Lee Merritt of teen shot by San Antonio cop wants murder charge

The lawyer symbolizing the family of the 13-calendar year-previous boy who was fatally shot by a San Antonio cop before this thirty day period desires the officer to be arrested and indicted for murder.

Lee Merritt, a superior-profile civil legal rights attorney, explained on Tuesday that there was an “unjustified use of force” when SAPD officer Stephen Ramos shot Andre Hernandez Jr. though he was driving a stolen automobile with two other teens in the auto on June 3.  

Hernandez was later pronounced dead at University medical center. Ramos was subsequently put on administrative leave.

“Stephen Ramos fully commited a crime on June 3 when he shot with no provocation or devoid of a proper justification into a auto entire of little ones wounding and killing AJ Hernandez,” Merritt told NBC Information on Tuesday. “Although we fully grasp the investigation is ongoing, when there exists possible induce that a criminal offense has happened in the jurisdiction, the prosecutor’s workplace has the authority to issue arrest warrants.”

Officers had been responding to experiences of shots fired when they noticed a crimson car or truck with three young people inside of that had been noted as stolen, according to the San Antonio Law enforcement Office.

When Hernandez, who was driving, saw law enforcement, he allegedly deliberately backed up and T-boned a marked San Antonio police cruiser, cops reported at the time. That’s when Ramos allegedly fired a single shot at the car, hanging him in the stomach. The two teen occupants of the stolen car had been unharmed. 

The Bexar County District Attorney’s place of work informed NBC that the incident is remaining internally investigated by the SAPD’s civil legal rights division.

The section will hand above its conclusions to the DA’s office when the investigation is finish and a grand jury will “determine irrespective of whether there is ample proof to send out the scenario to a trial court.”

Merritt claimed Ramos need to be billed with murder for pointing a gun at the teen “who represented no threat to everyone and pulling the trigger is regular with a murder demand or some amount of murder indictment.”