Video captures the moment a 13-year-old kid was fatally shot by police in San Antonio, Texas, after he stole a car and crashed into their squad car.
On June 3, 2022, Andre “AJ” Hernandez was driving a stolen Toyota Corolla when he slammed the vehicle into reverse and struck the approaching law enforcement. Newly-made public footage from that fatal evening now shows the boy being shot.
Officer Stephen Ramos, who was responding to allegations of gunshots involving the red car with a colleague, shot him. Hernandez was struck in the abdomen by his single shot. This bullet proved to be lethal.
Officer Ramos was characterized as a “trigger-happy hot head” by the family of the first victim, who was slain only months before officer Ramos shot Hernandez, age 13.
A grand jury decided not to indict Ramos for the first or second civilian deaths that he was responsible for.
Hernandez’s family asserts that the automobile could not have been traveling at such a high rate of speed for the cops to not have been able to detect that there were just children in the vehicle.
The video reveals that before Hernandez crashed into them, Ramos’ companion, who was only given the name “Espinoza,” had to pull his leg back into the car. According to San Antonio police, Hernandez endangered Espinoza’s life.
On June 3, around 1:18 a.m., the cops and a third person only known as “Officer Claire” were sent to the site.
Around 1:21 a.m., they go along War Cloud Street to the site. Espinoza begins to exit the driver’s side of the car at 1:22 a.m., and Ramos cautions him, “Don’t let him ram you!”
Let me see your hands, Espinoza yells as he swings open the driver’s side door and extends his left leg through the doorstop toward the children.
Then, as the door slams shut and Hernandez’s Corolla collides with the police car, he drags his left leg back into the vehicle.
“At this point, I thought the driver of the car was using his vehicle as a dangerous weapon to try to murder Officer Espinoza,” Ramos said in a report. To end the danger to Officer Espinoza, I fired one shot at the car’s driver.
Ramos exits the vehicle’s passenger side a short while later, grabs his gun, and fires a shot to call for help.
Hernandez gets out of the vehicle and collapses to the ground after saying, “I’m shot, sir.” After being transported to a hospital, he was later declared dead.
Ramos is then pleading with one of Hernandez’s passengers to phone Hernandez’s family: “Pick up my phone! Sir, may you kindly take my phone? Call his family if you can! Sir!’
‘It was reasonable for Officer Ramos to assume that Officer Espinoza was standing outside of his car and was consequently being threatened with lethal force by the red Toyota as it sped towards him,’ according to a statement from the Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales’ office.
Ramos then shot, according to the prosecutor’s office, to save Espinoza from “unjustified damage.”
Espinoza’s body camera and the dashboard cameras from the automobile Ramos and Espinoza were driving were used as the basis for the county’s findings. The county didn’t utilize Ramos’ body camera, but they didn’t say why.
Hernandez’s family and lawyer Lee Merritt contend that Espinoza was never seriously injured by the automobile because it was never driving fast enough to do so.
According to the San Antonio Express News, they also contend that anybody might have seen that Hernandez and two other kids were inside the automobile they had stolen.
We’re talking about a 13-year-old child who was murdered by police,’ the boy’s mother, Lynda Espinoza, who had no apparent connection to the shot officer, said at a protest shortly after the incident.
According to Oxygen, the boy’s family had just lost AJ’s 16-year-old sister Naveah Martinez when she was shot and killed only a few streets from their house.
Hernandez’s mother said that he had left the house because he was so distraught.
Lynda Espinoza stated, “I simply listed him as a runaway because he didn’t want to come with me and didn’t want to listen.” I therefore carried out what a mother was expected to do.
The family wanted people to recognize her son’s humanity even then, despite what had happened.
According to AJ’s aunt Stephanie Martinez, “He was a 13-year-old young kid suffering the death of his sister, and they were incredibly close.” He had just recently begun his existence and was still a baby.
I want people to know to wait for the facts to emerge and not always accept what you read and hear. Await the disclosure of the facts before passing judgment on my nephew. I’m hoping that once you all know the truth, you’ll be able to stand with us and the family to help my nephew’s family get justice.
Nothing can make up for the suffering and loss that AJ Hernandez’s family has experienced, despite the fact that our system of justice is founded on public participation. In a statement, Criminal District Attorney Gonzales said: “We recognize that no mother should ever have to bury their child. A little kid sadly lost his life on that day.
Also, this is not the first deadly shot that Officer Stephen Ramos has been a part of.
In March 2021, Ramos went to allegations of 57-year-old John Pena Montez bursting into a house brandishing a knife and threatening to commit suicide after getting into a fight with his common-law spouse.
Twice the stun gun was used by Ramos’ accomplice in an attempt to subdue Montez. After that, according to a police report, Montez “lunged” and swung a knife at the policemen; however, family members deny this.
The officer then killed Montez with his gunfire. However after seeing body camera video, Montez’s sister Debra Montez Felder absolutely refutes this assertion.
I informed them this was unreasonable and unwarranted as soon as I saw it, she added. He was only standing at the entrance. You had no justification to shoot him.
Ramos, according to Felder, is known for pulling the trigger when it’s not really necessary.
She told NBC News that “SAPD and the DA’s office were on notice that this man was a hothead, trigger-happy.” Even before this 13-year-old boy was killed, “You were aware of it.”
She said that at the time, her brother, a veteran, was through a “mental health crisis.” Since she was concerned he may damage himself, his wife called the police and a nearby hospital.
Felder said that Hernandez’s shooting increased her wrath and fueled her effort to get the body camera video made available to the public.
She remarked, “I’m upset because this child didn’t deserve it.” SAPD was aware that this man emotionally lacks self-control and that his situation is irrational.
A grand jury also declined to bring charges against Ramos in the killing of Montez a month after Hernandez was killed.
Ramos had been put on administrative leave after the shooting in March 2021, but by September, following an Internal Affairs inquiry, he had been reinstated to full duty. The video from the incident has not yet been made public.
What Ramos’ current standing is with the police is unknown.
The grand jury’s verdict, according to the district attorney’s office’s release, puts an end to the inquiry into the incident.
»Strange event San Antonio police shoot 13-year-old car thief«
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