SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Three San Antonio police officers have been taken into custody and are suspended without pay, pending further investigation following a deadly officer-involved shooting at an apartment complex early Friday morning.
According to news station KSAT, the three officers were identified as Sgt. Alfred Flores (14 years of service), Officer Eleazar Alejandro ( 5 years of service), and Officer Nathaniel Villalobos (2 years of service). They have been charged with murder.
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KSAT reports officers were called just after midnight for a disturbance of a woman destroying property in the 6200 block of Old Pearsall Road on the southwest side of the city. The woman, identified as 46-year-old Melissa Pettis, was speaking with the San Antonio Fire Department in the parking lot when police contacted her.
San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said Pettis was having a mental health crisis, and officers tried to get her to go toward their patrol car. However, she ran back to her apartment and locked the door. Police began trying to speak to her through an open window.
McManus said one of the officers removed the screen door from the open window on the porch which is when Pettis was said to have reached for a glass candle and threw it at the officer.
McManus said at this point, officers backed away and waited for more officers and a supervisor to arrive.
One group of officers was at the front of the apartment while the three officers, Flores, Alejandro and Villalobos, were at the back patio of the apartment.
McManus said the three officers tried to get the woman to come out of the apartment, but she refused.
KSAT reports soon after, two of the officers jumped the railing and got onto the patio, according to McManus. One of them said Pettis picked up a hammer and was approaching them from inside.
McManus said Pettis swung the hammer from inside the apartment toward the officers and hit a window, breaking it.
It was at this point that one of the officers fired his weapon at Pettis. McManus said it did not appear she was struck in the initial round of gunfire.
McManus said the woman approached the window again with the hammer, at which time, the three officers opened fire. Pettis was hit at least two times.
Officers then forced their way into the apartment and provided aid to Pettis until EMS arrived. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Following the shooting, McManus said the department reviewed the incident along with the Bexar County District Attorney’s Civil Rights Division. At that time, warrants were issued for the three officers involved in the shooting.
“The shooting officers’ actions were not consistent with SAPD’s policy and training. They placed themselves in a situation where they used deadly force, which was not reasonable given all the circumstances as we now understand them,” McManus said.