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'Blood On His Hands': Daughter Writes Scathing Obituary For Her Father, Blaming Arizona's Governor

Mark Urquiza, 65, died after a three-week battle with COVID-19. His daughter blames the GOP and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey for reopening the state and businesses too soon.

By Ed Scarce
07/11/20 12:21 pm

When interviewed by the Arizona Republic, Kristin Urquiza said, “They are people like my dad who have entire families and communities behind them that are mourning,” she said. “I feel as if he was robbed of his life." She believes policy failures led to her father's unnecessary death. The family invited Arizona's Governor to her father's funeral, but Doug Ducey's office did not respond.

Kristin's Facebook page, Marked by COVID.

Source: Washington Post

When her father died of covid-19 last month, Kristin Urquiza minced no words assigning blame.

Mark Urquiza, 65, should still be alive, his daughter wrote in a scathing obituary, published Wednesday in the Arizona Republic.

“His death is due to the carelessness of the politicians who continue to jeopardize the health of brown bodies through a clear lack of leadership, refusal to acknowledge the severity of this crisis, and inability and unwillingness to give clear and decisive direction on how to minimize risk,” she wrote.

The searing tribute encapsulates the fury of critics who say governments at multiple levels are failing at their most basic duty: keeping citizens safe. The obituary also nods at the outbreak’s disproportionate impact on black and Hispanic communities, who have been devastated by higher rates of coronavirus-related hospitalization and death.

Among the leaders whom Kristin Urquiza feels disregarded her father, a Mexican American Phoenix resident who worked in manufacturing, are Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, and the Trump administration. Ducey, she said, “has blood on his hands” for beginning to reopen the state in early May, roughly three weeks before new infections started to rise quickly.

That ill-considered decision by Ducey led directly to thousands of Arizonans getting unnecessarily infected, as happened to Mark Urquiza. His daughter said he rarely left the house unless to go to work, which was considered essential.
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