A teenager who was in the car when her 17-year-old friend Jessica Hernandez was fatally shot by Denver police this week gave an account of the shooting to a local TV station that appears to directly conflict with what police told the public.
The witness, who was one of four teens in a car with Hernandez at the time of the shooting, spoke to KUSA on the condition of anonymity for a segment that aired Tuesday night and was published online on Wednesday.
“When the cops walked up, they were on [Jessica’s] side of the car, and they shot the window and they shot her,” the teenager told KUSA. “That’s when she wrecked, and that’s when the cop got hit.”
Police said on Monday that Hernandez was behind the wheel of a stolen car, and that four others were passengers in the vehicle at the time of the shooting. The police alleged that Hernandez had driven the car toward one of the officers and hit him in the leg, which prompted officers to open fire.
But the eyewitness told the local station that the police shot the girl first, and Hernandez was not in control of the car when it hit the cop.
KUSA also reported that an autopsy showed that Hernandez died from multiple gunshot wounds, without specifying how many.
The officer who was hit suffered a fractured leg, a department spokesperson told the Associated Press. None of the other teens in the car were injured in the shooting.
h/t PINAC
