The Texas police officer who killed an unarmed Black man by shooting him in the head last week has a history of being accused of using excessive force, according to a report from 2017. Carmen DeCruz, an officer with the Temple Police Department in the central part of the state, has been identified as the cop who killed Michael Dean on Dec. 3. And while little else about the encounter between DeCruz and Dean has been announced, it was reported in 2017 that the officer was named in an excessive force lawsuit for his actions surrounding the apprehension of an alleged suspect two years earlier.
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The report from the Dallas Morning News about the lawsuit seemed to be the first glimpse into the mind of a man behind a killing that a preliminary autopsy report said was a homicide. And while the circumstances that the lawsuit stemmed from were not deadly like the one last month, it was still very troubling.
DeCruz and his partner at the time were accused of intentionally running over Kaylem Gonzalez, a teenager, and leaving him under their squad car, which remained idling for 10 minutes and burned the 15-year-old boy’s body. The teenager’s mother filed the lawsuit that specifically named DeCruz and blamed him and his partner for Gonzalez’s “third-degree burns to his torso, thighs and pelvis while pinned beneath the running vehicle.”
Source: Texas Cop Who Shot Michael Dean In The Head Was Previously Sued For Excessive Force
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