Investigators identify man who allegedly shot El Paso Police officer
El Paso Police identified the man who allegedly shot a police officer in the hand as 41-year-old Ricardo Cereceres, facing two counts of attempted capital murder.
The shooting happened shortly after 12 p.m. on December 11, 2018 near Seville and Sambrano in South Central El Paso. Police arrested Cereceres, a.k.a. Ricardo Herrera, after an hours-long manhunt that led to a SWAT standoff at a residence located on the 100 block of North Clark.
Crisis management team made contact with the suspect but he refused to come out. After several hours, SWAT fired a gas into the residence to force Cereceres out.
Jojo Reyes, a resident of the area, told ABC-7 she was taking care of her grandparents at their home when the chaos ensued. “The cops just came running telling us to come inside to lock the doors,” said Reyes.
She shared video footage of officers armed calling for Cerceres to surrender. With helicopters flying over the scene, and authorities lining Clark Drive , Reyes said the search made its way into her grandparents home.
“When they were searching the perimeter they saw that one of the windows was open,” Reyes said, adding that it was the basement window at her grandparents home. “They rang the doorbell and asked if they could come in and check everything.”
Police said the series of events began when officers F. Bermudez and E. Villalobos were investigating a suspicious suspect call. The officers encountered Cereceres who allegedly “discarded property contained in a bag” as he ran away, police said, without clarifying what was in the bag.
Cereceres ran to a business on the 5800 block of Alameda where “he ambushed and fired upon the officers in the patrol car,” police said, “The officers returned gun fire from the patrol car before crashing behind the business.”
Officer Bermudez was shot in the hand and transported to a nearby hospital. Police said the wounded officer was treated and released from the hospital.
Cereceres was jailed on a $2-million bond for the shooting, but is also jailed on a felony probation warrant stemming from federal weapons charges, police said. The federal charge has no bond.
