After responding to a name a couple of crazed bare man, a police officer was shot within the chest by the nude gunman earlier than backup might take him down. Nonetheless, the shooter’s offended mom is now insisting upon an investigation of the officers, demanding to know why they didn’t simply attempt to tase the gunman as a substitute.
At practically 2 within the morning, the New York Police Division (NYPD) acquired a name from the resident of an residence constructing in Harlem a couple of bare man behaving erratically within the hallway. When cops responded to the scene, they discovered 29-year-old Victor Hernandez nude and aggressively roaming the constructing.
The police have been instructed that Hernandez had been behaving bizarrely that night time earlier than harassing residents, breaking glass, and banging on terrified neighbors’ doorways. Officers then proceeded to the second flooring, the place they discovered the suspect in a capturing stance and clad with nothing greater than a handgun.
Safety footage captured the second NYPD Officer Christopher Wintermute method the suspect as Hernandez fired his 9mm pistol, putting the officer within the chest. Luckily, the bullet was halted by Wintermute’s ballistic vest, permitting him to return fireplace from the bottom.
Disturbingly, the primary few gunshots didn’t cease Hernandez, who continued to punch the officer within the face and try and take Wintermute’s service firearm. In complete, Officer Wintermute and two backup officers fired a mixed complete of 17 photographs, putting Hernandez 10 instances earlier than the risk was lastly neutralized.
Regardless of the official report confirming that Officer Wintermute was shot by Hernandez’s gun and video footage displaying the suspect’s gunfire and subsequent hand-to-hand fight, not everybody was satisfied that the deceased perpetrator deserved to be shot. Hernandez’s household is actively difficult the cops’ response.
In response to the New York Publish, Maria Hernandez, who’s a 19-year NYPD veteran, is accusing her fellow officers of wrongfully capturing her son. Inside hours of Officer Wintermute’s launch from the hospital, the grieving mom started contesting the division’s reasoning for opening fireplace on her deranged, armed son.
“This must be absolutely investigated by an out of doors supply ’trigger it is senseless,’” Bronx cop and grieving mother Maria Hernandez instructed The Publish by way of textual content message, referring to son Victor Hernandez. “Did they even attempt to tase him?”
Ms. Hernandez has rejected her personal division’s conclusion and is demanding an exterior investigation into the lethal encounter. She has but to touch upon the safety footage however maintains that officers ought to’ve used a Taser earlier than resorting to gunfire. Her husband additionally admitted that they nonetheless wouldn’t settle for prices in opposition to their son even when police had taken him alive.
His father, Tomas Hernandez, added by way of textual content of his son, “I’d somewhat have him in jail preventing a case than useless.”
Ms. Hernandez denies that her son was violent and has described him as a household man who labored laborious for his youngsters. She claims that he wasn’t concerned in unlawful medication and has no historical past of psychological sickness.
“He was a tough working nice father of two youngsters,” she wrote. “Who labored laborious full time and did facet jobs to lift his youngsters and went to Lehman faculty after work. He paid his taxes and was citizen. He solely run in with the police have been home no medication or gun prices. No psychological historical past. He was man and the world is a darker place with out his brilliant gentle.”
NYPD officers launched an announcement regarding the incident, saying that the capturing could be probed. Nonetheless, the division added that such a process is normal for all police-involved shootings.
“Like all our officer-involved shootings, there might be an unbiased investigation,” mentioned Kevin Maloney, deputy chief of the Drive Investigation Division. “On this case, it is going to be performed by the Manhattan District Legal professional’s Workplace.”
The household vowed to pursue an unbiased investigation into their son’s loss of life, regardless of a third-party video and bodycam footage showcasing their son’s try at murdering a police officer.
