Around 5 p.m. on June 2, 2022 — eight hours before the officers would encounter AJ — they were briefed on a tip provided to them by neighborhood residents: A picture of a red Toyota Corolla that residents said was behind the gunshots heard around the area. “13yr old brother drives,” a message accompanying the photo of the car reads. “PLEASE be careful pulling over any of these cars they have no regards for any life other than theirs.”
Armed with this briefing, Ramos was parked with Espinoza at 1:17 a.m. when “he heard shots going off from where I was parked,” he wrote in his statement. Ramos, Espinoza, and another officer then caught sight of the red Toyota they’d been warned about at the start of their shifts. Using their in-vehicle communication systems, according to the DA report, the officers coordinated to track down the Toyota.
On War Cloud Street, a two-lane road with chain-link fences lining the front yards of a string of homes, as Ramos drove eastbound, AJ — his friends in the passenger and backseats — was driving westbound from a memorial that had grown at the site where his sister was killed. Espinoza was behind him flashing his lights. Ramos and Espinoza boxed in AJ’s car. The boy kicked the car’s gear into reverse, backing into a driveway. The video shows AJ then driving forward and colliding with Espinoza’s cruiser. An instant later, at 1:22 a.m., Ramos fired his weapon, according to the DA report.
AJ opened the door, held his hands to his forehead, then stumbled out of the car toward Ramos.
“No, no, no,” a young male voice can be heard saying in the background of the video.
Paramedics arrived 14 minutes later. AJ died at 3:52 a.m.
Detective Randall Hines, according to the DA’s report, arrived on scene as the lead investigator. Hines reported he saw that “the suspect vehicle was wedged into the patrol vehicle in a manner that indicated a “hard collision” and “a large amount of front-end damage that was evenly distributed across the front of the [Toyota].”
Pictures from the scene included in the DA’s report show damage more consistent with a minor collision.
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/melissasegura/aj-hernandez-shooting-police-videos
