Three San Antonio police officers charged with murder of woman shot to death

Three San Antonio police officers were charged with murder Friday after police shot and killed a 46-year-old woman in her home who brandished a hammer in their direction and appeared to be in distress, officials said.

The three officers, Sgt. Alfred Flores, Officer Eleazar Alejandro and Officer Nathaniel Villalobos were suspended without pay and were taken into custody Friday. They have been with the San Antonio Police Department for 14, five and two years.

“The actions of the shooting officers were inconsistent with SAPD policy and training,” William McManus, chief of the department, said at a news conference Friday night. “They put themselves in a situation where they used deadly force, which was not reasonable given all the circumstances as we now understand them.”

Officers received a call just after midnight on Friday morning about a disturbance at an apartment complex in the southwestern side of San Antonio, Mr. McManus said. The woman, identified by authorities as Melissa Perez, was cutting fire alarm wires in the complex, which police say is a felony.

When officers arrived at the scene, Ms. Perez spoke with fire officials in the parking lot.

Mr McManus said it appeared she was having a “mental crisis”. When officers tried to walk her to their car, she ran into her apartment and locked the door.

After climbing over the railing of her porch, an officer opened her window screen and said, “You’re going to be shot,” according to body camera footage released by the department. Ms. Perez said, “Shoot me,” and said they had no search warrant.

Mr. McManus said Ms. Perez picked up a candle and threw it at an officer. The sound of breaking glass can be heard in the body camera footage, but it’s unclear on the video what’s going on.

Police then waited outside the apartment for reinforcements and a group of officers went to the front of her apartment. Agents Flores, Alejandro, and Villalobos were stationed on the back porch.

Two officers jumped over the patio railing, Mr. McManus said, and Mrs. Perez grabbed a hammer and began to approach them.

She then swung the hammer, Mr. McManus said, at an officer who was outside the apartment, and it smashed into a window, breaking it. An officer fired at Ms. Perez, but it appears she was not hit, McManus said. She went back to the window, still holding the hammer, and all three officers opened fire. She was hit at least twice and emergency medical services pronounced her dead at the scene.

Danny Diaz, president of the San Antonio Police Officers’ Association, said in a statement that the organization “expresses our deepest condolences to the family of Melissa Perez.” But he declined to comment further. “At this time, this is an active investigation and we cannot discuss the matter further until the investigation is complete and legal proceedings are underway,” he said in the statement.

San Antonio has a long history of police brutality. In 2018, a police officer shot dead Charles Roundtree Jr., an unarmed black teenager. A police officer fired unarmed Antronie Scott, 36, in 2016 for thinking he was holding a gun; it was a mobile. And an off-duty police officer killed Marquise Jones, 23, in 2014, shoot him in the back while running away from the scene of a minor traffic accident.

Ananda Tomas, executive director of ACT 4 SA, a police accountability organisation, said that while there was an abnormally quick response in charging the officers, it remained to be seen whether they would be charged or punished.

Activists, she said, will continue to work to prevent similar incidents from happening again and will provide support and advocacy for Ms Perez’s family. She stressed that true justice would mean Ms. Perez was alive.

“Real justice would have been to respond compassionately to a community member experiencing a mental health crisis,” she said in a statement. It said the police “acted with neglect, folly and violence, resulting in an unforgivable end to Melissa’s life.”

Lt. Michelle Ramos, of the San Antonio Police Department, declined to comment when asked for an update on the investigation, instead sending the raw And told versions of the critical incident report videos released.

Three separate investigations into Ms. Perez’s death are being conducted – two by the Internal Affairs and Homicide Division of the Police Department, and an independent investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.

The prosecutor’s office was not immediately available for comment.

While Mr McManus said he did not believe additional officers would be charged, he said each officer would be investigated on the spot by Internal Affairs.