CO - Jessica Hernandez, 17, killed by police after LEO struck by stolen car

[katydid23]

No, but that wasn't what happened, was it? The cop in question got out of the way of the car and then shot through a side window.

No, it's not what happened because he jumped out of the way with inches to spare and then shot, at the hood, but by the time he shot he hit the side window.

The driver of the stolen car should not have driven away while cops had guns drawn and were ordering her to get out of the car. She made the wrong decision.

 

[katydid23]

Precisely. The "chase". When a suspicious car drives away you don't open fire, you pursue it.

Not when it drives away and is heading right towards your partner or yourself.

 

[al66pine]

I am not going to attempt to interpret legislation, but I'm sure that Colorado law allows private citizens to use lethal force in defense of their own lives....

sbm.

Not sure what you are saying. Are you saying you refuse to attempt to interpret legislation, but you're sure you know what CO statutes allow re self defense for private citizens and LEOs?

If you were serving on jury re this issue, would you refuse to follow judge's instructions to jury about what the law is? And would you, instead, vote to decide case on what you are 'sure' CO law is? Not snark, genuine question.

Admittedly, W/S is not a jury and not deciding guilt or non-guilt. Just some similarities between a jury and our discussions. Interesting to see many diff view points here in this lively thread.

 

[Fred Hall]

No, it's not what happened because he jumped out of the way with inches to spare and then shot, at the hood, but by the time he shot he hit the side window.

The driver of the stolen car should not have driven away while cops had guns drawn and were ordering her to get out of the car. She made the wrong decision.

No doubt. Walter Scott also made the wrong decision. I'm not claiming Hernandez was acting wisely in attempting to flee; I'm just noting that if I fired identically angled shots into a car and then claimed self-defense, I would be laughed at and then charged with murder.

 

[Fred Hall]

sbm.

Not sure what you are saying. Are you saying you refuse to attempt to interpret legislation, but you're sure you know what CO statutes allow re self defense for private citizens and LEOs?

If you were serving on jury re this issue, would you refuse to follow judge's instructions to jury about what the law is? And would you, instead, vote to decide case on what you are 'sure' CO law is? Not snark, genuine question.

Admittedly, W/S is not a jury and not deciding guilt or non-guilt. Just some similarities between a jury and our discussions. Interesting to see many diff view points here in this lively thread.

I'm saying that I will bow to your greater knowledge regarding the interpretation of CO legislation, but that I am quite sure that it allows for the use of lethal force in the extremes of self defense, like every other legal system on the planet.

 

[Fred Hall]

Not when it drives away and is heading right towards your partner or yourself.

The decision letter makes no mention of the car "heading right towards" anybody, and I'm sure that phrase or a similar one would be very prominent if the DA thought that's what happened. Instead he says this:

. . . she drove the car in close and dangerous proximity to them . . .

He reminds us repeatedly that the car was "moving forward" and that the officers were "extremely close" to the car, but cleverly evades making explicit mention of the fact that they were beside the car when they decided to open fire.

 

[Fred Hall]

Also, in terms of training and mitigating risk, the cop waited for back up, then they approached from front and back, blocking the car from both front and back. And then pulled their weapons and asked the driver to step out of the car. Is that not a step towards de-escalation? What would you suggest they should have done?

I would have suggested that they refrain from shooting the driver as she drove past them. If they had held their fire, the car would have driven away and nobody would have died.

 

[CoolJ]

The kids in the car disagreed about how much pot they had smoked that night. Beyond that, there are no conflicting versions of events. Ballistic evidence and eyewitness testimony both indicate that the car was heading towards the officer initially, and that he dodged it and shot the driver as she passed.

What about the bullet holes in the FRONT windshield?

 

[Montjoy]

I would have suggested that they refrain from shooting the driver as she drove past them. If they had held their fire, the car would have driven away and nobody would have died.

I mean, it seems so simple, right? The shots were fired after the risk was averted. The shots killed someone who hadn't been interrogated or put through any due process. Does anyone thing it would be fair for her daughter or niece or granddaughter to be shot that way, when there was no reason to think she was about to hurt anyone?

 

[Fred Hall]

So a cop is supposed to allow himself to be hit by a car going 12 miles an hour, and run over, because he will still live?

I find it interesting that no mention is made in the decision letter of the speed of the car when it was fired upon. Instead the figure of 12mph is presented as the speed the car would have been traveling at the moment it hit the brick wall if it had been gassed to the max for the whole 16 feet that it traveled from the point it was put into drive up until impact. The car was certainly traveling slower than this when the officer decided to shoot, but how much slower? The investigators would have been able to determine the maximum possible speed the car could have been traveling at the moment the driver was shot, but, tellingly, the DA failed to include that information. He instead misleadingly presents the figure of 12mph in such a way that many casual readers would come away thinking that the car was traveling 12mph at the instant it was fired upon.

 

[katydid23]

I would have suggested that they refrain from shooting the driver as she drove past them. If they had held their fire, the car would have driven away and nobody would have died.

We don't really know that. It probably would have ended up as a high speed chase. Perhaps a few people would have died.

 

[katydid23]

I mean, it seems so simple, right? The shots were fired after the risk was averted. The shots killed someone who hadn't been interrogated or put through any due process. Does anyone thing it would be fair for her daughter or niece or granddaughter to be shot that way, when there was no reason to think she was about to hurt anyone?

I think you are oversimplifying. The shots are fired just as the car passed by. But he began shooting as it was heading towards him. It was a split second thing.

If it were my daughter I would be upset about her actions and decisions.

 

[Fred Hall]

What about the bullet holes in the FRONT windshield?

From page 20 of the decision letter:

The locations of the bullet strikes from Officer Jordan’s gunshots are consistent
with his description of being extremely close to the car, pushing off of the car with his
left hand, and shooting at the driver with a downward trajectory as the Honda was
moving forward, with the gun in his right hand. Specifically, the trajectory of the bullet
that pierced the windshield and struck the steering wheel housing corroborates that
Officer Jordan was in contact with the car, or right next to it, when that shot was fired.
That shot could not have been fired with that trajectory by Officer Jordan if he were not
extremely close to the car. (See the photo on page 37 showing the yellow trajectory rod
passing through the windshield and into the steering wheel housing at a steep downward
angle). The trajectory of the shot through the driver side window that struck Hernandez
in the hip is also consistent with Officer Jordan being extremely close to the car, and is
consistent with his description of the shooting.

Note that the phrase "extremely close" is used three times, yet there is no direct mention of the fact that the officer was beside the car when he began to shoot.

 

[KaaBoom]

I misremembered the 'out on bail' part,sorry. I had remembered that she had just been 'released' that very day, so I thought it was bail.
But she was in Juvenile Hall for driving on suspended, taking her mothers vehicle, speeding and resisting arrest. Not a big differenvce between what I said and what actually happened, imo. And either way, there is no way she should have been out driving a stolen car that night.

She was driving pretty fast, imo. Who tries to run away from cops without driving away fast?

Why would you say the cops weren't scared? They don't know who is driving, if they are armed, if their intent is to harm them or not. Of course they were scared.

How do you know what the cops intent was ?

Because if you are scared that a car is going to run you down, you try to get out of the way of the car. You do not shoot the driver, because even if you kill the driver, the car will keep coming at you, and hit you.

That is how I know that they were not scared. They just wanted to murder that girl, because she disrespected their authority and refused to comply with their orders to stop.

 

[KaaBoom]

Also, in terms of training and mitigating risk, the cop waited for back up, then they approached from front and back, blocking the car from both front and back. And then pulled their weapons and asked the driver to step out of the car. Is that not a step towards de-escalation? What would you suggest they should have done?

No nothing in that = de-escalation.

LEOs should expect that if they approach a stolen car with suspects in it, the suspects will probably try to get away. So they should have slowly driven up to the car and stopped their vehicles with their push bars against the front and back bumpers of the suspect's car, so as to immobilize it. Then they should have cautiously approached the suspects car and politely and professionally asked the girls one at a time to get out of the car and be hand cuffed. Under no circumstances should they have walked in front of or behind the car.

If at any time the driver still tried to move the vehicle, the officers should have immediately retreated back to the safety of their cars and waited for more back up to arrive. Then negotiated with the suspects to surrender.

They should not have pulled their weapons at all, unless they were threatened. You never point a weapon at anyone unless you intend to shoot them. Pointing a weapon at an unarmed suspect makes the suspect fearful, and could cause them to do something that they might not otherwise do.

 

[KaaBoom]

The driver of the stolen car should not have driven away while cops had guns drawn and were ordering her to get out of the car. She made the wrong decision.

The Supreme Court has ruled that police do not have the right to shoot a fleeing suspect. Two wrongs do not make a right.

 

[KaaBoom]

What about the bullet holes in the FRONT windshield?

All of the shots including the ones in the windshield were fired from the side of the car.

 

[LonghornSpeakEasy]

Exactly. He successfully moved out of the way of the car, then proceeded to shoot the driver as she passed him, firing his final shot through the driver's side window into her body as she lay mortally wounded across the center console.

You make it sound like he jumped out of the way and then made the decision to fire. The whole sequence of events after the car started took seconds. When taking into account reaction times and decision-making time, I believe the car revving its engine and coming towards him, the jumping away, and the firing of the gun took place within a few seconds. The touching of the car and the firing of the gun probably occurred simultaneously. I don't believe that the officer knew if he would be able to make it out of the way of the car when he fired his weapon. The firing was defensive in nature. He didn't know exactly who or what was in the car or what their mindset was. The windows were foggy, they had refused to follow commands to exit the vehicle, and they were coming towards him after realizing they were blocked from behind. In his mind they were blocked in the front by the other patrol vehicle, so their only purpose could be to take him out, correct or not (he has no insight into the driver's mind). You cannot dissect the sequence into second-by-second events. It was a fluid process that required rapid reactions and decisions with limited and incomplete information.

Of course, MOO.

 

[Deleted member 39678]

Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that, under the Fourth Amendment, when a law enforcement officer is pursuing a fleeing suspect, he or she may not use deadly force to prevent escape unless "the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."

Police officers can shoot a fleeing suspect if he or she feels that the suspect is going to cause "serious physical injury" to anyone. That sounds like what we have in this case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_v._Garner

 

[Deleted member 39678]

Officers Cleared in Fatal Shooting of Denver Teen Jessica Hernandez

Officers Gabriel Jordan and Daniel Greene's decisions to shoot Jessica Hernandez on Jan. 26 "were justifiable in light of the manner in which she drove the car in close and dangerous proximity to them, threatening the life of Officer Jordan who had little room to avoid the car," Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey wrote in a decision letter.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...unarmed-denver-teen-jessica-hernandez-n370761