SAN ANTONIO – A police officer responding to a call for a shooting on the city’s West Side shot and killed a 13-year-old boy who tried to flee in a stolen vehicle early Friday morning, San Antonio police said.
Officers were called just before 1:30 a.m. to the 5100 block of War Cloud Street, not far from Old Pearsall Road and Loop 410, after receiving word of shots fired.
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According to San Antonio Police Chief William McManus, when officers arrived, a red vehicle backed up and T-boned an officer’s patrol car while trying to flee.
Police said officers were attempting to stop the reportedly stolen vehicle, but it instead sped up and crashed.
McManus said a second officer shot once at the vehicle, hitting the teen driver once in the abdomen. The teen, identified by family members as AJ Hernandez, was taken to University Hospital, where he later died.
Family members said they want answers from police because they don’t feel it was necessary for the officer to open fire on AJ. But McManus said the officer feared for the life of his comrade because he thought the vehicle would injure him.
Two other teens inside the vehicle were not hurt, police said.
McManus also did not identify the officer, who will be placed on administrative leave while the shooting is under investigation, police said.
This is the second teenage relative to die by gunfire in less than a month, family members said. On May 10, AJ’s 16-year-old sister was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head in the back of a stolen vehicle about a half-mile away from Thursday’s shooting scene in the 5100 block of War Horse Drive.