BROWNSVILLE — Lawyers for the City of Brownsville and Cameron County have asked that a lawsuit filed against the government entities and three employees be dismissed.
The twin filings state that a lawsuit brought against it by Jesse Garcia and brothers Ramiro Garcia and Jose Luis Garcia Jr. fails to state a legal claim and because local governments and public officials, like police, are immune from lawsuits.
The siblings allege that two Cameron County Sheriff deputies and a Brownsville Police Department officer killed their mother, Maria Isabel Garcia, during a January 2016 shootout between Jesse Garcia and authorities.
Jesse Garcia is charged with murder through events that resulted in his mother’s death.
In the early morning hours of Jan. 27, 2016, Jesse Garcia is accused of engaging in a shootout with Cameron County Sheriff Deputies Mario Ledezma and Victor Hugo Alvarado and Brownsville Police Department Sgt. Troy Allen Arnold that sent the suspect to the hospital, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down, and resulted in the death of the man’s mother, according to court records and police statements.
“Defendant City and Arnold deny that the Decedent’s death was caused by bullets fired from Defendant Arnold’s firearm, as Plaintiff Jesse Garcia is being charged with causing the death of his mother,” the City of Brownsville’s motion to dismiss states.
Cameron County’s motion includes the same language for the sheriff deputies.
In the motions to dismiss, the defendants challenge the Garcias’ assertion that the city, county and three employees from both entities violated Maria Isabel Garcia’s constitutional rights by using excessive force and causing her death.
“As to all of the Plaintiffs’ constitutional claims under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, they fail to allege a custom, policy, or practice that the City of Brownsville maintained, and they also fail to identify any particular custom, policy or practice that the City of Brownsville maintained that allegedly violated the Defendant’s constitutional rights,” according to the motion, which mirrors the same language in Cameron County’s motion to dismiss.
The two motions also state that Arnold, Ledezma and Alvarado are immune from being sued.
“Plaintiffs’ pleadings do not satisfy the heightened pleading requirements imposed upon complainants who sue public officials in their individual capacity,” the documents state.
Furthermore, Ledezma, Arnold and Alvarado would show that the use of force was justified because they believed Jesse Garcia would cause death or seriously bodily injury to them or to innocent third parties, according to the motions.
In November 2016, a Cameron County grand jury indicted Jesse Garcia on a murder charge for the death of his mother and on three counts of aggravated assault on a public servant on accusations he shot at three law enforcement officers.
According to the indictment, Jesse Garcia is accused of knowingly committing or attempting to “commit an act clearly dangerous to human life, to-wit: fleeing from law enforcement officers,” causing the death of his mother.
A separate indictment charges Jesse Garcia with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for threatening Raul Hernandez and a woman with a handgun.
According to police, the woman was Jesse Garcia’s estranged girlfriend and Jesse Garcia shot Hernandez, an off-duty Border Patrol agent, during a domestic dispute that resulted in a shootout between the suspect and police hours later in front of his mother’s house.
Police said Jesse Garcia brought a gun to Guerra’s house and shot Hernandez in his midsection and the lawsuit alleges that Hernandez’s handgun discharged, grazing the off-duty Border Patrol agent, during a scuffle over the weapon after Hernandez pointed it at Jesse Garcia, who had confronted him.
The lawsuit claims Jesse Garcia was unarmed and police have said the man brought a gun with him to the house where the confrontation occurred.
The lawsuit filed by the Garcia siblings challenges the official law enforcement narrative and accuses the officers of unleashing a barrage of firepower during the incident that resulted in Maria Isabel Garcia’s death.
