citrus pickers, and the men helped teach others about safety, Tovar said.

"When we visit the crews in the fields, we look for people already using safety goggles," he said. "Quirino was one of the few who was wearing them when we visited the first time, so we asked if he would be a promoter for eye safety."

"Last year, they received nine hours of training on how to treat eye illnesses," Tovar said. "They learned how to do eye wash and how to recognize glaucoma or cataracts, pink eye. I taught them about the symptoms and how to recognize that and where to look for treatment.

"They also learned about their rights if there's an injury in the field - the correct way to report it and about worker's compensation."

Families Left Behind

Velasquez, who had been in the United States about eight years, left a wife and three adolescent children in Mexico, while de la Cruz, a married father of two, had been in the country about six years, Tovar said.

He said they rarely got back to Mexico.

Paul Monaghan, an assistant professor at USF who is involved with the farm workers program, described the men as friendly and easy-going, their work as hazardous.

"It's all the dust and dirt from the branches," he said. "They're on ladders, and their faces are right in the tree canopy. You get a lot of bruises from the branches. They make slightly better than minimum wage, but it's almost skilled labor because it's so hard to do.

"If they're good pickers, they can make more than minimum wage, but it's seasonal and limited. It's not always steady work."

That's what drives workers, such as Velasquez and de la Cruz, to board buses for far-off locales such as Arcadia and Okeechobee to spend a day in the groves, Tovar said. In the off-season, Velasquez also was known to work in Georgia and New Jersey.

On Wednesday, Tovar drove from Gainesville to attend the vigil. He was still trying to accept that Velasquez and de la Cruz were dead.

"Even though it was a tough life, at the end of the day they were always smiling and joking," he said.

TIPS

Anyone with information about the Tommytown killings can call the sheriff's office at (727) 844-7711 or the Tips line at 1-800-706-2488. Tips can be made anonymously.

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT