News reaching Amandala around 5:00 p.m. today, Monday, was that Alexander Herrera, 51, had just died at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH).
Herrera’s death is controversial because while a police report says that an unnamed police officer shot him once last night in the vicinity of the southside of the Swing Bridge around 11:20, presumably because he was carrying “a black handgun,” family members told Amandala that Herrera was shot in the back of his head and in his back a total of four times. They said, even from this morning, that the injuries were so severe that they did not expect him to survive.
In a press release this morning, the police reported on a “shooting incident” involving Alexander Herrera, who, they said, was “so intoxicated that he was unable to provide any information to the police.”
“Acting on information received at 11:20 p.m. on the 3rd August 2008, that someone was shot, police visited the KHMH Trauma Room, where they saw a Hispanic male identified as Alexander Herrera, 49, a construction worker of a Ladyville Village address, with an injury to the back of the head,” said the police.
Perhaps the police were trying to be “cute,” because why should they act “on information received,” as if the shooting were done by someone else and had been reported to them, when in fact, they, the police, were the shooters?
Continued the release: “The person appeared to be intoxicated and was unable to communicate any information to the police. Initial investigation reveals that the male person was walking across Regent Street from the direction of the Central Drug Store towards the riverside, when a police officer observed that the male person was carrying a black handgun in his hand. The officer identified himself and the male person immediately pointed the handgun at him.”
A family member who saw Herrera in the hospital told us that he had been shot twice in the back of the head and twice in the back.
The release said, however, that “Another police officer then fired a single shot from his police issued firearm at the said male person, who then jumped into the river and swam across the river.
“The officer later detained the male person, saw the injury to his head and transported him to the KHMH. A medico legal form was issued to the victim who is admitted to ward in a critical condition. Police have indicated that upon release from the hospital Herrera will face charges.”
A brother of Herrera’s called the police’s statement “a pack of lies.”
Herrera, the family said they had been told by witnesses, never “swam across the river.” He was fished out of the river near the middle by a friend and a couple officers, one of whom kept pointing his gun at the mortally wounded man.
Also, they say, Herrera was not shot on land, but while he was in the water. All he had, they say, was some marijuana in his hand. He was shot by policemen on the southside, and a policeman on the northside of the bridge.
Our efforts to contact the Police Press Officer, Clement Palacio, have proved futile, after he was asked one of several questions relating to the incident. Palacio was asked what kind of weapon police used to shoot Herrera. Amandala had heard that Herrera had been shot with a 12-gauge pump action shotgun.
Palacio said he did not know, but would check. When we tried calling back him on his cell phone later, however, we could not get through.
Peter Herrera, 44, is the younger brother of Alexander. When we asked him what he knew about the incident he said: “What I know is that my brother has two bullets lodged in his brain and he has two more bullets in the back of his body.”
Cristina Mohammed-Ali, 53, said that her brother is definitely no gunman. “He gwine smoke his little weed and drink his rum, but he no gat no gun. He is a hardworking person.”
Peter Herrera told Amandala that he and his brother, Herbert, went to the Crimes Investigation Branch (CIB) office to find out what had happened to their brother.
“I don’t remember the name of the officer that we spoke with, but he told us that they got a report of a shooting at the corner of Water Lane and Vernon Street. But there is no such corner. The police said that they searched around and found my brother floating in the water. Later, other police came with other stories like my brother was running from them and when they retrieved him out of the water, he had wounds to the back of his head.”
At the CIB office, the brothers were told that, “Apparently our officers were on patrol in the area and heard four gunshots; when they went to investigate they saw my brother in the water.”
The Herreras said they had been involved in their own investigation and found two eyewitnesses who saw what had happened.
Herbert Herrera said that he and his brother went to the KHMH around 2:00 a.m. and identified their brother. They met the doctor who was attending to him. But the doctor told them that he could not do anything. After hearing the doctor’s response they headed for the CIB office.
Joseph “Easy” Garbutt, 36, who was sitting in a vehicle near to the hot dog stand at the foot of the Swing Bridge and who is a co-worker of Alexander Herrera’s, told Amandala that when the police were coming toward them, he and Herrera were talking.
The police hollered at Herrera to stop, because he had moved off, fearing that he would be arrested for the small amount of weed (marijuana) he had, that he was going to take to Turneffe Island where he worked in the construction field.
“They (the police) hollered at him to stop. Then they began firing their 9mm guns into the air at first. But Herrera jumped into the river in an effort to avoid being searched by the police. Herrera had no gun. I swear to that. The most he had was a little weed. Then I saw a tallish dark-skinned police officer, who was on the north side of the river, stoop down, aimed his shotgun and fired it,” Garbutt told Amandala.
At this point, police were firing from the south and the north side of the river, Garbutt told us. Herrera did not swim across the river; the furthest he swam was to the center point of the bridge.
Garbutt’s story was corroborated by another man who was on hand when the incident unfolded.
Arrio Moreno, 20, said that he was sitting in the boat in which Herrera would have travelled to Turneffe, which was docked in the open lot adjacent to the Swing Bridge. In a telephone interview from Turneffe, he told the newspaper what he had witnessed.
“Herrera was speaking to Garbutt when the police came up in their vehicle. They wanted to search him, but Herrera ran and jumped into the river. The police began to shoot. The police were still pointing their gun at him when I helped two of them pull him out of the water. He was bleeding from his back.”
When asked if Herrera had pulled a gun at the police, Moreno responded with evident anger in his voice, “Dat da fu….ing lie. The man never had no fu…ing gun. Instead of protecting us, they are killing us.”