Teresa Gomez shooting: Las Cruces, New Mexico has reached a settlement

CNN — The city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, has reached a $20 million settlement with the family of a grandmother fatally shot by a police officer last year, according to The Associated Press and local media. Felipe Hernandez, then working for the Las Cruces Police Department, fatally shot Teresa Gomez, 45, in her car in October 2023. “This settlement should be understood as a statement of the City’s profound feeling of loss for the death of Gomez and of the City’s condolences to her family,” the city of Las Cruces said in a news release sent Friday, according to AP. The lawsuit alleges Gomez presented “no threat of any physical injury to Hernandez or anyone else” and Hernandez “left her to bleed out in her car as he turned away from her gasping body to retrieve his bicycle and flashlight.” The suit claims Las Cruces “has adopted a de facto policy of indifference to the escalation of encounters between its officers and the public” and it “it allows officers to use deadly force in situations in which there is no threat of great bodily harm or death posed by the subject receiving deadly force.” The complaint also alleges city employees disproportionately use excessive force against people of color – like Gomez, who was Hispanic. Gomez’s sister, Angela Lozano-Gutierrez, previously told CNN the video of her mother’s encounter with Hernandez was “shocking.” “We may never get the apology we need,” Lozano-Gutierrez said.