Recently released body cam footage follows up on an earlier reported story, the tragic murder of New Mexico State Trooper Darian Jarrott. Footage shows Officer Adrian De La Garza chase down the suspect, conduct a successful PIT maneuver, take fire, then finally shoot down cop killer Omar Felix Cueva in heroic fashion.
Adrian De La Garza Takes Down Cop Killer
Footage shows De La Garza expertly conduct a PIT maneuver on the speeding full size pickup, reported Fox News. De La Garza immediately dismounts his vehicle. But the suspect does so equally as fast. Cueva manages to get off a round first, immediately dropping De La Garza with a round to his bicep.
Remember, moments before this scene, Cueva fired 11 shots into Trooper Jarrott. He then allegedly walked around the vehicle and put a gun to the Trooper’s head, killing him execution style. So with De La Garza going down against this suspect, he’s in serious trouble.
But De La Garza somehow stays in the fight. Footage shows the officer go down with an audible groan. He rolls over, seemingly locating the suspect by gaining visual underneath the patrol car. He then expertly pops back up in a slightly different location. This time De La Garza scores a hit, putting the suspect down. He then rounds the corner of the vehicle, continuing pumping rounds in Cueva, finally putting the cop killer down for good.
“You’re all right, you’re all right, you’re gonna be alright,” fellow officers tell De La Garza while rendering aid afterword.
Watched back-to-back, the videos comprise a completely tragic, intense look into a day in the life of law enforcement officers. De La Garza answered the call under the most brutal of scenarios. Even after great police work, tactically, the officer still managed to take a round from the bad guy. But De La Garza stayed in the fight. He got the bad guy, and he made it home at the end of his shift. Here’s another angle of De La Garza’s tactics filmed by onlookers: