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Florida never fails to Florida.
A report from the Florida Times-Union details an incident between an 18-year-old Guatemalan boy named Vergilio Aguilar Mendez and 52-year-old St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Michael Kunovich that ended with the officer’s death. On the night of May 19, 2023, Mendez was minding his business, walking in the parking lot of a Super 8 motel, and talking to his mother on the phone. Kunovich spotted the boy and for unknown, unstated, and unsubstantiated reasons decided that he looked suspicious enough to approach, question, and stop and frisk. Mendez speaks little to no English and was trying his best to answer Kunovich’s line of accusatory questioning.
According to the Times-Union, their exchange went like this;
Kunovich begins to question him, “Why when I was driving around,” and the teen in very broken English tries to say something while pointing to the Super 8 hotel. But the sergeant cuts him off ordering him to “Stop, stop.”
The teen says “eating, eating.” “OK, but why did you get up and walk away,” Kunovich says in an accusatory tone. “When you saw me and you got up and walked away, why, why?”
What followed was an attempted and possibly illegal search along with a struggle from a fearful Mendez whose responses suggest that he had no understanding of why he was being detained. As the struggle ensued, several other deputies arrived on the scene to help Kunocvich subdue the 5-foot-4 115-pound teenager. After placing Mendez in handcuffs, Kunovich collapses and subsequently dies from a heart attack.
According to News4Jax, Mendez has been charged with Kunovich’s manslaughter and has been in jail since May. Mendez lawyer, Attorney Phillip Arroyo, says there is more to this story and his client is being taken advantage of due to the language barrier.
“But Hispanics in general, those who don’t speak English, are victims of police brutality or civil rights violations,” he said. “And sometimes we never hear that story because of the language barrier. And I think that, in this scenario, it’s very important to shed light on what’s going on here.”
Peep this body camera footage that was recently unearthed.
The cop doesn’t seem to have any legitimate reason to believe this kid committed a crime and appears to be badgering him for answers to questions that don’t support suspicion. Let Sheriff Robert Hardwick tell it, “All the suspect had to do was comply.”
Well, all Kunovich had to do was follow proper protocol, not profile, and maybe it would have spared him a heart attack.
