Police Officer Involved In Another Shooting Less Than A Year Later

Officer Jorge Gonzalez was involved in yet another shooting this week that involved a former FBI informant. As some of you might remember Officer Gonzalez is the same officer who shot Andy Cortez not even a year ago on April 1, 2010. The situations were different but the story by the officer seems to be the same. In the shooting involving the former informant, the officer claims he pulled over the driver of a Kia Sorrento but when the officer got out of the vehicle he claims the driver of the vehicle put the vehicle in reverse and attempted to hit the officer. The officer then fired his weapon as the vehicle drove off. A female passenger who was let out of the vehicle a few blocks down supposedly confirms the story. Now in Andy's case. Officer Gonzalez was off duty. He claims he was hit from the rear by the car driven by Andy Cortez. Officer Gonzalez claims that when he got out of his vehicle Andy put his car in reverse and tried to hit the other off duty officer who was with him so he shot Andy leaving him paralyzed.


Now this isn't an opportunity to bash cops like some say I am doing. This is a piece that brings light to a serious topic. Police abuse. I'll use the words of former Chief of Police Richard Wiles, as hypocritical as they may be because we all know he never followed his own advice. He is guilty of allowing most of these officers who have recently been getting in trouble to still be police officers. Why? Because these officers you see on the news lately tend to have several charges and suspensions on them dating back to when everything was supposedly so fine and dandy under Chief of Police Richard Wiles. I personally spoke to Wiles back in 2006. I had made some accusations of police brutality and took it up all the way up the chain of command. I sat in front of Richard Wiles telling him my story and asking him to do something about the police officers that physically abused me. Wiles said something that I will never forget. He told me exactly what we needed to do to keep the department respectable. He told me that we needed to recognize trends, analyse police officers and consider taking some of the police officers who showed these bad trends off the street. I agree with that statement 100%. So why did I call it hypocritical just a few moments ago? Wiles never followed his own advice. Not only that, if you follow his speeches he shows certain trends himself. Don't believe me? He double talks, he flip flops on issues depending on who he is speaking too, he avoids certain questions and most importantly he has been accused of retaliation by several people both as the Chief of Police and a the Sheriff of El Paso County. But that's another story that I will continue on many more days.


Back to Officer Gonzalez and to the problems in the Police department. I have said it before and I will say it again. I am not against the Police Department. I may not agree with their policy on punishing officers who abuse their authority but I do think they are important to the safety of our community. We live a jump, skip and a hop away from one of the deadliest cities in the world. We need to have good law enforcement agents who we can rely on protecting us. Our law enforcement agents are over worked and underpaid. They are put under so much stress yet we are the ones who loose out. Now I don't blame the two shootings by Officer Gonzalez on stress. I still say Officer Gonzalez is a bad police Officer and should be removed from the department before he takes away someone else's life. There will always be bad apples in every type of job. But we need to identify those bad apples in the department and remove them before they harm anyone else. 

For anyone who might want to defend Officer Gonzalez. A person's criminal record does not justify that person being shot. I had a document forwarded to me showing that the former informant had a pending DUI and a list of Andy's past charges and wrote"Sounds like he could be a problem. I think I'll believe the officer's account"  The person failed to take into consideration that Officer Gozalez had been suspended for covering up his story when he arrested a business owner who was driving fast to his business after his alarm went off. So who would you believe? A person who might have been caught driving drunk or maybe caught with some marijuana or would you believe a cop with credibility issues? Just ask any women, its hard to believe someone who has lied to you before.