Council approves financing for $20 million shooting settlement

The Las Cruces City Council voted unanimously on Monday, Jan. 6, to approve a funding mechanism for a $20 million settlement in the police killing of Teresa Gomez. 

The vote marked another step in the historic following the 2023 killing of Teresa Gomez by Las Cruces police officer Felipe Hernandez. The funding mechanism was the sale of municipal local option gross receipts tax bonds. The move does not raise taxes.

Hernandez killed Gomez after confronting her as she sat in a parked car outside a housing complex. After an encounter laden with curse words, Gomez attempted to drive away, whereupon Hernandez fired several shots at her. 

When prosecutors announced criminal charges, they pointed out that Hernandez was several feet from Gomez and argued that he was in no danger. Hernandez faces one charge of second-degree murder with a trial set for early June. 

The criminal case is one of two pending against former LCPD officers charged with murder or manslaughter. 

The council had little to say as they passed the funding mechanism for the historic settlement.

District 4 councilor Johana Bencomo was the only councilor who spoke on the matter. 

“First of all, to the family of Teresa Gomez, I want to offer my sincerest condolences and genuine apology. I will never forget her name, and I will continue to say her name,” Bencomo said. 

Bencomo cited a database that lists New Mexico as having the highest rate of police killings in the nation and then addressed an argument made by LCPD Police Chief Jeremy Story at the governor’s Las Cruces town hall last July, without naming him. Story had implied at that event that police shootings were uncommon compared to the majority of police encounters that don’t end in a shooting. 

“This is not the spirit that we should be having these conversations,” Bencomo said. “Perhaps the spirit should be like how we talk about crime in general.”