Footage has been released from the night a 13-year-old boy was shot by a San Antonio police officer after allegedly driving a stolen vehicle into a police car in June.
The scene unfolded when officers responded to reports of shots fired around 1:30 a.m. off War Cloud Street near Old Pearsall Road, News 4 San Antonio reported:
When they got to the scene, they tried to pull over the suspect’s vehicle, which had been reported stolen. Police said the suspect then accelerated and crashed into the patrol car.
A second officer then shot the suspect because he was “fearing the other officer would be stuck by the suspect vehicle,” according to the police report.
The 13-year-old boy was rushed to the hospital, but he later died from his injuries.
In footage obtained by the San Antonio Express-News, an officer can be seen “pulling his leg back inside the vehicle before the Corolla hit the side, slamming the door shut.”
Friends and family members of 13-year-old Andre Hernandez hold signs outside Millers Pond Park as they try to attract motorists to a food plate sale to raise money for Hernandezs funeral on June 11, 2022, in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
At another point in the video, the boy can be seen exiting the vehicle and falling to the ground. Shortly after, another boy can be seen exiting the vehicle and being handcuffed by one of the officers.
NBC News reported that at least two other boys accompanied the boy who was driving.
The Express-News noted a Bexar County grand jury did not indict the officer.
An official review of the shooting found Ramos had reason to believe his fellow officer “was being threatened with deadly force” and “used deadly force to prevent unjustified harm” to the other man.
However, NBC News reported in June that Lee Merritt, an attorney for the boy’s family, said the boy had suffered “a clear civil rights violation” and that the car was traveling only “2 to 5 miles per hour” — too slowly, he argues, to have threatened the officer’s life.
As of February, Merritt is still representing the family and helping them pursue a federal civil rights lawsuit, per the Express-News.
The outlet noted, “San Antonio police said they investigated the shooting and found no violations of administrative policy.”
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