Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Ah welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast
Speaker 2: where the host Robert Evans, one of the hosts, has
Speaker 2: recently recovered from a terrible, terrible sickness by by engaging
Speaker 2: in some fascinating experiments with theah flu, largely using a
Speaker 2: friend's diabetic needles, just shooting it straight into the veins
Speaker 2: my co host today, Garrison Davis, Have you ever shot
Speaker 2: flu medication into your veins?
Speaker 3: Garrison, No, I've only shot one thing into my veins.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of shooting, today's episode of It Could Happen
Speaker 2: Here is about a shooting it before you are like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: I don't really have it in me to listen to
Speaker 2: a horrible story about people dying today. Don't worry. Nobody
Speaker 2: gets shot in this story, Thank God.
Speaker 3: Miraculously nobody gets shot, Like against all odds, it's stunning
Speaker 3: that nobody got shot.
Speaker 2: This is the tale of a police officer fucking up.
Speaker 2: Not worse than any cop has ever fucked up, because
Speaker 2: again he didn't kill anybody, but fucking up in a
Speaker 2: way that's like more baffling and incompetent than I think
Speaker 2: I've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: It's probably the most embarrassing.
Speaker 2: And certainly the most embarrassing and not even really malevolent,
Speaker 2: just like outrageously incompetent. But I'm gonna let you take
Speaker 2: over from here, Garrison.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, we are going to be talking about in
Speaker 3: acorn involved shooting today. Happened that happened in Florida.
Speaker 2: Finally we know what the A and A cab stands for.
Speaker 3: That's right, son, We're gonna play some clips here, but
Speaker 3: I think it's important to set the scene so you
Speaker 3: kind of understand what you're hearing. So this cop walks
Speaker 3: up to his patrol car. There is a suspect locked
Speaker 3: in the back.
Speaker 2: Sunny day, Houston suburbs, big houses, wide streets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now something happens as the cop is about to
Speaker 3: open up the door. He then dives onto the ground.
Speaker 3: It does two like action roles, double barrel rolls, and
Speaker 3: then starts shooting at the car and starts yelling to
Speaker 3: another officer who's in the area. And I think we'll
Speaker 3: just we'll just play the rest here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The first clip is about thirty seconds long, and then
Speaker 3: I just have a few shorter clips kind of that
Speaker 3: that I've kind of stitched together that just just to
Speaker 3: get a sense of like what he's saying and what
Speaker 3: he's communicating after he opens fire on this patrol vehicle.
Speaker 3: So here is here is that audio.
Speaker 1: Barn jot, Barn jut Bart.
Speaker 3: Shots Barn, you know who? I love? That love.
Speaker 2: What that I the car?
Speaker 3: Shot the car.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm I'm good. I'm feel weird, but I'm good.
Speaker 2: I might have hit my best Mark. It might have
Speaker 2: hit my best I don't know, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I found like it.
Speaker 3: I got you.
Speaker 2: You wanted me, Jesse, come back? Uh uh Mark right back, dude,
Speaker 2: of my hit? Okay, further back, further back to the back.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So that was a lot of gunfire. Again, it is
Speaker 3: shocking that no one died because it's not immediately evident
Speaker 3: if you just watched the video. But there is somebody
Speaker 3: who's trapped in the back of that car, and there's
Speaker 3: multiple officers shooting at the car.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. The guy. The distance the guy
Speaker 2: is shooting from. God, from when I watched the video
Speaker 2: last I would estimate maybe about twenty.
Speaker 3: Yards, probably even shorter than that.
Speaker 2: Maybe sure, maybe more like fifteen. It's medium to maybe
Speaker 2: medium long range for a handgun. For a full size
Speaker 2: handgun like that, I'd say it's about medium range. So
Speaker 2: a competent shooter should be able to hit a target
Speaker 2: about the size of a human torso at that distance
Speaker 2: with most of the rounds. But he is not that.
Speaker 2: When I say competent, that is somebody who is bracing
Speaker 2: themselves and who has two hands on the gun. He
Speaker 2: is shooting like a character in an action movie. And
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine. So a lot of those rounds did
Speaker 2: not even hit the truck. I imagine they went flying
Speaker 2: into a neighborhood where we can hear children playing.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yes.
Speaker 2: So the.
Speaker 3: Officer who encountered this a core in which we will
Speaker 3: get to in a sec was named Deputy Jesse Hernandez.
Speaker 3: He'd been a cop for almost two years, and we'll
Speaker 3: learn more about his background as we as we continue
Speaker 3: on with this little story. The second officer, well not officer,
Speaker 3: but a sergeant of this Sheriff's department named Beth Roberts,
Speaker 3: and she's been a cop since two thousand and eight,
Speaker 3: so she has a little bit more experience under her belt.
Speaker 3: So let's kind of explain what happened here. So there
Speaker 3: was a series of calls that happened earlier in the
Speaker 3: day about a vehicle who was kind of driving erradically
Speaker 3: around a nearby neighborhood, honking its horn kind of just
Speaker 3: like making a lot of sounds at like three am.
Speaker 3: The suspect was described as a black mail in his
Speaker 3: late twenties. And then a few hours later, a separate
Speaker 3: call was made by someone talking about how her boyfriend
Speaker 3: has been refusing to return her vehicle and has been
Speaker 3: sending her threatening text messages. So this caused police to
Speaker 3: go to this girlfriend's house. She showed some of these
Speaker 3: threatening text messages and they were talking with this woman
Speaker 3: when her boyfriend approached the scene, so the suspect of
Speaker 3: coach the police in front of his girlfriend's house. Deputy
Speaker 3: Hernandez himself did a pat down to search for weapons
Speaker 3: and observed a more thorough search once the suspect was handcuffed.
Speaker 3: The missing car was located a few miles away, and
Speaker 3: Hernandez was on his way back to the car to
Speaker 3: do a tertiary search of the suspect, who is currently
Speaker 3: locked in the back seat with handcuffs, and then as
Speaker 3: Deputy Hernandez passed the passenger side door in acorn fell
Speaker 3: onto the roof of his car, which is barely barely
Speaker 3: audible in the bodycam video that we have access to, so.
Speaker 2: You would not notice it were you not listening for it.
Speaker 3: No. No. Three days later, Deputy Hernandez was interviewed by
Speaker 3: two investigators as a part of the Office of Professional
Speaker 3: Standards investigation into this incident of discharge gunfire and this
Speaker 3: this interview in this report is probably one of the
Speaker 3: most telling things about how police psychology operates. And Wow, okay,
Speaker 3: so I'm gonna I'm gonna read through a few a
Speaker 3: few quotes here from Deputy Hernandez. He talks about how, quote,
Speaker 3: I'm about to reach for the door handle and simultaneously
Speaker 3: I hear to at the time what I believe would
Speaker 3: be a suppressed weapon off to the side. I definitely
Speaker 3: heard this noise about the same time I felt an
Speaker 3: impact on my right side, like an upper torso area.
Speaker 3: I feel the impact. My legs just give out. I
Speaker 3: don't know where I'm hit. I think I'm hit. I'm struck.
Speaker 3: I roll back. I rolled to the like.
Speaker 2: He's the hard boiled detective in a novel.
Speaker 3: I rolled to the back of the car. Now I'm
Speaker 3: stuck in the street, and I knew where the fire
Speaker 3: where the shots came from. I or I believed where
Speaker 3: they came from. It was right there as I'm reaching
Speaker 3: for that door handle. So I'm laying behind the car.
Speaker 3: I'm yelling shots fire, shots fired, shots fired. I returned
Speaker 3: fire once I could get covered behind another vehicle that
Speaker 3: was parked in the driveway there. So when asked to
Speaker 3: describe what he felt, because he's not just claiming that
Speaker 3: he heard a sound, he's gonna be keep he felt like
Speaker 3: he got hit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he felt an impact. He felt an impact, and
Speaker 2: his legs went out from underneath him. Yes, which again
Speaker 2: in the video, he clearly does a double barrel role.
Speaker 2: He doesn't. That is not I have I have seen
Speaker 2: people get hit and drop. They did not do double
Speaker 2: barrel rolls like.
Speaker 3: A little action star. Yeah, yeh yeah, yeah, he says,
Speaker 3: quote it felt like an impact to my upper torso
Speaker 3: around here he motions up to his right shoulder on
Speaker 3: the right side. It was like a sound impact, like
Speaker 3: almost that quick. I guess I just loved it the
Speaker 3: phrase it was like a sound impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think he's saying I think what he's saying
Speaker 2: from from reading it is that like we're missing some
Speaker 2: of the body language that he was going to. It
Speaker 2: was like sound and then like moving his hands to.
Speaker 3: Get sound impact, heard the sound, and then he got impact.
Speaker 2: I think he was actually trying to which is not
Speaker 2: like them, which is actually not in person. Probably very awkward,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it does. It comes across weird.
Speaker 3: And so more more funny than sound. Impact. For again,
Speaker 3: any corn that's falling on a roof, we have quote,
Speaker 3: my legs weren't working the way I wanted them to
Speaker 3: be working. I think I yelled at one point to
Speaker 3: Sergeant Roberts. I think I might have been hitting the
Speaker 3: leg or something along those lines, because I was struggling
Speaker 3: to get cover. I think at one point I reached
Speaker 3: up to touch my head. I think I still had
Speaker 3: the sound in my head. I wasn't sure if I
Speaker 3: had been hit in the head. I was getting a
Speaker 3: funny tingling around all sides of my body, and I
Speaker 3: think some of that mighty just been adrenaline putting together
Speaker 3: the fact that what I just heard and the impact
Speaker 3: that I felt. I've never been shot before, so I
Speaker 3: don't know what that's like or you know, unquote great
Speaker 3: oh man, So he is, he's unsure if you would
Speaker 3: be able to notice if he got shot in the
Speaker 3: head or not, which is kind of interesting. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sure he could get grazed, but like, come on, buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's one thing you It is
Speaker 2: true that like you can be hit like an armor.
Speaker 2: She will not be sure if you've gotten a hit
Speaker 2: because it didn't penetrate. But you would also not mistake
Speaker 2: a corn shrapnel hitting you reasonably for a bullet like
Speaker 2: That's simply not a mistake a reasonable person is going
Speaker 2: to make.
Speaker 3: So the investigator asked him, like if there was any
Speaker 3: other sense that there could have been a gunfire, like
Speaker 3: if you saw any like shattered glass coming from the car,
Speaker 3: and Hernandez said no. When asked why he decided to
Speaker 3: stop firing, Hernandez said that he stopped firing once he
Speaker 3: emptied his clip, moved to cover behind it nearby Tesla
Speaker 3: end quote, didn't observe any rounds coming back at me.
Speaker 3: Just just great, because why there's the Hernandez claimed that
Speaker 3: he was never able to see the suspect while in
Speaker 3: the patrol car. And Hernandez remained behind cover till other
Speaker 3: deputies arrived. And was rushed to a hospital, where only
Speaker 3: then he was informed that he did not in fact,
Speaker 3: it shot.
Speaker 2: It's amazing he made it all the way to a hospital,
Speaker 2: So you had a lot of chances. You had a
Speaker 2: lot of chances to not fuck that up.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: As soon as the other cops arrive on the seat,
Speaker 3: he's like, I don't know, I just I just feel
Speaker 3: so weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, buddy, you you had an adrenaline drop because you panicked,
Speaker 2: Like that is why you feel weird.
Speaker 3: Like a lot always this like mirrors, the police fentanel things,
Speaker 3: how they can like talk themselves into feeling into like
Speaker 3: feeling symptoms. Yes, but all right, So Hernandez hadn't been
Speaker 3: a cop for very long. He had he had no
Speaker 3: prior law enforcement experience before joining this Florida Sheriff's department,
Speaker 3: but he did attend to West Point and served as
Speaker 3: a Special Forces Infantry officers in the Army for ten years.
Speaker 3: So one could maybe assume that the deputy's outrageous behavior
Speaker 3: was the result of some kind of PTSD from serving
Speaker 3: as Special four. Like, maybe maybe I could kind of
Speaker 3: explain some of what's going on here.
Speaker 2: I had multiple people when I posted this on Twitter
Speaker 2: be like, oh, this is maybe people with like PTSD
Speaker 2: shouldn't be cops. And I had to be like, no, no.
Speaker 3: No, Well see the funny thing about that is that
Speaker 3: he never actually served in combat.
Speaker 2: No, this guy flew a fucking desk, yeah, which, like
Speaker 2: you need that in a war. But like this, this
Speaker 2: man did not have any combat trauma that caused him
Speaker 2: to react this way.
Speaker 3: You know, like I totally I've had I've had PTSD.
Speaker 3: You know, I've certainly gotten like I can get really
Speaker 3: jumpy with certain sounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is not that six months period where fireworks
Speaker 2: made us all very unhappy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like or like keys dropping was a big one
Speaker 3: for me because it sounded like a tear guest canister
Speaker 3: rolling on her bottles.
Speaker 2: But you know when in the many times that I
Speaker 2: had bottles fall near me and set me off, or
Speaker 2: that fireworks went off near me and set me off,
Speaker 2: I was often carrying a gun and what I never
Speaker 2: did was empty at vaguely in the direction of a car.
Speaker 3: So he never saw combat. He did claim that he
Speaker 3: was aware of what suppressed gunfire sounded like, and he
Speaker 3: affirmed that the noise he herd reminded him of suppressed gunfire.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, bro, what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Under questioning her Nada said that he did not perceive
Speaker 3: any other sounds, visuals, or physical indicators of gunfire besides
Speaker 3: the initial tapping sound and his upper torso feeling. In
Speaker 3: the interview, he was asked why he decided to fall
Speaker 3: onto the pavement, and he said, I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: it was adrenaline or just what, but the numbness of
Speaker 3: my legs and realizing, Okay, I'm going to be on
Speaker 3: the ground, but also realizing the windows are right there,
Speaker 3: you know, i need to be on the ground anyway,
Speaker 3: so I'm not exposed. So yeah, and that just kind
Speaker 3: of led to my legs just kind of gave out
Speaker 3: on me. Fascinating. He then was asked to explain to
Speaker 3: the two action roles he performed on the road, and
Speaker 3: her D just replied, Uh, the.
Speaker 2: Press STARNX at the same time was supposed to do
Speaker 2: pretty much.
Speaker 3: He said, uh, the rolling kind of reaction to what
Speaker 3: was going on, and we realizing like my legs are
Speaker 3: not working the way I need them to work right now,
Speaker 3: but I can roll over to the next vehicle. So
Speaker 3: that's kind of where I was trying to get to unquote.
Speaker 2: Sure, okay, okay, bro.
Speaker 3: So after his little action roles, this is where he
Speaker 3: started yelling shots fired. He emptied his clip into the
Speaker 3: car and told the sergeant that shots were coming from
Speaker 3: this vehicle, and she began firing in the vehicle as well.
Speaker 3: At what point Hernandez tried to move off to the
Speaker 3: side because he was concerned about being shot by the
Speaker 3: other cop. He says, when I was done engaging the vehicle,
Speaker 3: I was trying to get off to the side over
Speaker 3: there because I was worried about possibly having possibly me
Speaker 3: being in her line of fire.
Speaker 2: Now, sure, this is this is the first reasonable threat
Speaker 2: that he has expressed. I would also be concerned about
Speaker 2: them shooting me, and that is yes.
Speaker 3: So, after Hernandez is an a explanation of events, the
Speaker 3: investigator showed him video stills of an acorn coming into
Speaker 3: frame and bouncing off the roof of his car. I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna read directly from the from the report, quote,
Speaker 3: Deputy Hernandez asked, acorn. Investigator Hogan answered, acorn, I'm quote amazing, amazing,
Speaker 3: just an amazing sentence.
Speaker 2: This is this is so perfectly how you would like
Speaker 2: script it in a really good police procedural comedy. Like
Speaker 2: if you had some A game writers on the team
Speaker 2: and it's it's gonna take some really good you'd need
Speaker 2: like the wire quality actors to pull those lines off.
Speaker 2: Bunk and Bunk could have pulled them off right, Like.
Speaker 3: There's two more lines I want I want to get
Speaker 3: to before before we take an out of break here.
Speaker 3: When asked if the sound he heard could have been
Speaker 3: an acorn instead of supress gunfire, the deputy answered, quote,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say no, because I mean, that's but
Speaker 3: what ten seconds pause and speaking. What I heard three
Speaker 3: second pause and speaking sounded almost like twelve second pause
Speaker 3: and speaking. But I heard sounded what I think would
Speaker 3: be louder than an acorn hitting the roof of the car.
Speaker 3: But there's obviously an a chord hitting the roof of
Speaker 3: a car unquote.
Speaker 2: Amazing. Uh.
Speaker 3: The investigator then had to ask herd d does if
Speaker 3: he was in general familiar with the sound of acorns,
Speaker 3: which must be so embarrassing.
Speaker 2: That is that is that is a low point in
Speaker 2: your career. That is.
Speaker 3: Hernad has said that he was. He was then asked
Speaker 3: if the sound could have been what led him to
Speaker 3: believe the car theft suspect shot him, to which the
Speaker 3: deputy answered, it could be seven second pause and speaking,
Speaker 3: but I don't think so, but it could be uncurt great.
Speaker 3: So then Hernandez's lawyer said that they could maybe watch
Speaker 3: the video again and see if see if the acorn
Speaker 3: striking matches the time that he says that he heard
Speaker 3: the sound, And then they deliberated for a little bit
Speaker 3: and ultimately Hernandez refused to watch the video s second
Speaker 3: time once he was told it was an acorn. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: come on, what's there to do understandable?
Speaker 2: No, that's uh, that's that's going to really do some
Speaker 2: damage to your self esteem right there.
Speaker 3: Less than a month later, just a few days before
Speaker 3: a second interview was scheduled, he quit the job.
Speaker 2: So you know what first decision he's made them, I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, what what else can you do at this point?
Speaker 2: This story starts with a bad cop, but it ends
Speaker 2: with a good one.
Speaker 3: Like imagine returning to work and everyone's gonna call you
Speaker 3: like the acorn guy, Like you can't, you can't. It's
Speaker 3: just an.
Speaker 2: Anytime there's like a there's like a fucking acorn tree
Speaker 2: anywhere new you get like you okay, man, okay, do
Speaker 2: you need to take.
Speaker 3: Him to call it? Did you call this? Hit the
Speaker 3: watch out? Watch out?
Speaker 2: One hundred, one hundred times a day. Guys would be
Speaker 2: getting on his radio being like I just saw an acorn.
Speaker 3: Dispatch, got a can you get in on a possible acorn? Negative? Negative?
Speaker 4: That is a pine cone? No need for assistance, just
Speaker 4: some gunfire. We're good, We're good, not an acorn. Repeat,
Speaker 4: We're safe, seene is safe. No acorns in sight. All right,
Speaker 4: let's let's take it out of break and we will
Speaker 4: return to hear about Sergeant Robert's recollection of events. Welcome
Speaker 4: back to Acorn Cop streaming now on the Discovery Channel.
Speaker 4: Two cops, one acorn. No survive, Actually no, thankfully everyone survived.
Speaker 4: This would be much much, much less funny.
Speaker 2: We would not be laughing about this now. There is
Speaker 2: some permanent psychological damage done to the guy who was
Speaker 2: shot at but not shot and that is unjust and sad,
Speaker 2: yet not enough that we are not willing folks. You
Speaker 2: have a right to laugh at something like this, you know,
Speaker 2: even if there are some consequences to it. That's just
Speaker 2: keeping yourself sane in this world.
Speaker 3: So Sergeant Roberts was a member of the Sharf's department
Speaker 3: for fifteen years. She has a bachelor's degree in criminology
Speaker 3: from the Florida State University, so that's cool. She's been
Speaker 3: teaching at the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission for
Speaker 3: ten years. So I think one thing that led to
Speaker 3: some of them thinking it could have been suppressed gunfire
Speaker 3: is that in the threatening messages that the suspect had
Speaker 3: shown to or had sent to his girlfriend, included was
Speaker 3: a close up picture of this dark kind of gray
Speaker 3: cylinder pressed up against the center of the dash in
Speaker 3: his car. Less than two inches of the cylinder were visible.
Speaker 3: No parts of a firearm could be seen. But they
Speaker 3: believed that this was a suppressor, and the victim said
Speaker 3: that he a suppressor. So I think that that's that
Speaker 3: is one thing that happened in the interview kind of
Speaker 3: or in the in the like exchange leading up to
Speaker 3: this incident. But no one got any confirmation that he
Speaker 3: had a gun on him. Again, he was searched two times.
Speaker 3: There was no gun found on him. It is possible
Speaker 3: to like hide a gun on you, It is much
Speaker 3: more difficult to hide a gun with a suppressor. Like
Speaker 3: that is that is a pretty a pretty big object.
Speaker 2: They are they are larger like it. Basically doubles are
Speaker 2: more than doubles the length of the firearm, and it
Speaker 2: also does so in such a way that makes it
Speaker 2: difficult to carry in a concealed fashion.
Speaker 3: So when Sergeant Roberts was collecting an affidavit about the
Speaker 3: stolen car, she said that she heard quote some type
Speaker 3: of noise and shortly thereafter Jesse, who is Hernandez screaming?
Speaker 3: Shots fired? Quote. It was loud enough that it got
Speaker 3: my attention and made me think we're about to have
Speaker 3: a fight with a prisoner or the suspect. Either he's
Speaker 3: escaped somehow and Jesse is in a tussle with him.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you he was that what it was,
Speaker 3: but it made me look and then immediately heard Deputy
Speaker 3: Hernandez screaming. Shots fired. So Sargent and Roberts right out
Speaker 3: into the street. Quote. I saw that Hernandez was down.
Speaker 3: He had his gun point to the back of his
Speaker 3: patrol car. I was drawing my pistol and my magazine
Speaker 3: that was in my meg pouch somehow flew out again.
Speaker 3: Amazing police work.
Speaker 2: These guys incredible stuff. That's someone who never practiced.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at which point I thought there was a malfunction.
Speaker 3: I thought that I dropped the magazine somehow I hit
Speaker 3: the mega release on my firearm, and that that was
Speaker 3: the magazine that fell out. Turns out it wasn't. It
Speaker 3: was the one from my meg pouch.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: At which point I think I fired. So you just
Speaker 3: have magazines fly you freak out, Yeah, start pulling your trigger.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I will say that last part extremely common experience.
Speaker 2: Police officers are not well trained, and most of them
Speaker 2: in terms of combat stuff, and most of them do
Speaker 2: not shoot regularly. The FBI has done studies of like
Speaker 2: people who kill police officers, and they nearly always train
Speaker 2: way more often than the police officers they kill trained.
Speaker 2: It's very Most cops are not putting one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty rounds a month downrange, and like, I fire three
Speaker 2: hundred rounds a month in training, and I'm not particularly good.
Speaker 2: That's what I consider like minimum level of competence. And
Speaker 2: so it is extremely common in police shootings for the
Speaker 2: officer to say I don't know how many I fired,
Speaker 2: or I fired two shots and they fired seventeen. That
Speaker 2: happens fun. Oftentimes even more than that, people will reload
Speaker 2: and not realize that they reloaded and emptied a second
Speaker 2: magazine because in an actual violent situation, and it is
Speaker 2: for that lady, I will say that she just knows
Speaker 2: that her partner is emptying his firearm. So for her,
Speaker 2: she's this is less unreasonable, right, It is.
Speaker 3: More complicated for Sergeant Roberts. But I think it also
Speaker 3: points to some of the inherent problems with policing.
Speaker 2: Oh good god, yes, and the way.
Speaker 3: Police are trained, Like the how quickly it was for
Speaker 3: her to start fight, firing at a suspect who's locked
Speaker 3: inside of a patrol car, who she knows has been
Speaker 3: searched multiple times.
Speaker 2: And who she has not seen shooting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she has not seen any gunfire, She's not seen
Speaker 3: any evidence of that. She's heard one man screaming. And
Speaker 3: how quickly they decide to use lethal force is I
Speaker 3: think very notable. Quote. I fired at the vehicle because
Speaker 3: I saw Deputy Hernandez down on the ground and he
Speaker 3: tells me that shots are fired and he's hit, and
Speaker 3: it scared the hell out of me. I thought I
Speaker 3: was watching him be killed, which is yeah, it gets
Speaker 3: to like how they are trained to constantly be in
Speaker 3: fear for their lives, their fellow officers' lives. Quote. It
Speaker 3: was the patrol car that was where the threat was
Speaker 3: coming from. I'm thinking, we've we missed the gun and
Speaker 3: the pack down somehow he shot Jesse from the car
Speaker 3: and Jesse's down. Shots are being fired. I couldn't tell
Speaker 3: you exactly where they were coming from, but I fired
Speaker 3: because of my concern.
Speaker 2: On gut and you get this is a thing that
Speaker 2: does not get represented in fiction. People don't like to
Speaker 2: talk about it. This happens with soldiers too. I have
Speaker 2: a friend who was shot in the leg by a
Speaker 2: fifty count by one of our fifty cows one of
Speaker 2: his guy's guns, because they were told anyone from this
Speaker 2: building over that you see on the thermal scope is
Speaker 2: an enemy. They saw him on the thermal scope and
Speaker 2: they lit him up. It was just a series of
Speaker 2: bad calls being made and nobody checking to confirm, because
Speaker 2: you're in an actual chaotic, dangerous situation, checking to confirm
Speaker 2: is there actually a threat in that area? They're just shooting,
Speaker 2: you know. It's people panic all the time. It's one
Speaker 2: of the problems with sending people with guns into neighborhoods.
Speaker 2: Like this is part of why the way we do policing,
Speaker 2: it's such a bad idea because there's no way to
Speaker 2: train out all of this. You can train out acorn
Speaker 2: guy maybe maybe, but they didn't, but you cannot train
Speaker 2: out people panicking and doing things with guns that can
Speaker 2: never be taken back.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: And one other aspect is like Hernandez starts firing his
Speaker 3: gun very shortly after he's yelling shots fired. Like getting
Speaker 3: that linear cause of events can be tricky because like
Speaker 3: you are hearing gunfire at the same time you were
Speaker 3: hearing him yell shots fired because he is shooting. And
Speaker 3: Roberts said that she wasn't sure if she or her
Speaker 3: Endaz even shot first. Like all of your memory in
Speaker 3: these instances can get really kind of blurry, like like
Speaker 3: all of these like high stress scenarios, it actually can
Speaker 3: be hard to remember the exact manner of.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, easily, yes, she.
Speaker 3: Said quote I'm seeing him on the ground yelling shots fired.
Speaker 3: I'm hit. I'm hit. I thought I thought I saw
Speaker 3: a deputy get murdered. I was close enough to see
Speaker 3: his facial expression that was fear, anxiety. It was it
Speaker 3: was horrible. I'm seeing him kind of trip fall, stumble
Speaker 3: something behind the vehicle. At some point he's able to
Speaker 3: kind of post up, but he was stumbling, crawling on
Speaker 3: the ground. I don't know how to explain it. He
Speaker 3: wasn't standing up straight, he was not in a tactical position.
Speaker 3: Was he was off as momentum, he was off balance,
Speaker 3: he was standing behind that car. It did not look
Speaker 3: like he was in control of himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, yeah, that's like what she is saying. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna say this is like a good response, but
Speaker 2: it makes sense to me that she reacted the way
Speaker 2: she did. Most people would write which is why most
Speaker 2: people should not be given firearms and legal immunity to
Speaker 2: do whatever with them, right, But most people would have
Speaker 2: reacted in a why broadly similar manner without training, you know,
Speaker 2: without training and experience.
Speaker 3: Now, there's one way that she describes his kind of
Speaker 3: like weird stumbling on the ground quote. The auditory tone
Speaker 3: in his voice was terror. The best way to describe
Speaker 3: it was like watching a baby giraffe trying to walk
Speaker 3: for the first time. I sat of the road.
Speaker 2: Oh that is that is going to echo in his
Speaker 2: mind until the day he dies.
Speaker 3: So baby giraffe something learning to walk for the first time.
Speaker 3: Do you know what else is learning to walk? I
Speaker 3: don't know. That doesn't really work. Now. Do you know
Speaker 3: what else could perceive acorns as a threat to business?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, we I mean the one thing all of
Speaker 2: our sponsors agree on is that acorns and all trees
Speaker 2: should be eliminated in the interest of better profit margins.
Speaker 2: So dangerous, kill the natural world, live free. I want
Speaker 2: to know one other thing as I'm talking about, like
Speaker 2: why they I'm not surprised they reacted this way, and
Speaker 2: what it says to me about like how I think.
Speaker 2: Like I think that a group of moderately competent civilians
Speaker 2: with concealed firearms would have responded better than both officers
Speaker 2: in this situation, large not for the reason that they're
Speaker 2: more smarter or better trained, because they probably aren't, but
Speaker 2: because they go through the world carrying a gun knowing
Speaker 2: that if anything they do with that gun, they're legally
Speaker 2: accountable for every shot fired they're accountable for, which is
Speaker 2: a different mind state than what police are trained to do,
Speaker 2: which is the instant you feel endangered, you should draw
Speaker 2: and be prepared to shoot or shoot immediately, because nothing
Speaker 2: matters more than you getting home, and you have qualified
Speaker 2: immunity on your side, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which allows you to interpret a very quiet tapping
Speaker 3: sound as a lethal threat to your life. Now. Sergeant
Speaker 3: Roberts said that she did observe Hernandez move himself into
Speaker 3: kind of a kneeling shooting stance on his left knee
Speaker 3: with his right foot planted in front, but still quote,
Speaker 3: it seemed like his motor functions were not operating properly
Speaker 3: from what I saw. He told me, again, shots are fire.
Speaker 3: He's completely out in the open. No one would think
Speaker 3: that's a good place to take a knee to tactically fire.
Speaker 1: So he was.
Speaker 3: He was still tried to respond in some way, but
Speaker 3: still very very baby draft coded.
Speaker 2: It seems yeah, yeah, I mean that seems like a
Speaker 2: constant thing for this fella.
Speaker 3: So. Roberts also admitted that she did not ever see
Speaker 3: the suspect. She could not see inside the patrol car,
Speaker 3: and she couldn't hear anything coming from that area. Quote.
Speaker 3: If there would have been something going on in that vehicle,
Speaker 3: I don't know if I nescessarily would have heard it
Speaker 3: was I hearing or seeing the windows be blasted?
Speaker 2: Out.
Speaker 3: No, I couldn't see the right side of the vehicle,
Speaker 3: but based on the circumstances, I'm thinking that somehow he
Speaker 3: shot Jesse from the back and it had struck him
Speaker 3: some way, somehow. I don't know if the individual's gotten
Speaker 3: out of the car and it's on the other side,
Speaker 3: you know, like he's escaped somehow. I couldn't see if
Speaker 3: the door was wide open. I don't know if he's
Speaker 3: gotten out and they've had a little tussle. Is he's
Speaker 3: shooting from the back of the car. All these things
Speaker 3: are going through my head, but the main thing is
Speaker 3: that he's in the back of the car. He's got
Speaker 3: a gun and we missed it, and somehow he shot
Speaker 3: Deputy Hernandez. So she also couldn't remember who shot first,
Speaker 3: but she denied the notion that she started shooting because
Speaker 3: she thought Hernandez fired his gun first. She was confident
Speaker 3: in her her own use of gunfire before she could
Speaker 3: tell that Jesse was firing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting quote.
Speaker 3: The threat was someone had shot him. We had an
Speaker 3: arm suspect from the back of the vehicle. Jesse was shot.
Speaker 3: I'm watching him, you know, fumble on the road. How
Speaker 3: do I give him more time. How do I draw
Speaker 3: the attention to me? How do I save him? I
Speaker 3: thought I was watching him get murdered, the tone in
Speaker 3: his voice, look on his face, the physical reactions. I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: we missed the gun and this is it. How do
Speaker 3: I get to Jesse to save him. She talks about
Speaker 3: how she quote couldn't let him be shot again again,
Speaker 3: as all this is like so confident that this has happened,
Speaker 3: and they're so confident in their own use of force.
Speaker 3: She was also concerned that if the suspect got away,
Speaker 3: other people's lives could be in danger, like his girlfriend
Speaker 3: who was nearby and the friend who was talking to
Speaker 3: police about their domestic issue. Quote, there was a threat
Speaker 3: in the back of the patrol car. I had a
Speaker 3: deputy that was on the ground that was still a
Speaker 3: threat to Jesse's life. I needed to provide him some
Speaker 3: sort of cover or bring the attention to me. I'm
Speaker 3: watching him die. I've got to do something. I've got
Speaker 3: to do something. There's that just like overall constantly throughout
Speaker 3: this interview with the Professional Standards Investigation, she's just constantly
Speaker 3: saying how she thought that this man was gonna die.
Speaker 3: That's why she responded the way she did. Like she
Speaker 3: talks about how she can't render aid if there's still
Speaker 3: a threat, she has to like get regain control the situation.
Speaker 2: All of those are reasonable things to say. Yeah, all
Speaker 2: of those are reasonable things to say in a ReHO gunfight.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's just a little bit less less valid when
Speaker 3: the ending incident is an acorn falling on a roof. Yes,
Speaker 3: and you're shooting directly at a man.
Speaker 2: Who's your own car been searched two.
Speaker 3: Times and is trapped inside, who has handcuffs on. Like.
Speaker 3: So Yeah, after both cops fired off this large valley
Speaker 3: of bullets, they both repositioned behind cover, called in more backup,
Speaker 3: and Roberts tended to manage the situation and the other
Speaker 3: individuals in the area and eventually check in on Deputy Hernandez. Quote,
Speaker 3: the threat was still a threat until we were able
Speaker 3: to remove him from the car. Again, they're not viewing
Speaker 3: him as a person, They're viewing him as a threat.
Speaker 3: Like that is that is like he's no longer like
Speaker 3: a human being. He is he is a threat. That
Speaker 3: is what he represents now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and that is that is how they're trained
Speaker 2: to talk, and that is by the way like in
Speaker 2: a court of law, how you should talk, right, you don't.
Speaker 2: You would not say if you were involved in a
Speaker 2: legal defensive shooting, I shot to kill, you would say
Speaker 2: I shot to stop the threat. That is like how
Speaker 2: people are trained, because that's what plays best in a court. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, she all of her interview is very polished. She's
Speaker 3: she's like very she's she's been a caught for fifteen years,
Speaker 3: like she yeah, is she knows what she's saying here.
Speaker 2: Yes, she's been coached before. Yeah, she's she's aware.
Speaker 3: So after they were able to get to cover, she
Speaker 3: called in more resources. Quote, that's when we were able
Speaker 3: to treat it as more of a barricaded armed suspect situation.
Speaker 3: This poor dude, Yeah, like what do you do? Like
Speaker 3: you're hanging in the back of the car like everywhere.
Speaker 2: Like like it seems like this guy is guilty of
Speaker 2: having a little bit of having an emotional breakdown with
Speaker 2: his partner and doing things he should not have done,
Speaker 2: none of which the penalty for is getting shot at
Speaker 2: while strapped into a car.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he stole his girlfriend's car, He sent her threatening messages.
Speaker 3: He was described as being a massive in the past yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's bad things, but that doesn't mean you can get
Speaker 3: executed by police because they hurt an a chord like.
Speaker 2: No, that is not that is not what our society
Speaker 2: has deemed the punishment for those options, for those behaviors
Speaker 2: should be.
Speaker 3: So Roberts closed this interview by saying, quote, I don't
Speaker 3: think there's anything funny about it. It just went from
Speaker 3: zero to one hundred within the drop of a hat.
Speaker 3: I know we talk about it all the time, but
Speaker 3: when it does, it does. And she's talking about how,
Speaker 3: like how fast the situation escalates, like from a very
Speaker 3: standard interaction towards you're now multiple people are shooting, like
Speaker 3: this is it happens so quickly. It went from zero
Speaker 3: to one hundred within the drop of a hat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that is what happens with shootings.
Speaker 3: She knew that Hernandez was prior military and when in
Speaker 3: training Hernandez was training on her shift, she described him
Speaker 3: as quote a very squared away person, somebody that if
Speaker 3: they tell you something, you don't question it. I wanted
Speaker 3: Jesse on my shift. When I observed him in high
Speaker 3: stressful situations, he reacted appropriately, He wasn't afraid to respond
Speaker 3: and he's I think that last part is certainly true.
Speaker 3: He was not afraid to respond well.
Speaker 2: And this is why, again, when the response for a
Speaker 2: lot of people when I would talk about this to
Speaker 2: them is suspecting it had something to do with his
Speaker 2: military training that he responded this way. Soldiers aren't trained
Speaker 2: this way. Again, this is so content in the field.
Speaker 2: But soldiers are generally trained to not air on the
Speaker 2: side of opening fire blindly because war crimes are a
Speaker 2: thing they're concerned about and they have a sense of
Speaker 2: professional pride against Again, not to say that they do
Speaker 2: not kill innocent people. They do all the time, because
Speaker 2: that's what war is. But this is not the way.
Speaker 2: So this is police training. This guy's bias towards reacting
Speaker 2: this way is the result of police training, not special
Speaker 2: forces training.
Speaker 3: She kind of reaffirmed her trust in Hernandez as a
Speaker 3: person who was like reliable, saying when they were on
Speaker 3: night shift during training, quote, he acted appropriately, He did
Speaker 3: not lose control of his emotions. I have a lot
Speaker 3: of respect for him. Actually, when he tells you something,
Speaker 3: it's not something like are you sure you know he
Speaker 3: tell you something and that's what's happening, or that's what happened.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's anything malicious about what he did.
Speaker 3: I'm not mad at him. I'm not upset about it
Speaker 3: because I truly believe that he thought that's what was happening, unquote,
Speaker 3: which is again, it.
Speaker 2: Just i'd be pissed you almost, Like.
Speaker 3: I don't if if I was tricked into almost killing someone,
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't understand this reaction.
Speaker 2: Like it's it's this thin blue line shit, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like like they have to group together so so hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's and it's like this guy got you
Speaker 2: into a situation where you could have shot a child,
Speaker 2: Like I would never forgive someone who put me in
Speaker 2: that position for no good reason, right, Like it's why
Speaker 2: that's such such an insane response to me, Sopran.
Speaker 3: She has to keep affirming that he has like a
Speaker 3: good judgment, and it's it's so bizarre, like he very
Speaker 3: clearly doesn't. Dude, you'll watch the video. Oh, it'd be.
Speaker 2: One thing if like they were under fire and he
Speaker 2: shot and his bullet went wide and hit a civilian
Speaker 2: and it's no, that's like absolutely just a horrible accident.
Speaker 2: But like his judgment wasn't bad. It was just a
Speaker 2: terrible situation. This is so different, and that she's still
Speaker 2: going to bat for him. Says everything about cop cops,
Speaker 2: cop brain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a few lines that I want to read
Speaker 3: before we close out here that are in the conclusion
Speaker 3: of the of the report.
Speaker 2: Can't wait.
Speaker 3: They describe Hernandez's legs as quote, stopped working correctly. But
Speaker 3: I think it's just a really funny way to phrase it.
Speaker 2: I would describe his brain that way.
Speaker 3: But yeah, his legs weren't responding as he intended. But
Speaker 3: there was no evidence to support anything impacted Deputy Hernandez.
Speaker 3: No defects are found on his uniform or his blistering
Speaker 3: vest to support the impact. Hernandez's response was not objectively reasonable,
Speaker 3: so they they ruled that hernandez His response was not
Speaker 3: objectively reasonable, that it was not appropriate.
Speaker 2: Positively surprised about that, but.
Speaker 3: Found Sergeant Roberts response as being reasonable because she believed
Speaker 3: Hernandez has been shot because of his tone of voice,
Speaker 3: his stumbling, attempts to move and stand up, and as
Speaker 3: a parent quote lack of control over his body.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would not call it. I wouldn't say her
Speaker 2: response is reasonable. I would say her response is what
Speaker 2: I would expect most people to do.
Speaker 3: No, or it is reasonable in terms of how police
Speaker 3: procedure operates, like she followed the correct protocols for interacting
Speaker 3: as a police officer.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't believe under the law she's she would
Speaker 2: have been found liable by any court.
Speaker 3: No, they said. Quote. Roberts found out Hernandez to be
Speaker 3: a reliable depity that she could trust. She had no
Speaker 3: reason to doubt what Hernandez had been telling her. She
Speaker 3: described the auditory tone of Hernandez's voice as terror, the
Speaker 3: look on his face as being quote consistent with being
Speaker 3: in fear. I love that kind of cop speak, consistent
Speaker 3: with being in fear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he looked scared. Yeah amazing. Oh, I do want
Speaker 2: to go over one thing before we come out, because
Speaker 2: this is again something I've been asked by people, and
Speaker 2: you know, maybe this is actionable. If you ever found
Speaker 2: yourself handcuffed in the back of a police car and
Speaker 2: they start shooting at you, you should know how this
Speaker 2: guy survived. Because reading the interview with him, he was like,
Speaker 2: as soon as I realized they were shooting at me,
Speaker 2: I like flung myself down sideways and laid flat. I
Speaker 2: think in front of the seat. He might have been
Speaker 2: on the seat. I would get in front of the
Speaker 2: seat if you can. But the reason he survived is
Speaker 2: that handguns. Number one, police carry hollow points in their handguns,
Speaker 2: which is a bullet that has a hole in the
Speaker 2: slug the thing that goes into somebody. And the reason
Speaker 2: why you make a hollow point is that a hollow
Speaker 2: point expands immediately upon impact, so it doesn't penetrate as well.
Speaker 2: It will not go through armor, and it will not
Speaker 2: go through objects very well. But when it hits meat,
Speaker 2: it expands and so instead of going through a body,
Speaker 2: it stops and it imparts all of the force from
Speaker 2: the bullet into that body, so it is better at
Speaker 2: stopping people. But what that means is when someone is
Speaker 2: shooting at something like a car and shooting into the
Speaker 2: back of a car, and you have that whole reinforced
Speaker 2: trunk and backseat of a police car to go through,
Speaker 2: those nine millimeters rounds are unlikely to penetrate very far.
Speaker 2: So if you are laying down in front of the
Speaker 2: seat or flat on the seat, your odds of not
Speaker 2: getting hit are pretty good. Like he had. I'm not
Speaker 2: surprised he survived. Having done what he did. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're sitting up and you've got body parts that
Speaker 2: are like in view with of the windows, you're very
Speaker 2: likely to get hit. But because he did what he did,
Speaker 2: he essentially saved his own life, is what it's my
Speaker 2: interpretation of what I've read.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I mean it's it is a terrifying scenario
Speaker 3: that there was. There was an instant recently of this
Speaker 3: officer who made his first ever arrest. He had two
Speaker 3: suspects locked in the back and he got distracted about driving.
Speaker 3: He drove his car off the road into a lake,
Speaker 3: and both of the suspects drowned.
Speaker 2: Jesus fucking Christ, Like.
Speaker 3: This is this is like all these things point towards
Speaker 3: just inherent problems with the policing system.
Speaker 2: Cops bad avoid at all costs.
Speaker 3: It's terrifying, Like it's it is like these people can
Speaker 3: just act like this can kidnap, people can do all
Speaker 3: these things and face basically no repercussions at least turn
Speaker 3: end as is no longer a cop, which is good,
Speaker 3: but like that doesn't fix any of the underlying problems
Speaker 3: with training that cause people to react like this in
Speaker 3: the face of a squirrel armed with an acorn being
Speaker 3: the most dangerous thing that you can encounter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very bad police work. Avoid cops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, pretty much, pretty much. So, Yeah, that is
Speaker 3: that is what we have to say on the acorn
Speaker 3: involved shooting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great stuff.
Speaker 3: Watch out for acorns, watch out for droops. Also dangerous.
Speaker 3: They can fall off a tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Pine cones can sometimes be lethal.
Speaker 2: Oh they call those the widow makers.
Speaker 3: Eyes on the sky folks. You never know, all right
Speaker 3: that Bye?
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