Off-duty Omaha police officers will not be charged in shooting deaths of 2 men

At a Thursday afternoon press conference, Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer was joined by Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert to tell reporters and the community about the fatal shooting in South Omaha. The officers will not be charged with a crime, and Schmaderer said they acted in accordance with department policy.

Schmaderer showed a 17-minute video that spliced together security footage from multiple businesses near 32nd and L Streets with details from witness statements and interviews with the involved officers.

Both Schmaderer and Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine concluded that the officers’ use of deadly force was justified after reviewing all available evidence. Under state law, a Douglas County grand jury also will be empaneled to review the case.

The press conference was held five days after the two officers, identified as northeast precinct Capt. Jay Leavitt and Officer Robert Soldo, shot and killed the two men while working as security personnel for a nightclub. The men have been identified as Fernando Rodriguez-Juarez, 26, and Jonathan Hernandez-Rosales, 28.

Before the press conference, authorities had said little about the circumstances that led to the early morning shooting. Much of the interaction was caught on various surveillance videos, and the aftermath was captured on Soldo’s body camera. Soldo did not activate his camera until after all of the shots had been fired, Schmaderer said.

Stothert and Schmaderer offered their condolences to the families of Rodriguez-Juarez and Hernandez-Rosales. Schmaderer said he knows the shooting may have an impact on police-community relations in South Omaha, and he plans to continue to answer questions that community members may have.

“I think we’ve taken measures here by transparency and accountability to catapult us into the next phase of re-establishing and re-instilling the police-community relations,” Schmaderer said. “I’ll be meeting with a group representing Latinos, and we will meet Monday, and I’m gonna give them an expanded explanation as to what took place.”

According to the video and statements from officials:

Rodriguez-Juarez and Hernandez-Rosales were at the Extasis Nightclub, located at 3050 L St., until the bar closed at 2 a.m. Saturday. Leavitt and Soldo were working as off-duty security for the nightclub, and they were wearing Omaha police uniforms. Soldo had a body camera attached to his uniform, but Leavitt did not because he is a command officer.

Surveillance video showed Rodriguez-Juarez and Hernandez-Rosales walk past the two officers and out the front door of the bar. Outside the bar, the two appeared to engage in a physical confrontation with a large group of people who had gathered outside. Leavitt approached the group with his flashlight at 2:01 a.m., and the parties began to scatter.

The two men left with the rest of the crowd and went to the back parking lot of Extasis, where they entered a black Jeep Cherokee. Rodriguez-Juarez entered the driver’s seat, and Hernandez-Rosales sat in the passenger seat. At 2:03 a.m., the Jeep exited the Extasis parking lot and headed west on L Street.

At the same time, according to video footage, a group of patrons were walking through the parking lot of Sol’s Jewelry and Loan, which is located directly to the west of Extasis. Some of the people in the group had been involved in the altercation outside of the nightclub minutes earlier.

Leavitt and Soldo were walking behind the group to clear the parking lot, which is a normal part of their duties. At about 2:05 a.m., the Jeep Cherokee is seen on surveillance footage pulling into the west entrance and slowing down to confront the group.

A grainy surveillance video appears to show Rodriguez-Juarez, the driver, reaching across Hernandez-Rosales and pointing a gun in the direction of the group. According to police, Rodriguez-Juarez fired one shot towards officers. Police also showed a video with audio from the interior of Anytime Laundry at 3120 L St., a little farther west, in which a single gunshot is audible before a long volley of shots seconds later.

Leavitt began shooting into the passenger side of the vehicle as Soldo crossed in front of the Jeep, narrowly escaping being hit by the moving car, and shot into the front of the vehicle. According to Schmaderer, Leavitt fired 12 times and Soldo fired nine. Hernandez-Rosales and Rodriguez-Juarez were each hit three times.

After the men were shot, the car began to roll down the alley before it crashed into a utility box and came to a stop. The officers yelled at the men to stop the car as it rolled away, according to video caught on Soldo’s body camera. That footage will be released after the grand jury process is completed, Schmaderer said. Police shared still photos from the body camera at Thursday’s press conference.

Officers continued to yell at the men to get out of the car after it came to a stop. Hernandez-Rosales and Rodriguez-Juarez did not exit the vehicle. It’s unclear if they were physically able to do so, given the extent of their injuries. At one point, one of the men yelled that he needed an ambulance.

Backup officers arrived with bulletproof shields to approach the car within minutes of the initial shooting. Medics were allowed into the scene about eight minutes after shots were fired, and both men were transported to the Nebraska Medical Center, where they died.

“Officers did not want to approach,” Schmaderer said when asked Thursday about the delay in allowing medics into the scene. “They had to wait for a shield to approach. The car was still running, so that was approximately eight minutes.”

A single 9 mm round was recovered from inside of the Jeep in the backseat, as was a semi automatic 9 mm Taurus handgun. Michael Pecha, a public information officer at OPD, said in the video that “the location of the spent casing is consistent with the positioning of the handgun at the time it was fired, as it fired out of the front passenger window.”

In addition, according to Schmaderer, Hernandez-Rosales had stippling burns, which are caused by unburned gunpowder striking the skin, on his face and neck — a sign that a gun had been fired within close proximity to his face.

Schmaderer also said at the press conference that Hernandez-Rosales and Rodriguez-Juarez were in the country illegally, but he said their immigration status was shared “only for background purposes” and was “by no means to be used as a justification” for the shooting. Hernandez-Rosales, who came to the U.S. from Nicaragua, was involved in immigration proceedings. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no record of Rodriguez-Juarez.

The League of United Latin American Citizens released a statement Thursday seeking a federal investigation into the shooting.

“This incident happened in the early hours of Saturday morning and has generated anger over the systemic injustices faced by Latinos at the hands of law enforcement and brought a wave of calls for urgent action,” the organization said.