This week, the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, agreed to the terms of a proposed $20m settlement to the family of Teresa Gomez, an unarmed 45-year-old killed in a 2023 police shooting.
Gomez was sitting in a car outside a public housing complex in the early hours of October 3, 2023, when Felipe Hernandez, an officer on a bike patrol, told her she wasn’t supposed to be outside the complex at that hour and questioned her. The policeman berated the woman, threatening to make her life a “living hell,” according to a lawsuit. As she backed slowly out of her parking space, the office fired three shots, one of which struck Gomez’s lung, killing her.
