Houston Police Officer Gunned Down Latino Teen - Then Delayed in Calling Ambulance

A Houston Independent School District police officer delayed several minutes before calling for an ambulance to help a dying 19-year-old he shot on the grounds of an elementary school last October, according to witnesses' accounts and public records obtained by the Houston Chronicle. A fire station was just five blocks away from Lantrip Elementary School, but help did not arrive until 1:47 a.m. — 29 minutes after a medical examiner's report says the officer first surprised Roy Rodriguez while allegedly trying to jimmy a vending machine with a screwdriver. Officer Richard McColister told investigators that he thought Rodriguez had a gun and he shot at him in self-defense. A school district spokesman initially said McColister had not delayed summoning medical help, but later said the officer didn't call right away because Rodriguez had fled and he wasn't even sure his shot had hit him. In a just-released autopsy report, the Harris County Medical Examiner's office said there was a trail of blood from the vending machine to the spot where Rodriguez fell, and soon died. A single bullet had entered on his left-rear side, then passed through his heart and out the front of his chest. Rodriguez also had fresh cuts and bruises on his face, the report says. A screwdriver was found near the vending machine, but no gun or other weapon was found at the scene. The Houston Chronicle requested response times and other details about Rodriguez's death after witnesses and family members complained that it took up to half an hour before an ambulance arrived from the nearby station on Telephone Road. The school district has offered conflicting timelines on the incident also . . ."There's a lot of discrepancies here — things don't add up," said Sylvia Gonzales, of the League of United Latin American Citizens in Houston.  [more]

Comments

[thebirth777]

Well, what do you expect froma local school principal, whom is at first willing to endanger his family, (whom he should have been thinking of at first before trying to help justify a murder, but will soon recant his statement by saying he made a simple mistake by !: perjury and hindering a potential homicide, by giving false information to investigators, but will charges be filed, doubtful.. 2: if time was a question between the time of the shot and the call placed for help, then why was there no arrest, and how many minds does it take to figure that hummm, he was wrong in the thinking thata srew driver could have been a gun, unless he was going with ( duhh it was shinny object in his hand, but i was not sure, I thought it was a gun. DUH!!!!..
please help the greiving family and give them justice in these wild west cops that shot first and pull the lies from there butts later.

my heart goes out to the family of that child.
Crime does not pay but let the courts deal with the punishment..

Alluh Ak-bar = GOD IS MERCIFUL

[Anonymous]

i really hate you guys did not mind conducting your own investigations; you relied on other's extremely wrong information. You were not at the scene when everything took place therefore it is obvious that you do not know what the hell really happened there. If you are so adamant about basically calling him a liar and a killer, then why don't you make it your personal business to request the audio (in case you didn't know, everything the officer says over the police radio is recorded) to be able to see whether or not he took his time to call for an ambulance. Hell, why don't you ride along with a Houston Independent School District Police Officer at night for 1 week and see what the hell they go through trying to catch delinquents that break into the schools at night and steal the computers and other vital necessities kids need in order to learn and they have to go without, they don't care about their own children. And, by the way, I can see that you did not get ALL the facts from the medical examiner's report. Why don't you try looking at it in detail and post it on the web so that we all can see what type of guy this "kid" really was. Why don't you post his ciminal history right next to this sham you proudly call an article. I know the reason you didn't do this is simply because we would all see that this guy was a criminal and your article would have been looked at as the disgrace it already is. You should be ashamed to call youself a reporter. Why don't you do your job and conduct a search on ALL the good this officer did while he was working on a predominantly hispanic campus, because it would only show that this officer id a decent man who only cared about helping others before he even thought about what he needed, he gave people the shirt of his back before he remembered that he was human and needed the same shirt he gave away. I can honestly say you are nothing more than a FRAUD! God Bless you because you are going to need all the blessings you can get, you have tarred this good man's name simply because you were not decent enough to do your job and research the wrong information you "found" before posting it on the internet for everyone to see. YOU ONLY POSTED LIES< THAT IS YOU WERE ABLE TO FIND SO YOU POSTED LIES. I HOPE YOU CAN SLEEP AT NIGHT KNOWING THAT BECAUSE OF YOU, THERE ARE LIES ABOUT A GOOD MAN ON THE INTERNET.

[David]

Amen to that. Try walking in the man's shoes before you are too quick to judge him.