By Lamont Lilly
LatinaLista
Another Durham resident has now died in a controversial encounter with the Durham Police Department.
This time it was teenager and local Riverside High School student, Jesus Huerta. An official response from Durham police chief, Jose Lopez states that 17 year old, Jesus Huerta died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while placed under arrest in the back seat of a police squad car. After Durham police officer, Samuel Duncan arrested Huerta, reports state that Officer Duncan heard a loud noise from the vehicle’s rear seat and jumped out of his moving patrol cruiser. Duncan’s squad car then slammed into a parked van, leaving Huerta shot and killed in the process.
This incident occurred right outside of the Durham Police Department’s headquarters parking lot.
Personally, I don’t believe one word of what the Durham Police Department has stated. It seems to me, and many others throughout the city, Durham police officers are simply covering their tracks with a concocted story that makes no physical or logical sense.
Judging from the city’s buzz of conversations, many residents believe Officer Duncan was directly responsible for Huerta’s death. It is also quite disturbing how the first thing Durham police chose to highlight in this controversy was Huerta’s past juvenile offenses.
Trespassing and misdemeanor possession of cannabis was not the cause of Jesus Huerta’s death. Entertaining such ploy is merely a distraction from gathering the truth of what actually happened, here. Maybe someone should pull up the Durham Police Department’s criminal record. Fact is, a 17 year old boy who was allegedly handcuffed, mysteriously died in police custody. Many residents are pointing to police brutality and excessive use of force.
Unfortunately, Jesus Huerta became the third Durham resident killed by or in Durham police custody over the last five months. Thirty-three year old, Jose Ocampo was killed July 27th, shot four times in the chest for possessing a knife. Twenty-six year old, Derek Deandre Walker was executed September 17th by a Durham police sniper for publicly threatening to commit suicide.
Personally, I’m not worried about the “Bloods and Crips” in Durham. I’m worried about those in pressed blue uniforms. I’m worried about those who carry badges, tasers, steel batons and handguns, “law enforcers” who are paid with public tax money.
Jesus Huerta deserves more than blanket apologies from city officials. Condolences are of no use, here. Huerta’s family members deserve justice; local Durham residents deserve the truth.
A child has been killed, and we need answers.
Lamont Lilly is a contributing editor with the Triangle Free Press, Human Rights Delegate with Witness for Peace and organizer with Workers World Party. He resides in Durham, NC.
