Video capture / SAPD
A screen grab from dash-cam footage provided to the San Antonio Current shows Jesse Aguirre moments before being pinned down along the highway in 2013.
Should council approve the payout, it will be the city's second sizable settlement for a high-profile police use-of-force case in as many months. In May, council unanimously approved a $450,000 settlement to the family of Antronie Scott, an unarmed Black man fatally shot by an SAPD officer in 2016.
Police accountability activists have likened Aguirre's death to that of George Floyd, and protesters at local Black Lives Matter demonstrations carried posters drawing attention to the case.
Council's latest vote comes after Aguirre's widow, Blanca Aguirre, last month agreed to settle her federal court case against the city and four officers, according to the Express-News. City officials on Tuesday declined comment on the proposed settlement.
Roughly a year ago, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that SAPD officers shouldn't receive qualified immunity in the case and that a jury should be able to rule on whether they used excessive force.
Blanca Aguirre filed suit in 2015, two years after her 38-year-old estranged husband died in police custody on U.S. Highway 90 after fleeing a one-vehicle wreck. Aguirre, who was unarmed, was in an excited delirium after a fight with a girlfriend, according to police records
Aguirre died as SAPD officers put their weight on him for five and a half minutes, according to documents. Three more minutes passed before police rendered medical aid.
While a medical examiner determined that Aguirre had drugs in his system at the time, the examiner ruled that he died from “positional asphyxiation” and “excited delirium” brought on by his restraint, according to the Express-News.
The report classified his cause of death as “homicide,” according to the daily, although the city has argued in court that it wasn't considered a legal opinion.
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