Officials: Body armor saved sheriff’s deputy shot multiple times
An El Paso County sheriff’s deputy was critically wounded Friday after being shot multiple times during a traffic stop, but authorities credited the body armor with saving his life.
El Paso Country Sheriff’s Office spokesman Robert Flores identified the wounded deputy as Peter Herrera. He was shot around 1:50 a.m. Friday after he stopped a vehicle in San Elizario , southeast of El Paso along the U.S.-Mexico border. A man in the vehicle started shooting at Herrera after the deputy asked the driver to step out of the car, authorities said.
Herrera did not return fire, Flores said, and the shooter fled on foot along with a female passenger. The gunman, later identified as 27-year-old Facundo Chavez, is in custody. Online jail records show Chavez was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and criminal attempted capital murder of a peace officer.
” Thankfully he was wearing a vest, ” Flores said. ” The rounds that actually struck some of the more vital areas of his upper body were stopped by the vest. ”
One round did strike Herrera in the upper thigh and another grazed his head, Flores said. Herrera was listed in critical but stable condition after undergoing surgery and was recovering in an area hospital.
Investigators are still trying to clarify the ” complicated ” relationship between the man they believe shot Herrera and the woman in the car, Flores said. The woman cooperated with law enforcement and was released from custody.
Officials haven’t named the charges pending against the suspected shooter. But car trouble, Flores said, played a role in helping deputies track him down.
“The vehicle, it stalled out on him, ” the spokesman said. “It definitely helped us solve this crime. ”
Deputies found the pair hiding in a tool shed a few blocks away from where Herrera was shot, Flores said.
Dozens of fellow deputies and other law enforcement officers from the El Paso Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety lined up in the sheriff office’s parking lot to donate blood and plasma Friday during a drive held to benefit Herrera, who has been a deputy for five years.
“We’re brothers, ” said Detective Alan Gurtler , a 30-year veteran of sheriff’s office who was preparing to donate plasma in a mobile blood drive bus. ” (An) incident like this with a deputy getting shot multiple times in serious condition, it’s very rare here. ”
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