Police officer visited Hooters strip club and sexy Chinese massage parlour after shooting dead 19-year-old woman because he wanted to ‘decompress’
Jeremy Dear killed suspected car thief Mary Hawkes, 19, during a chase on foot
A POLICE officer who shot and killed a 19-year-old girl went for an afternoon at Hooters and a Chinese massage just hours after the fatal chase.
Jeremy Dear killed suspected teenage car thief Mary Hawkes during a chase on foot after claiming she pointed a gun at him.
Maryalice Hawkes said: "We pray for and believe in the good officers, but we feel there are still some officers on the department that are morally bankrupt.
Officer Sonny Molina said in a deposition that two days after the incident, he took Dear out for a dayto keep his mind off the shooting.
The incident came less than two weeks after the U.S. Department of Justice accused APD of having a “culture of aggression” and a pattern of violating people’s rights through the excessive use of force," reports the .
The next day, Molina and his wife met Dear and his girlfriend in Santa Fe. Dear was there for a seminar for officers who have been involved in shootings and their spouses.
Molina and Dear went to Hooters and got massages in Albuquerque the next day, according to depositions in the case.
“I took him to go – you know, help keep his mind off of everything, so we went to go eat and then we went for a massage after,” Molina said, according to a deposition transcript
Shaun Willoughby, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association, said the psychological seminar in Santa Fe was scheduled in advance for officers who have been involved in shootings and their families.
“These officers are not trained assassins or ninjas; these incidents weigh heavy in the hearts of officers and their families,” Willoughby said.
But Albuquerque attorney Shannon Kennedy, who represents the Hawkes family, said the officers’ actions reflect cultural problems within the department.
“To take the life of a 19-year-old girl and then go get a Chinese massage and go to Hooters, that’s hinged with real misogyny and a real disrespect to women,” Kennedy said in an interview. “I think it’s a reflection of a department that is morally bankrupt.”
Tom Grover, Dear’s attorney and a former APD officer, said his client was just moving on from a stressful shooting by going out with his friend. He said officers don’t celebrate police shootings.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a case of spiking the football by officers,” he said.
Dear, who joined the department in 2007, is scheduled to give a deposition in the case next month.
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