The Million Dollar Question

                Earlier this week the City of Denver on behalf of the Denver Police Department agreed to award the parents of Jessica Hernandez $1,000,000 in compensation for her death at the hands of police officers in January of 2015.

                Jessica was 17 years old and had stolen a car which she and friends had been out in all night. In the morning officers spotted them in the car at the end of an alley smoking marijuana (legal, yes, but not if you’re 17…in a stolen car). Officers approached the car and ordered the kids to get out. The kids were indeed unarmed.

                Except for the 4,000 lb. vehicle which Jessica maneuvered until it was pointed at police and then accelerated toward them using the car as a weapon. The two officers feared for their safety in a tight alley with little room to escape and fired eight shots at the car to stop her. Jessica was struck by three bullets and died.  One of the officers was struck by the car and suffered a broken leg.

                After the mandatory period of administrative leave following a critical incident both officers were immediately exonerated and no charges were filed. It was determined they were acting within policy, that their lives were in danger and that their response was appropriate. This was agreed upon by the District Attorney and the DPD Review Board.

                The reason for the settlement then was that it would have cost the city more than the $999,999 (the actual amount involved for some reason I’m sure makes sense to attorneys) to go to court. Oh, and to help Jessica’s parents find closure, of course.

                Almost immediately after the incident the ACLU and the Colorado Latino Forum were involved and their voices were much louder than those of the family in seeking “justice” for the death of a young car thief who had attempted, at the very least, assault if not murder in that tight alley.

                The Associated Press made a national story out of it and because they were involved the facts took a back seat to the narrative and agenda. The New York Daily Times even sent a reporter out who was able to determine (journalism gives you incredible omniscience)  that the other four teens in the car were “narrowly missed” by the officers careless bullets.

                But before all that, and I never saw it reported again, one of Jessica’s cousins appointed himself the family’s mouthpiece as everyone else was understandably too shaken to talk to the press. And in a TV interview on I believe the very night of the incident I heard him say that no one was concerned with anyone being blamed for Jessica’s death, he just wanted to see “the family get what they had coming to them.”

                I guess that turned out to be $999,999.

                With the help of the ACLU the AP immediately began floating stories that Jessica was young, Latina, and LGBT and sometimes Q (why is anyone promoting the use of the “Q” word?) and the discrimination by law enforcement against those three groups had been well documented and observed in recent months. (Remember this was back shortly after the troubles in Fergeson, MO, and anywhere else the media could find a nonwhite lawbreaker who had been killed in confrontations with police.)

                Ok, I get the police could have made the young and Latina ID through the windshield of the car. The cops I know are pretty smart and they can tell young and brown-skinned when they see it. But my son the cop assures me that there is no training at the academy or on the job that teaches them to tell if someone is gay or not through the windshield of a car.

                You only achieve that level of genius if you report for the Associated Press.

                Not that that has anything to do with the cop’s decision to shoot. One witness, who said she watched the incident from her backyard, said the cops had alternatives citing stun guns and rubber bullets. I am more familiar with tasers and nonlethal rounds than you might think and I can assure you that neither is a good choice when trying to stop a car speeding toward you driven by someone with apparent malicious intent. But the media printed it anyway.

                The family issued a statement through the ACLU which the AP published from coast to coast that they were “dismayed the DPD defended the officers by blaming Jessica for her own death.”

                I may have to agree with you there Mom and Dad that it was not Jessica’s fault.  It is really hard for me not to be so judgmental that I would blame the parents for their daughter’s death.

                If you’ve read this far at least some of you are wondering like me, “What was your 17-year-old daughter doing out partying all night on a school night in a car she stole smoking up the last of the pot as the sun came up and the cops found her? Did you even wonder where the hell she was?”

                Please, share with us the parenting skills and the steps in behavioral modification that led to those results.

                True, I know excellent parents whose kids have ended up in trouble with the law for one reason or another. Sometimes a kid just takes a wrong turn or has some experiences beyond parental control. But I don’t know anyone personally whose kid tried to run over a pair of cops with a car, stolen or otherwise.

                I do, however, know another cop pretty well who has been forced to kill drivers of cars on two separate occasions when they were aiming their cars at him and accelerating directly at him using their vehicles as deadly weapons. It’s not my son so relax, this particular circumstance is not my personal axe to grind. Yet.

                That officer was also exonerated as acting appropriately and I would suspect in most municipalities around the country a vehicle can be classified as a deadly weapon when used as one.

                Neither of his incidents drew the attention of the ACLU or the national coverage of the sensational (and I don’t mean that in a good way) Associated Press. It made two paragraph mentions in the News Briefs section of the The Denver Post and you never heard about it again unless you knew the guy.

                Both of the drivers that officer was forced to shoot in self-defense were white.

                You can’t believe how it sickens me to acknowledge that. I thought eight years ago we were so far beyond that. I grew up in Colorado surrounded by people of Latino descent. Sure, I can usually identify brown skin when I see it but it has rarely meant anything to me in a racial context.

                They are my neighbors. They are my friends. My wife and I don’t discuss their skin color when we decide if we’re going to hang out with them or not. The very fact I am typing “they” makes me nauseous.

                We are Americans and this is nonsense.

                $999,999 worth of nonsense. So, Ms. Rosales and Mr. Hernandez (Jessica’s mom and dad), I hope a million dollars makes the guilt go away. I’m glad Jessica’s cousin got what he wanted for you.