Sandy MaloneSan Antonio, TX – Newly-released bodycam and dashcam videos showed the officer-involved shooting of 13-year-old Andre Hernandez after he rammed a San Antonio police vehicle in June of 2022 (video below).
The incident occurred when officers responded reports of gunfire and loud music at about 1 a.m. on June 3, 2022, in the Indian Creek community on the South Side of San Antonio, the New York Post reported.
Police said 13-year-old Andre Hernandez was driving a stolen red Toyota Corolla with two other juveniles as passengers when the officers spotted him.
When the pre-teen driver saw police approaching, he tried to flee by backing into a driveway to turn around, the video showed.
Bodycam video showed San Antonio Police Officer Espinoza had just opened his door and stuck a foot on the ground when Hernandez began driving at him.
“Don’t let him ram you!” San Antonio Police Officer Stephen Ramos yelled in the video.
The video showed that Officer Espinoza pulled his leg back inside the Chevy Tahoe patrol vehicle only a split second before Hernandez drove his car right into the officer’s driver’s door.
“Let me see your hands!” Officer Espinoza commanded the teen, leaning through his SUV’s window.
That was when Officer Ramos got out of his own vehicle and opened fire on the driver of the Toyota Corolla, the New York Post reported.
Officer Ramos ordered Hernandez out of the stolen vehicle, the video showed.
“I’m shot, sir,” the 13 year old told him before collapsing to the ground.
Officer Ramos raced to his patrol vehicle to get a medic bag and immediately began to perform First Aid on the suspect, the New York Post reported.
Hernandez was transported to University Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office reviewed the shooting and took the evidence before a grand jury in early February, the New York Post reported.
The grand jury opted not to indict Officer Ramos for shooting the 13-year-old driver.
The district attorney’s office called the incident a “tragedy” but said the fact that Hernandez was a child “was not known by Officer Ramos at the time, nor does it mitigate the threat to Officer Espinoza,” the New York Post reported.
“It was reasonable for Officer Ramos to believe that Officer Espinoza was standing outside of his vehicle and was therefore being threatened with deadly force by the red Toyota as it accelerated towards him,” the district attorney’s office wrote in a memo detailing their review of the incident, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
“These facts led Officer Ramos to believe that Officer Espinoza was being threatened with deadly force. Thus he used deadly force to prevent unjustified harm to Officer Espinoza in accordance with” Texas law.
Officials said that the grand jury’s decision not to bring criminal charges against Officer Ramos concluded the investigation into the officer-involved shooting, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
Watch the incident unfold in the video below. WARNING – Graphic Content:
Video footage, witness accounts and 911 calls leading up to the moment 13-year-old Andre “AJ” Hernandez was fatally shot by San Antonio police have been released by the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.https://t.co/uA1jjIHscG pic.twitter.com/zhmuphbQ4c
— San Antonio Express-News (@ExpressNews) February 18, 2023
Holly Matkin
