Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Public Sector Gulags
NISD officer shoots and kills teen after chase
Ursus:
San Antonio Express-News
Teen shot by Northside officer identified
Authorities said Derek Lopez, 14, was shot by a Northside ISD policeman Friday.
By Eva Ruth Moravec
Published 10:33 a.m., Monday, November 15, 2010
Authorities have released the name of a teenager killed by a Northside Independent School District police officer Friday.
Derek Lopez, 14, was shot to death in the side yard of a far West Side home Friday around 5:05 p.m., according to a San Antonio Police Department incident report.
Officer Daniel Alvarado, 45, is on paid administrative leave while SAPD investigates the shooting. A 16-year veteran of the force, Alvarado was assigned to the patrol division and was in full uniform in a patrol car Friday afternoon, school district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez and San Antonio police said Alvarado was patrolling an area near Pease Middle School on Friday when he came across a fight at a bus stop at Hunt Lane and Santa Fe Ridge.
Witnesses told police Derek struck another boy in the face with the back of his hand. Alvarado tried to detain the teen, who ran across the street and into the Trails of Santa Fe neighborhood, the report states.
Alvarado took a witness to the fight along with him as he tried to find Derek in the residential area, police said.
Neighbors then told Alvarado that Derek was hiding in a backyard in the 200 block of Roswell Canyon, where someone inside that home had already called 911 to report a possible burglary in progress.
Alvarado searched the yard but couldn't find the boy, police said.
He reportedly announced, "Police, police," several times before peering into a shed where Derek was hiding. According to police, Derek was crouching on the ground and then lunged through the shed's door, knocking it in Alvarado's face.
Alvarado, "fearing for his life," discharged one round, striking Derek in the chest, the incident report states. He then conducted cardiopulmonary resuscitation until EMS arrived, police said.
As originally published, this story contained an error.
© 2011 Hearst Communications Inc.
Ursus:
"As originally published, this story contained an error."[/list]
-------------- • -------------- • --------------
Corrections: Nov. 15-21, 2010
mySanAntonio.com posts corrections from the San Antonio Express-News and mySA.com every weekday.
mySanAntonio.com
Published 01:17 a.m., Saturday, November 20, 2010
SATURDAY
• Because of incorrect information provided to the newspaper, a story in Tuesday's Express-News and on mySA.com misstated the age of a Northside Independent School District officer involved in a fatal shooting. He is 45.
© 2011 Hearst Communications Inc.
Ursus:
Comment left on the above article, "Teen shot by Northside officer identified" (by Eva Ruth Moravec; Nov. 15, 2010; San Antonio Express-News)
512-220-2427 · 10:57 AM on December 17, 2010
"fearing for his life", well as a supposed veteran police officer this officer knows all the "catch phrases". As a former law officer, now school teacher, I have made significant changes inmy views & interactions with youth. For one, I know that my employement duties end,when the student is off campus. Too bad for this teen that this officer decided to take matters into his own hands instead of waiting for backup. If the child is inside a shed, just wait him out. Also, consider where you are and the type of students you will encounter. An alternative school means children w/behavior issues - that's why they get assigned to this school.It doesn't take a genius to know that these type of kids push the limits & typically have authority issues too. So sad that the school admistrators provide such inadiqaute training to insure that our kids make it home afterschool.
© 2011 Hearst Communications Inc.
Ursus:
San Antonio Express-News
In teen's shooting, how did we get here?
Veronica Flores-Paniagua: It should not have taken three days for officials to release the name of the Northside Independent School District police officer who last Friday shot and killed a 14-year-old boy.
By Veronica Flores-Paniagua
Published 09:35 p.m., Monday, November 15, 2010
It should not have taken three days for officials to release the name of the Northside Independent School District police officer who last Friday shot and killed a 14-year-old boy.
In explaining its decision not to publicly release - until Monday - the name of the officer, NISD spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said the district wanted to protect Daniel Alvarado, a 16-year veteran, so he could have time to "deal with this very devastating incident." But imagine the trauma to the boy's family. Who protected them?
The litany of blame - and the list of questions - grow from there.
Derek Lopez shouldn't have run from Alvarado. (Already expelled from Northside schools, was the eighth-grader heading for more trouble?)
Alvarado, too, should have taken appropriate precaution before peering into a storage shed where the teen was hiding. (Why didn't he wait for backup?)
Lopez, whatever his faults or fears, should have responded in a more docile way to the officer's calls of "police, police." (Why didn't he simply call out that he was unarmed and that he was coming out with his hands up?)
Alvarado shouldn't have drawn his gun. (He told investigating officers that he witnessed Lopez delivering a backhand slap to another boy. For this, was the use of deadly force necessary?)
Lopez shouldn't be dead. (How did we get here?)
Even in hang-'em-high Texas, many still have the decency to feel deeply troubled by what happened in that far-West Side backyard Friday. For some, it's still unnatural for a teen to be shot dead by a cop, even with the proliferation of gun-toting school district police departments in the past 20 years. But was this really so unforeseeable?
Those who follow the so-called "School-to-Prison" pipeline, the euphemism used to describe the growing reliance on school district police to do what educators did themselves not so long ago, suggest that a confluence of circumstances led to Friday's incident.
"You put a ton of enforcement, and what are they going to do? Enforce things," said Lisa Graybill, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, which last month hosted a seminar on use of school district police. In other words, what once brought after-school detention now invites harsher punishment. What once prompted an assistant principal to haul a kid into the office now has the medical examiner performing an autopsy on an eighth-grader.
"We're headed in the wrong direction, and as a result this kid is gone," Graybill said.
Use of deadly force by school district police officers is, fortunately, uncommon in San Antonio. A check of Northside, North East and San Antonio school districts, the city's three largest, revealed only two incidents that officials could recall. Friday's was one and another, about five or six years ago, involved an SAISD officer and an adult car-burglary suspect who wasn't a student.
Graybill isn't dismissive of the dangers that some public school campuses are forced to deal with. Her mother once taught in a public high school, so she has a healthy respect for school discipline problems.
But surely there is a saner - and safer - middle ground. One that doesn't involve a gun. Or a dead 14-year-old.
vflores@express-news.net
© 2011 Hearst Communications Inc.
Ursus:
KSAT.com - San Antonio
14-Year-Old Shot, Killed By Police Officer Identified
Northside Independent School District Officer Shot Teen After Chase
POSTED: Monday, November 15, 2010
UPDATED: 6:44 pm CST November 15, 2010
SAN ANTONIO -- The Bexar County Medical Examiner's office has released the identity of the 14-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a Northside Independent School District police officer on Friday.
VIDEO News coverage: Watch Stephanie Serna's 5 PM Report | Watch Isis Romero's 6 PM Report: Derek's Mother Speaks Out
According to the medical examiner, Derek Lopez, 14, was killed by a single gunshot wound fired by Officer Daniel Alvarado, 40.
The shooting happened shortly after 4 p.m. Friday in the Santa Fe subdivision, located on Roswell Canyon, near the intersection of Highway 151 and Potranco Road.
According to the report, which was released on Monday, Alvarado was patrolling the neighborhood and saw Lopez assaulting someone. Alvarado began chasing Lopez on foot through the neighborhood, but "lost sight of him."
A witness reported the teen was in a backyard at a house on Roswell Canyon.
The officer didn't see him at first, but "approached the storage shed to search further for the suspect announcing several times 'Police, Police.'"
The report also stated that the "(Lopez) lunged through the doorway at (Alvarado), intentionally knocking the shed door into (Alvarado's) face."
The report further details that "fearing for his life, (Alvarado) discharged one round striking (Lopez) in his torso."
Gonzalez said Monday that Lopez had been expelled from Pease Middle School and then from from a Northside alternative school and was attending the Bexar County Juvenile Justice Academy.
"My son didn't deserve that ... he was a good kid," said Denise Moreno, Lopez's mother. "He was very good. Everybody who knew my son knew that he was a loving kid and he did for everybody, so I don't appreciate anything bad that they're saying about my son."
Moreno said she has not been given a lot of details about the shooting and has not had a chance to view her son's body.
The San Antonio Police Department is investigating the shooting.
Alvarado has been with the Northside school district for 17 years and will remain on administrative leave until the investigation is complete.
The family is planning a rosary for Lopez at Puente and Sons Funeral Home. He will be buried on Saturday.
Reporters Stephanie Serna and Isis Romero contributed to this story.
Previous Stories:
* Officer Shoots, Kills 14-Year-Old
©2011, KSAT - San Antonio
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version