Officers Justin Tedesco and Michael Acquino pulled over Jose Hernandez-Rossy near the corner of Garfield and Hartman streets in the city’s Black Rock neighborhood shortly after 5 p.m on May 7, 2017. The encounter was initially described as a traffic stop; Acquino and Tedesco later told investigators they initiated the stop because they suspected Hernandez-Rossy was smoking marijuana while driving.

Acquino was questioning Hernandez-Rossy through the driver’s side window when, the officer said, the driver “moved his hand toward the top right pocket of his jacket.”

The attorney general’s report on the incident describes what happened next:

PO Acquino jumped into the vehicle through the driver’s side door, reaching toward Mr. Hernandez Rossy’s jacket pocket. PO Acquino recalls feeling something “hard” in the pocket and he believed that he felt a “small caliber gun.” He started yelling, “Gun! Gun!” At that point, Mr. Hernandez Rossy accelerated his vehicle forward with PO Acquino partially inside, splayed across Mr. Hernandez Rossy’s lap.

A young boy was riding his bicycle in the street in front of Mr. Hernandez Rossy’s vehicle. As Mr. Hernandez Rossy continued to drive forward, while struggling with Mr. Hernandez Rossy, PO Acquino saw the boy and turned the steering wheel to the right so the vehicle would avoid striking him. The vehicle instead struck a stop sign, then crossed a row of bushes and struck a house, before stopping. Although PO Acquino does not remember it and PO Tedesco (who was outside of the vehicle) did not see it, the vehicle was traveling at such a speed that its airbag deployed, as shown by photographs of the vehicle and forensic analysis of the airbag.

PO Acquino heard what he described as “the loudest fireworks” go off in his right ear and felt a burning sensation. He exited the vehicle bleeding, with his right ear partially detached from his head. PO Acquino believed Mr. Hernandez Rossy had just shot him in the head and began yelling to his partner various iterations of “Justin I’m shot” and “Help me!”

Tedesco and Acquino “wrestled” Hernandez-Rossy out of the vehicle, according to the attorney general’s interviews with the officers and civilian witnesses. A struggle ensued between Tedesco and the driver, while Acquino yelled, “Help me … I’ve been shot … Shoot him!”

Hernandez-Rossy broke free from Tedesco and began to run away. Tedesco got down on one knee, ordered Hernandez-Rossy to stop, then fired three shots. One bullet struck Hernandez-Rossy in the arm, rupturing his brachial artery. He bled to death in the side yard of a house on Tonawanda Street, two blocks away.

Police searched the neighborhood for the gun Acquino said he’d been shot with that evening and the next day, to no avail. A forensics expert found no gunshot residue on Hernandez-Rossy’s clothes or the vehicle’s airbag. The attorney general concluded Hernandez-Rossy was unarmed and Aquino’s injury — which nearly severed his right ear from his body — “was suffered in connection with the vehicle crash and airbag deployment.”

At the time of the shooting, Tedesco and Acquino were assigned to the department’s Housing Unit, which frequently collaborated with the controversial former Strike Force Unit.

Both units were disbanded the year after the Hernandez-Rossy shooting, in the wake of reporting and litigation regarding their tactics.

Outcomes

Investigators for the state attorney general’s office determined Hernandez-Rossy ”was not armed and did not shoot” Acquino, while also finding there was “no basis for criminal charges” against the officers.

A civil lawsuit was filed by Hernandez-Rossy's mother against Joseph Acquino, American Medical Response, Inc., City of Buffalo, Daniel Derenda, and Justin Tedesco. Nearly ten years after the murder of Hernandez-Rossy, the city settled for $4.5 million.

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