No Criminal Charges For Officer In Coronado Motel Shooting

By ABC-7 Reporter Marissa Monroy

EL PASO, Texas — A new video provides new details in the officer-involved shooting at the Coronado Motel in June.

El Paso police officer Matthew Jones shot Gregory Smith to death in the parking lot of the motel on June 13.

Wednesday, Jones was back at work after a federal grand jury reviewed dash cam video and determined the shooting was justified.

A video shows Jones stopping Smith for a routine arrest warrant for theft. The officer patted down Smith, and that’s where the confrontation got more intense.

The video shows Jones reaching for his Taser, and at that moment, police say Smith yelled out that he had a gun.

The gun turned out to be a toy gun.

When Smith aimed the gun in the officer’s direction, the officer ran around his patrol car and then began to fire.

Autopsy results showed Jones hit Smith 11 times.

“There was some training issues in our shooting review of the shooting. Those are gonna be addressed with the shooting. As far as within policy, he was justified with using the force that he did use,” El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said.

Some of the training issues included what Allen described as a poor pat-down, not turning on the audio to his dash cam video and not alerting other officers in the area that he was about to confront someone with an outstanding arrest warrant.

But for the grand jury, none of these issues raised enough concern for Jones to face criminal action.