Three San Antonio police officers are charged with murder after they shot and killed a woman inside her apartment early Friday. Sgt. Alfred Flores and officers Eleazar Alejandro and Nathaniel Villalobos are charged in 46-year-old Melissa Perez’s death. All three were arrested Friday night and released on bond Saturday, reports KSAT. Police Chief William McManus said the officers didn’t follow department training or policy and “used deadly force, which was not reasonable given all the circumstances as we now understand them.” Perez was experiencing a mental health crisis and had a hammer in her hand when police shot her through a patio window and door, McManus said.
The police department released a portion of edited and blurred body-worn camera video from officers on the scene Friday night. KSAT has requested all footage from the incident. There are three separate investigations underway since the murder charges were filed — by the police department's internal affairs and homicide units and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Civil Rights Division. Mayor Ron Nirenberg told CNN that he viewed the body cam footage and it “was very disturbing.” City Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez called the incident "absolutely an avoidable death and murder by tenured officers. Had it not been for community advocates who led the charge for police accountability through Prop B in 2021, we’d never see this fast a murder charge."