A teenager who fatally shot a police officer in a Florida neighborhood Sunday said he was trying to kill himself to avoid going back to jail, according to his arrest warrant.
The Hollywood Police Department received a call Sunday night regarding a man who was “going house to house” on a bicycle in the Emerald Hills neighborhood while attempting to break into cars, the Associated Press reported.
Police responded to the call, and Officer Yandy Chirino was the first to spot 18-year-old Jason Banegas. Chirino attempted to arrest Banegas, but he resisted, causing a struggle, and pulled out a stolen semi-automatic handgun.
Banegas had a lengthy arrest record, AP reported. He told detectives that his goal in pulling his gun was to kill himself to avoid arrest, “but the officer kept moving around during the struggle” and he ended up pulling the trigger and shooting Chirino before other responding officers arrived to witness it, the warrant said.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP
A second officer arrived moments later and saw the two men in a grassy area. By then, Chirino had apparently already been shot.
“The suspect was holding a pistol, and the victim was attempting to wrestle the pistol away from him,” eventually knocking the gun from his hand, the officer reported.
Banegas then scuffled with the second officer, who received several scrapes before finally getting the teen into handcuffs. Then he noticed Chirino was unresponsive.
Chirino’s fellow officers tried to keep him alive as he was rushed to Memorial Regional Hospital, where Chirino was pronounced dead of a gunshot to the face, police said.
According to the warrant, Banegas confessed to the break-ins and to resisting his arrest.
“He stated he was being disrespected by the officer and panicked because he was carrying a concealed weapon and did not want to go back to jail as he was just released 30 days ago,” the warrant said.
Banegas, whose criminal record began when he was just 12, had recently been released from a “high-risk” residential juvenile detention center for selling cocaine, authorities said.
The gun used to shoot Chirino was stolen from a car in Miami-Dade County in September, the warrant said.
Banegas is charged with first-degree murder and multiple other charges. During a first appearance in court on Tuesday, he was dressed in a green vest to protect against suicide attempts. Broward Circuit Court Judge Tabitha Blackmon ordered him held without bond.
Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP
