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10:33 p.m. • 2-10-12

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Police: Man wanted in wife's shooting; Amber Alert canceled for 2 children


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Betsy Johnson Regional Hospital
Betsy Johnson Regional Hospital

Police are searching for a man whose wife was shot outside a Dunn hospital Saturday night. An Amber Alert issued for two of their children was canceled Sunday morning.

Azucena D. Diaz, 28, of Autryville, was shot in the head and chest in the employee parking lot of Betsy Johnson Regional Hospital at about 8 p.m., according to Dunn police.

Diaz is an employee at the 800 Tilghman Dr. hospital. She was treated in the emergency room and later airlifted to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill where she was listed in critical condition.

Diaz’s estranged husband, Joaquin Rangel Ramirez, 31, is wanted in connection with the shooting, police said. Ramirez is described as a Hispanic man, 5 feet 6 inches tall, 150 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.

At the time of the shooting, he was wearing a blue and yellow jacket, police said. Ramirez left the scene in a vehicle believed to be a white pearl 2002 Cadillac Escalade with white rims, tinted windows and North Carolina license tag number VZT9795.

He is considered to be armed and dangerous. An Amber Alert was issued for two of the couple’s children, Maren Rangel and Briana Ramirez.

The children were unaccounted for and thought to be with Ramirez. He had made threats to harm himself and the children, police said.

The children were found unharmed at an undisclosed location at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Ramirez is urged to call the Dunn Police Department at 910-892-2399 or 910-892-2345.

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It is no wonder why the troll didn’t mention any of the facts in his ‘argument’ that there was absolutely no indication of abduction. The facts presented in the article provide enough information for the reasonable prudent person to make a judgment call issuing an AMBER Alert. The contrarian likely believes that a full investigation taking perhaps weeks or months should precede an Alert.

To prevent jeopardizing an ongoing investigation (see N&O report), the police are not revealing all its information. There is at least one person who believes that if the police failed to personally tell him all the evidence, such evidence does not exist. Such delusional grandiose!

Praying for her family to have strength. We would want all means possible of alerting the community if anyone, especially children, were unaccounted for. It has to be a community effort in my opinion. That is where the Amber Alert came in at. It is never too soon to issue an alert if missing persons are possibly in danger. Also, The hospital staff had to "work on one of their own". We have the utmost praise, admiration & respect to anyone who has to deal with this possible scenario daily. I could not do what Betsy Johnson Memorial and all other hospitals along with all police depts. have to do daily. Prayers for safety, strength & justice for every tragedy like this one.

This is a sad thing that happen in Dunn... I hope they find the man who did this too this young lady... I did not know her even thought i use to work at bj... But my prayer go out to the family and children of this woman... And i hope she will make it... and i hope too god they do find the man soon... People in Dunn and everywhere are getting bad... What is this world coming too...

...And if the children were actually abducted before the police had solid "proof" and nothing was done to warn the public, the police would look like they were incompetent. Hindsight might be 20/20 on this one, but I'd rather err on the side of caution than regret a horrible (and possibly preventable) situation later.

By the way, you bet my heartstrings are tugged. Children this age are DEFENSELESS against a crazed adult. So be it if I want to worry about their safety. That doesn't make me less aware of facts. If people are emotionally void about every little injustice, nothing will get done either.

As to references, try:

http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/nismart2_nonfamily.pdf

In that study, there were some 58,000 children reported missing in the study year, of which about 3,600 can be classified as truly missing having been abducted by strangers with only 115 fitting the classical definition of kidnapping.

That's about one kid per county per year in the US. That's pretty rare.

But that doesn't make for headlines which does not increase readership or viewership for news organizations so you won't hear the true facts.

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