Three ex-San Antonio police officers returned to the courtroom for Day 2 of the trial stemming from the 2023 shooting of Melissa Perez during a mental health crisis.
SAN ANTONIO — The trial for three former San Antonio police officers accused in the killing of Melissa Perez resumed Monday, where jury members watched body camera footage of that summer 2023 night and heard from an SAFD captain who responded to the scene.
Jurors also watched video showing Christopher Hudson, a captain with the San Antonio Fire Department, interacting with Perez in which she mentions cutting the wires to the fire alarm system, which triggered the police response that night. The ex-officers’ defense team asked Hudson if he would allow someone to be cared for by a person with mental decompensations as they sought to make the point that Perez shouldn’t have had anyone in her care.
Hudson replied he would not.
Monday marked the second day in the trial for the three former officers, who are all being tried together. Alfred Flores and Eleazar Alejandro are charged with murder, while Nathaniel Villalobos is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the shooting.
Jurors are tasked with determining if the deadly force they used was warranted on that night in 2023, when family members and authorities say Perez was experiencing a mental health crisis.
The trial for Melissa Perez’s case began Friday, when both sides spent more than an hour delivering opening statements before moving on to testimony. Attorneys on Friday debated over evidence issues and gave the defense a chance to question how thoroughly police investigated the case.
Video from the incident
Body camera footage was shown in court from Officer Jesus Rojas, the first to respond to the scene and who interacted with Perez ahead of the fatal shooting.
The footage shows Rojas speaking with a San Antonio firefighter who said the mother said she was paranoid, that people were watching her and that she worked with the FBI. The firefighter confirmed she cut the wires of the fire alarm system. The firefighter could not recall if officer signaled it was mental health call to the dispatch.
The video continued to show Perez sharing her name and other information to police. Perez follows officers to a patrol car, but the video shows her taking off running away from the patrol car at some point.
Defense attorneys appeared to try to place blame on Rojas for not searching Perez even though she may have used a sharp tool to cut the wires to her fire alarms.
A firefighter who was at the scene told jurors Perez appeared delusional and admitted to vandalizing the fire alarm system in her complex.
Defense attorneys, meanwhile, showed images of the damaged alarm system and started playing 911 calls of the incident. One person was heard telling a dispatcher: “She’s being violent, she’s being violent. She has pliers in her hands.”
Lawyers for the three former officers argued that Hudson only communicated with Rojas and another officer about Perez’s mental state, attempting to show that the defendants weren’t aware about her situation.
The first to respond
At about 2:30 p.m., defense attorneys called Rojas to the stand to hear his testimony about the night Perez was killed. According to his testimony, Perez told him she was “falsely diagnosed by a false doctor” with schizophrenia and that he was working to get more information about her diagnosis.
Asked by the state if she was physically aggressive at any point in her interactions with him, Rojas said she wasn’t. He also testified there was no sense of danger when he asked her to walk with him to his vehicle to look up her records, including previous calls to her address.
Rojas testified he could have arrested her at that point and was considering emergency detention “based on the way she was acting.”
But that, he continued, is when she “takes off running” back to her apartment.
Another officer arrived shortly afterward, Rojas testified, at which point he received more information about her mental state.
More body camera video from the scene shows Rojas and the second officer on scene talking with Perez through her patio door, including Rojas saying she didn’t intend on going into the apartment at that point to prevent her from potentially running away.
Further body camera footage showed that the damage Perez cost to her fire alarm system amounted to more than $2,500, bringing it to the level of a felony crime. When prosecutors asked Rojas if that made her any more dangerous, he said no.
What happened in 2023?
In June 2023, Perez’s family said she was experiencing a mental health crisis. They say she believed the FBI was listening to her through smoke detectors so she took a hammer to them.
Authorities said that’s what brought three officers to her apartment and while Perez was inside, the officers were outside her patio. That’s when investigators said Perez threw a hammer at them and the officers opened fire.