On Friday August 28th 2015, in a San Antonio, Texas suburb, sheriff’s deputies for Bexar County shot and killed 41 year old Gilbert Flores.
Deputies were responding to a report of a possible domestic violence disturbance around 11:30am on the 24400 block of Walnut Pass. They encountered a shirtless Flores and began to verbally engage him. At one point Flores tied to run, before being cornered by police in front of a residence.
The Sheriff’s office said that deputies tried to subdue Flores using non-lethal force, however the stun gun proved to be ineffective, forcing the officers to discharge their firearms twice into Flores.
Michael Thomas, a college student working in the area, noticed increased police activity around the corner and saw the events unfold. He decided to pull out his phone and start recording, just before witnessing the fatal shooting. Here’s what Thomas had to say,
“I was watching and wondering, what was going on, but I couldn’t figure it out. I was like, with the things going on in the world, like different type of shootings with cops and different things like that, so I was like, ‘Well, maybe I can catch something with my camera,'” Thomas said.
Thomas continued,
“As the guy and police were going back and forth, the man acted like he was going to run back inside his house and then ran around the cars by the cop car and the cops started pursuing closer to him,” Thomas told CNN.
“He kind of just put his hands in the air. After he put his hands in the air, they shot him,” Thomas said.
“When things happen like that, I actually like to look into them and kind of see what’s the real story, instead of what people are just kind of saying,”
Flores died shortly after being shot. Also shown in the video, officers did not appear to make any efforts to revive or offer first aid to Flores.
Texas has had its share of questionable police involved shootings this year.
The Sheriffs department has issued a statement condemning the media for airing the video on Facebook. Here’s a screen shot of their statement.
The same evening, the sheriffs department held a press conference, Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau made the following statements,
“Certainly what’s in the video is a cause for concern,” Pamerleau said. “But it’s important to let the investigation go through its course so we can ensure a thorough and complete review of all that occurred.”
Pamperleau said that the Flores was suspected of injuring a woman and 18 month old child inside the home. She also gave the officer’s version of events.
“Two deputies attempted to arrest the individual and he resisted. They also used, tried to use, non-lethal force weapons to try and detain him and after a lengthy confrontation, both deputies fired shots,” Pamerleau said.
The deputies allege that Flores was holding a knife when they opened fire. Both deputies have been placed on administrative leave during the investigation of the shooting.
Here is the raw footage video.
