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
There was a case in Florida where two guys were robbing a bar/restaraunt. Cops showed up and a gun fight ensued. One of the suspects was killed and one of the cops was killed…it was determined that both were killed by police bullets.
Didn’t matter. The survivor robber was executed for killing a cop because he was responsible for the entire incident by breaking the law in the first place.
Same reasoning will be applied here. The car was stolen, so she is going to be held responsible for her own death because she was driving a stolen car.
Cameras matter.
DPD really needs to get some camera footage out on this, the sooner the better.
Albuquerque P.D. seems to be the worst in the country. The suspect that is killed is afterward always deemed to have mentally ill, resisting arrest or in some other way threatening the lives of the arresting cops. Then the blue wall goes up when investigations begin.
Or, from their perspective, maybe that’s the last thing they should do.