Three police officers fired and murdered Melissa Perez in her South Side apartment complex. Perez was buried on Monday after a private funeral service held by her family. Perez, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, exhibited increasingly peculiar behavior, according to her relatives.
After fatally shooting a 46-year-old mother of four in San Antonio, officers have been charged with homicide and are under investigation.
In Antonio, Texas, Melissa Perez was murdered by gunfire. What transpired?
Three officers fatally shot Melissa Perez in her own residence. On June 23 at dawn, police were called to Perez’s South Side apartment building.
The men discovered the woman, who was experiencing a mental health crisis and attempting to cut cables outside because she believed that the FBI was monitoring her via fire alarms.
According to the arrest paperwork, the fire department had contacted law enforcement. Firefighters discovered the woman while disconnecting the fire alarm’s exterior cables.
The woman, however, decided that she did not want to deal with the armed officers and the glaring red and blue lights on the police vehicles.
As Perez raced to her apartment, a police officer shouted,
“Hey, lady, come here!” A police officer wearing a body camera was observed pursuing the woman and attempting to break into her secure residence.
The officer warned her, “You’re going to get shot.” She replied, “Shoot me,” despite the dearth of a warrant by the police.
The police superintendent of San Antonio, William McManus, stated that the group should have stopped and requested assistance at that moment.
McManus was quoted by TPR as saying, “The appropriate response would have been for them to simply leave, and we would have dealt with it at a later time in a manner that would not have put Ms. Perez in the situation she was in.”
The Mental Health Squad (MHU), a 20-person, 16-officer unit whose primary mission is to respond to mental health emergencies, was not required.
Now, the community is left to ponder why she was murdered rather than utilizing the mental health resources that were intended to help her.
The homicide of Melissa Perez is reportedly the work of three police officers.
Melissa Perez’s family filed a lawsuit against the city of San Antonio and the three officers who fired and killed her at her residence in June. The officers are now facing murder charges.
According to the lawsuit, “formal and informal policies” of the San Antonio Police Department were the driving factor behind the death of the 46-year-old woman.
In addition, it asserts that the mental health unit and the police department’s policies for responding to mental health inquiries contributed to Perez’s death.
According to the complaint, the department’s “repeated failure to discipline its officers created a culture of tolerance for the improper and unconstitutional use of excessive force.” Payment must be made “in an amount commensurate with the harm done,” according to the family.
Melissa’s family works tirelessly to ensure she is the last person in San Antonio to be murdered unjustly by police, while also implementing the necessary reforms.
The complainants assert that the incident was caused by City of San Antonio officials’ rules, practices, lack of enforcement, and lack of training.
The plaintiff is adamant in the litigation that the City shares equal responsibility for Ms. Perez’s demise.
According to the article, “The City’s policymakers acted with a deliberate disregard for the known or obvious constitutional violations that would result from such policies.”
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