An illegal immigrant from Brazil strangled a 33-year-old woman to death inside her Massachusetts home, and federal authorities say the local police department is refusing to cooperate in transferring the accused killer into immigration custody.
Brianna Connolly is dead because Flavio Alcantara Dias, 43, was allowed to remain in this country and in that community. The policy chain that produced this outcome — from the open border that let him in, to the sanctuary rules that kept him shielded from federal enforcement — is the story the establishment press doesn't want to tell.
According to Boston 25 News, police responded to a 911 call in Framingham, Massachusetts, on Thursday reporting an assault and found Connolly unresponsive inside the home. She was pronounced dead. During a court hearing, an assistant district attorney said Alcantara Dias told dispatchers he killed Connolly "by mistake." He is being held without bail.
ICE lodged a detainer against Alcantara Dias the same day, requesting that Framingham Police arrange a controlled transfer if he becomes eligible for release. The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement urging the Framingham Police Department to comply. "7 of the top 10 safest cities in the United States cooperate with ICE," DHS said, per Fox News. "We are urging the Framingham Police Department to participate in a controlled transfer of this criminal illegal alien to get him out of our communities once and for all."
The framing matters. WJLA covered the basic facts of the murder and the ICE detainer. Fox News led with a separate case in Florida — the alleged sexual battery of a 77-year-old woman by a different illegal immigrant — and buried the Massachusetts killing deeper in its coverage. Breitbart covered only the Florida case and didn't mention the Connolly murder at all. None of the three outlets pressed hard on the sanctuary policies that gave Alcantara Dias cover to remain in Framingham until he took a life.
The Florida case underscores the pattern. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said 24-year-old Axel Antonio Espinal Herrera, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, broke into a 77-year-old woman's home at 4 a.m. on August 29, ripped her clothes off, sexually battered her, and choked her when she tried to escape. "This couldn't have occurred if [Herrera] was not in this country," Judd said. Two other illegal immigrants from Honduras were found in the same residence; all three have ICE detainers. Under Florida law, each charge against Herrera is elevated by one category due to his illegal status — meaning he faces multiple potential life sentences. Florida enforces. Massachusetts stonewalls.
DHS is publicly begging Framingham to cooperate. That a federal agency has to plead with a local police department to hand over an illegal immigrant who just murdered a woman tells you everything about who holds power in the sanctuary city arrangement — and who pays the price.
Brianna Connolly is dead. The man accused of killing her confessed to dispatchers. The question now is whether Massachusetts officials will continue to shield him from the immigration enforcement he was owed from the start, and whether anyone in the political class will be held responsible for the policies that made her death possible.
