A New Mexico police officer has been charged with murder after shocking body camera video showed him fatally shooting a grandmother as he drove away from her during a traffic stop.
Las Cruces Police Felipe Hernandez turned himself in Tuesday and was charged with second-degree murder with a firearm enhancement in the Oct. 3 death of Teresa Gomez, 45, KFOX reported.
Body camera footage released earlier showed him firing at least three shots after warning Gomez that he would “absolutely make her life hell.”
“There was no need for him to use deadly force,” Doña Ana County District Attorney Gerald Byers said of the officer who was never in the “danger zone.”
“We look at self-defense. There is no self-defense.”
Police officer Felipe Hernandez has been charged with murder.
The dead grandmother’s family has also filed a federal wrongful-death lawsuit against the city and police alleging excessive force and violations of her civil rights.
Hernandez arrested Gomez about 5 a.m. while he was driving with a passenger, Jesus Garcia, 38, who he later identified as a frequent intruder, KFOX said.
The roughly nine-minute video shows the eight-year veteran shining his flashlight into the vehicle and realizing the passenger had a paintball gun.
Hernandez questioned Gomez, saying he believed he was trespassing — which he denied several times — and asked him to get out of his car.
She refused to step outside and told him, “Don’t touch me,” while reaching for her arm, but finally relented after Hernandez threatened to shoot her with a Taser.
Gomez tells him he’s at a public housing complex after hours visiting a friend named Butterfly, but he again tells her he’s trespassing.
At one point, he recognized the passenger as Garcia.
Hernandez was seen firing at least three rounds at Teresa Gomez, 45. LCPD
“Jesus Garcia,” Hernandez exclaimed. “Holy f–k, you’re back on f—ing property!”
The officer then told Gomez that Garcia had a warrant for his arrest and was not allowed on the property. The exchange became heated as he used profanity and threatened to have the vehicle towed.
“You’re not listening,” he told Gomez after she questioned why he needed her name. “Because I am conducting an investigation. You are just like Jesus Garcia. You want to argue all the time.”
He told her she needed to cooperate or he would “really, really make her life a living hell,” the video shows.
Doña Ana County District Attorney Gerald Byers said there is no justification for such deadly physical force. LCPD
As he wrote down his information, he let Gomez back into the car, but he immediately tried to drive away with the door open and he fired at least three shots, yelling, “Stop! Stop!”
Gomez was heard shouting as the car stopped a few meters away.
Garcia, who was later arrested on multiple warrants, had drug and burglary charges pending, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News.
Hernandez had been on administrative leave until October 17 before being arrested on murder charges. The Las Cruces Police Department has not previously publicly identified him.
Hernandez is charged with second-degree murder with a firearm. Las Cruces Police Department
“From the very beginning of Mr. Hernandez’s interaction with Ms. Gomez, the ability to manage protocol was non-existent,” said Byers, the district attorney. “His interaction with him, just on a human level, was very low and did not meet the standards that the LCPD demands of its officers.”
He noted that Gomez could be seen backing his car into Hernandez, but said the officer was not in the “danger zone” when he opened fire, KOB reported.
“Teresa Gomez is not a fugitive felon because she poses no danger to Officer Hernandez or anyone else,” Byers said.
Hernandez had been involved in previous use-of-force incidents but had never killed anyone until the deadly fight, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News.
Gomez’s family has filed a federal wrongful-death lawsuit against the city and police alleging excessive force and violations of his civil rights.
“The lack of oversight and internal oversight of the Las Cruces Police Department has allowed a culture of aggression to flourish, encouraging the acceptance of the unlawful use of force that contributed to the preventable death of Teresa Gomez,” the family’s attorney, Shannon Kennedy, recently told CNN.
Las Cruces Interim Police Chief Jeremy Story told the outlet in November that it’s “certainly a concern when there’s an officer-involved shooting controversy.
“We critically look at training, policies and equipment after all critical incidents and look for areas of concern that need to be addressed. Any response must be based on objective measures and must not influence the criminal investigation,” he said.
Gomez’s family has struggled to come to terms with his death.
“If you’ve seen the video, the beginning – the way the officer talked to my mother … for any son, daughter, mother, father, it’s like, it’s hard to see someone, a grown man, talk to your mother like that, ” his eldest son, Johny Gomez, told CNN.
“We don’t understand at what point it happened because it doesn’t look like it could go wrong,” his sister, Angela Lozano-Gutierrez, told the outlet. “From, like, everything that happened, it seemed like, like, it got to the part where they were just going to let it go.
“So, it’s just shocking that it ended with his death,” he added.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
