SAN ANTONIO - New information is coming to light about a tragic shooting last November. A teenage boy died after a North Side Independent School District police officer chased and then shot him.
According to police reports, 14-year-old Derek Lopez was killed last November after officer Daniel Alvarado came up on Lopez and another teenager who were fighting off Hunt Lane. When he stopped to break it up, Lopez ran from the scene. The officer pursued the boy and eventually shot and killed him in a neighborhood backyard off of Roswell Canyon Drive.
Attorneys for Lopez's family says killing the boy was not necessary, and the officer had a history of problems, including 16 reprimands in three years.
Wallace Brylak, attorney for the Lopez family, told News 4, "They were so bad that he was suspended without pay a number of times and the police department recommended that he be terminated back in 2008."
Brylak also says dispatch recordings show the officer disobeyed a supervisor's order to stop chasing Lopez and stay with the other boy still on the scene. While attorneys for NISD say they won't discuss the events of that day, they say Alvarado's reprimands never involved the safety of any student.
D. Craig Wood, attorney for NISD told us, "The officer was placed on office duty. He has not been nor will he be on patrol duty until there is some sort of formal finding."
Those findings will come from the San Antonio Police Department and the district attorney and will be presented to a grand jury for consideration.
