A Denver police officer shot and killed a 16-year-old girl who was a passenger in a car travelling with four of her friends.
Countercurrentnews.com reports:
“My mom told me to start filming, but when I took out my phone the cop was like, ‘Don’t you dare!’” Brianna Diaz, said. Her sister was a passenger in a car that police shot up early Monday morning.
Denver police shot and killed a female suspect after they claimed the car load of teenagers was going to hit officers with the vehicle. One of the girls was shot in the leg. Another, Jessica Hernandez, 16, wasn’t so lucky.
It all happened around 6:30 a.m. Neighbors claim they heard a lot of gun shots, followed by screams and cries.
According to police, there were five teenagers in the vehicle, who were all “very young in age.”
“Based on what I know about the case, obviously there are a lot of questions that need to be answered,” Denver Police Chief Robert White said.
Brianna Diaz, lives on the alley where this all occurred. Her 16-year-old sister was in the car, being dropped off after a sleep over with friends.
A neighbor took a video of one of the girls who had been shot being searched by police, even though she was seriously wounded. She was cuffed, bleeding, and rolled onto her stomach, even though first aid was not being administered.
Now members of the community are calling for charges to be filed against the officers responsible.
Several dozen classmates and neighbors came together near the alley where the shooting occurred. Classmates with candles and protest signs gathered, recalling Hernandez’s smile and demanding answers.
Cynthia Valdez, 19, a close friend and classmate of Hernandez, said “we’re angry about it. It’s another life taken by another cop.”
Others expressed confusion, noting that shooting a driver of a vehicle would not protect the officer. If the driver dies, wouldn’t the car potentially keep coming towards you? This would mean the officer had to step out of the way any way, in which case he did not need to fire even if his story is true.
Others rejected the officer’s story altogether, claiming that it was made up entirely and that the officer who opened fire was doing so only to stop them from fleeing, not to protect himself.
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
The oddest thing about this incident is that the one cop claimed that the driver of the car tried to run them into a fence and yet the fatal shots were recklessly fired through the vehicle’s side window into a car with five teens in it. The grand jury sided with the cops as always which is why every city needs a civilian police review board like Minneapolis has, on order to keep odd things like this from continuing to happen.