The Houston Police Department has released bodycam footage of an officer hitting and killing a pedestrian with a police vehicle last month, the Houston Chronicle reports.
On the evening of Dec. 4, an HPD SUV was driving in the city’s Sunnyside area with its emergency lights on, and ended up striking Michael Wayne Jackson before colliding with a dumpster, Click 2 Houston reports.
Officer Orlando Hernandez, who was driving the vehicle, began administering CPR after calling an ambulance. Hernandez told dispatch that the 62-year-old had blood coming from his head and was “not conscious, not breathing.”
Jackson died at the scene, with his cause of death ruled as “multiple blunt force injuries.”
“He was just a loving person,” his wife Janice Jackson told the outlet. “He was a loving person and he was just so kind and so nice to people.” Jackson was en route to a barbershop when he was hit.
It’s unknown how fast the 25-year-old officer was driving. According to the Chronicle, Hernandez would drive the police SUV between 80 to 100 mph down the road where Jackson was struck, which has a speed limit of 40 mph. The road on which he was driving was reportedly wet from recent rain, and Hernandez can be seen using his windshield wipers in the video, both of which made driving conditions more treacherous. He can also be seen operating the vehicle with only one hand. It appears that, at the point where he crashed, the light at the intersection was red.
Hernandez, who has been a police officer for less than two years, is now on administrative leave.
“Our prayers are going out to the victim and his family,” Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite said at a news conference.
HPD Internal Affairs Division and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office have launched a probe into the incident. Following its completion, the case will be brought before a grand jury, which will decide if Hernandez should be charged.
“The officers were responding to a violent felony,” Assistant District Attorney Sean Teare said. “And That is something we are going to take into account. . . We are not going to treat this case any different because it involves officers. It involves a human being who lost his life. So we’re going to be looking at it through that lens.”
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