SAN ANTONIO — After 8 years of uncertainty, the family of Jesse Aguirre says a federal court decision made last week could mean they’re one step closer to getting justice for their loved one.
“They’re supposed to protect and serve and they’re not protecting and serving,” Jesse Aguirre’s wife Blanca Aguirre said.
In 2013 Aguirre was arrested along Highway 90 by the San Antonio police officers and ultimately died in police custody. The family says a paid independent autopsy ruled Aguirre’s death as a homicide caused by positional asphyxiation.
“The maximal restraint hold they had him in ended his life. It’s explained physiologically step by step similar to what we heard in the George Floyd trial,” the family’s attorney Edward Pina said.
They say dash cam video shows just how excessive the force was.
“This is a civil rights struggle, it’s not just a struggle for accountability it’s a human struggle,” former city councilman Mario Salas.
Pina is the family’s attorney and says the United States 5th Circuit Court of appeals reviewed the video and now he says Jesse’s wife Blanca Aguirre will get her day in court to try and get some type of accountability.
“It’s some kind of justice but my son will never get his dad back. I guess you don’t really get full justice because he’s still not with us,” Aguirre said.
They’re hoping their civil court case against the City of San Antonio and the officers involved goes to court within the next year.