Homeless immigrant tasared, then shot

Gabriel Saldaña, in the Valley Morning Star, on the shooting death of Diego Rivas Soto.  Rivas Sota apparently had no fixed address in the United States (he was living under a bridge) and the Mexican consulate in Brownsville (956-542-4431; Fax: 956-542-7167) is hoping to locate  his relations in Mexico.

HARLINGEN- Officials on Wednesday refused to release the names of two officers involved in the Jan. 5 fatal police shooting of a 41-year-old Mexican national and other information in the case.

Officials would not release the names or dates of hire of two of the three officers involved in the shooting, a description of the knife police say the man brandished or whether a non-lethal Taser was used to try to subdue the man before he was shot.

City Attorney Brendan Hall said the names of the officers, a description of the knife taken from the scene and whether non-lethal force was attempted is not subject to public release because the investigation into the shooting is ongoing.

…

a preliminary autopsy report released Wednesday showed that the man, identified as Diego Rivas-Soto of Mexico, was shot in the left side of his chest with a shotgun. The shotgun blast entered Rivas-Soto’s left rib cage and severed the spinal cord.

The range from where Rivas-Soto was shot cannot be determined until his clothes, which were not provided at the time of the autopsy, have been examined, the report stated. Six buckshot pellets were recovered from the right side of his body, and the plastic wadding from inside the shotgun shell was found in the spine, according to the report.

Toxicology results and a review of hospital records and police reports are pending, the report said.

… one of the three officers involved in the incident, confronted Rivas-Soto in response to a call that a man was lighting a fire under the Expressway 77 overpass near the I-69 bar, police said.

The officers ordered Rivas-Soto in English and Spanish to take his hands out of his pockets, police spokesman David Osborne said shortly after the shooting. But he pulled a knife from his pocket and lunged at Palafox, police said.

Another officer …fired the shot that killed Rivas-Soto, according to a police report.

Rivas-Soto was taken to Valley Baptist Medical Center where he later died.