According to reports, a 30-year-old woman, the subject of a manhunt, was killed after Bexar County deputies tracked her to the Schertz mobile home park. The police say that the woman had pointed a gun at them earlier in the manhunt, but no firearm was found anywhere near the scene of the shooting.
Four sheriff's deputies firing at a wanted felon shot and killed a 7-year-old boy when at least one round went through the wall of his San Antonio-area mobile home and struck him, sheriff's officials said.
The woman, sought for offenses including car theft who was being chased by Bexar County deputies, was attempting to break in to the trailer Thursday afternoon when the shooting happened, Sheriff Javier Salazar said. The woman was shot multiple times and died at the scene. The boy was struck in the torso and taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
MySanAntonio reports that the trailer the woman was attempting to break into housed the child that was killed. Nor is it known what prompted the police to open fire at that moment.
Investigators did not find a gun in the slain woman's possession after she was killed, but she had pointed a firearm at a deputy who found her hiding in a closet at a home earlier in the day, Salazar said. While running away, the woman also pointed a gun at least once directly at a deputy who was chasing her, the sheriff noted.
I don’t believe them. Police, rightly or wrongly, do not get the benefit of the doubt anymore. There has been nothing but video evidence to contradict virtually every single claim made by law enforcement involved in these kinds of terrible tragedies. Sheriff Javier Salazar spoke with reporters and said he hadn’t interviewed any of the officers involved yet.
Salazar said Sheriff's Office policy allows deputies to use deadly force against a person presenting a threat to them or to another person. He would not address whether that policy changes if a family home is in the line of fire.
The four deputies who fired their handguns and at least one rifle have a range of experience with the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, from two years to 27 years, he said.
It sounds like the woman should have been in jail for trying to steal a car and possibly for having a firearm (maybe a legal one, maybe not). The child was killed because our law enforcement agencies are not well trained in doing the job we want them to do. They are not properly censured when they are bad at their jobs and/or behave badly. That’s why this woman and boy died.