SAN ANTONIO – Joe Gomez, the suspect who took his own life after being shot twice by a San Antonio Park Police Department officer outside an airport terminal Thursday, had a long criminal history in Bexar County but no history of violence or weapons-related offenses, court records revealed Saturday.
Gomez, 46, died Thursday afternoon after exchanging gunfire with Officer John Maines outside Terminal B of San Antonio International Airport.
While SAPD officials originally said Gomez was shot and killed by Maines, after he confronted the suspect as he drove the wrong way toward the terminal, an updated release on Friday indicated that Gomez was shot twice by Maines before fatally shooting himself.
Bexar County court records show Gomez was arrested seven times between 1999 and 2014.
Gomez faced felony drug charges in separate cases in 2011 and 2014, but saw the former case dismissed due to insufficient evidence, court records confirm.
Records show the 2014 charge, possession of marijuana between four ounces and five pounds, was reduced to a lower offense in exchange for Gomez serving two years probation.
The probation term, however, was ended less than a year later in May 2016, records show.
Gomez was also arrested twice in less than six months for DWI in 2011.
While the first DWI charge was dismissed due to a missing witness, court records show Gomez pleaded no contest in the second case in June 2012 and was given one year probation.
Gomez’s earliest arrest, a 1999 charge of attempting to elude a police officer, resulted in one year of probation as part of a plea agreement, records show.
Gomez had no history of arrests for violent or weapons-related criminal offenses, according to Bexar County court records.