The city of Las Cruces, N.M., has agreed to pay $20 million to the family of a 45-year-old woman who was shot and killed by a city police officer, settling a lawsuit that highlighted the state’s persistently high rate of police killings.
The woman, Teresa Gomez, was sitting in a parked car with another person outside a public housing complex in the early hours of Oct. 3, 2023, when the officer approached and confronted them.
Ms. Gomez began to back the car out of the parking space, and the officer opened fire at close range, killing her, according to a federal lawsuit that her family filed against the city.
The $20 million civil settlement would be the largest ever paid by Las Cruces, a city of about 114,000 people in southern New Mexico near El Paso, Texas
Ms. Gomez’s death also resulted in criminal charges against the officer, Felipe Hernandez, who is awaiting trial on a second-degree murder charge. After an internal review, Mr. Hernandez was “relieved of his duties” in May and no longer works at the police department, the city said in a statement.
Ms. Gomez’s family is “grateful to the City of Las Cruces for recognizing the injustice of Teresa’s death,” according to a statement by the family that was shared by their lawyer Shannon Kennedy. “They trust that the city will redouble efforts to make sure no other family suffers the tragedy of losing a loved one to abusive police misconduct.”
New Mexico has one of the highest rates of police killings in the country, relative to its population, and a few of the killings in recent years have occurred in Las Cruces. Officials there and across the state have been trying to reduce the number of killings through additional police training and oversight, particularly concerning encounters with people who are mentally ill.
The family’s lawsuit, which relied on body camera footage, said that the officer was not in imminent danger when he shot Ms Gomez, who had four children and two grandchildren.
Mr. Hernandez, an eight-year veteran of the police force, was on a bicycle patrol when he approached Ms. Gomez’s car and ordered her to roll down the car window.
He told her she was not allowed to be at the housing complex at that hour, and said that a man who was sitting in the passenger seat of the car was not allowed on the property at all, after having been cited for trespassing, according to court documents. The documents note that the passenger, Jesus Garcia, was holding a paintball gun. Ms. Gomez assured the officer that it was only a paintball gun, to which he responded, “I don’t know that.”
Mr. Hernandez then ordered Ms. Gomez to get out of the car. When she did not comply immediately, he threatened to use his stun gun on her. She eventually got out of the car, was questioned by Mr. Hernandez and returned to the driver’s seat.
Throughout the exchange, Mr. Hernandez directed profane language at Ms. Gomez, and at one point threatened to make her life “a living hell,’’ according to the lawsuit. Ms. Gomez asked Mr. Hernandez to speak with his supervisor, and pleaded with him “to be nice.”
While Mr. Hernandez was speaking with Mr. Garcia in the passenger seat, Ms. Gomez began backing the car slowly out of the parking spot. Mr. Hernandez fired three shots, one of which pierced Ms. Gomez’s lung.
In a statement, the city said the settlement “should in no way indicate criminal guilt by Hernandez,” who is presumed innocent as he awaits his criminal trial, scheduled for June 2025.
The statement added, “This settlement should be understood as a statement of the city’s profound feeling of loss for the death of Ms. Gomez, and of the city’s condolences to her family.”
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