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Autopsy contradicts US accounts of fatal shooting

Jessica Hernandez was fatally shot by two Denver Police Department officers on Jan. 26.

An autopsy result counters Denver police officers’ accounts of their fatal shooting of a 17-year-old American girl while she was driving a stolen car.

On January 26, Jessica Hernandez was shot three times by officers Daniel Greene and Gabriel Jordan who claimed the victim was driving the car toward them.

The officers found the girl and four other teenagers inside the car in an alley and asked the teens several times to get out of the vehicle. But they opened fire after Hernandez allegedly drove toward one of the officers.

According to the autopsy report released by the Denver medical examiner's office on Friday, one bullet entered the left side of Jessica’s pelvis and traveled to her right tight.

The two other bullets entered through the left side of the victim’s chest and passed right through her body, which according to her family’s lawyer, suggests that Hernandez was shot from the driver’s side of the car.

"These facts undermine Denver Police Department's claim that Jessie was driving at the officers as they shot her," Mohamedbhai said in a statement. "The wound path and trajectory of the bullet that likely killed Jessica Hernandez undermines the version of events as indicated by the Denver Police Department."

He said the “objective evidence” contradicts officers’ claims that “Jessie was to blame for her own death".

Officers Greene and Jordan, who served at Denver Police Department for 16 and 9 years respectively, are on administrative leave.

The shooting incident happened while the US police were under criticism for use of force against people of color.

The death of several unarmed black men by the hands of white police officers triggered months of protests and clashes between police and demonstrators across the country.

Police brutality and the unnecessary use of heavy-handed tactics, as well as the racial profiling of some minorities, have become a major concern across the US in recent years.

AT/GJH

 


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