SAN ANTONIO – After watching the protests that erupted nationwide after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, a San Antonio woman whose son’s homicide has yet to be solved came to the following conclusion.
“There needs to definitely be reform in how those situations are handled,” said Lori Rocha, whose son, Aaron, was killed in a 2016 road rage incident.
Rocha said what needs to change in San Antonio is the level of funding to hire more homicide detectives who could spend more time solving cases, including her son’s.
Jennifer Browne, Rocha's victim advocate, said, "My heart goes out to those protesters. I know what they're doing is in good faith."
But rather than defund police as some protesters want, Browne said the next city budget should allocate or realign more money for investigators who could solve crimes.
"They currently have a ton of cases on each detectives desk," Browne said.
Pro-police demonstrators gather at Public Safety HQ
With more funding, Browne said detectives would be able to look into old unsolved crimes and cold cases.
“They do solve cases and they do arrest the bad guys,” Rocha said, and potentially they could solve many others if the homicide unit is given the needed resources.
Browne said, realistically that may not happen, but the families she works with, many of them members of Parents of Murdered Children and Other Survivors of Homicide Victims, aren’t giving up.
“We’ll keep pushing for it,” she said.