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BOUNTIFUL – Thirteen years ago, Salt Lake City police fought, and then gunned down Edgar Hernandez. Confusion, anger and even guilt consumed his family for years.
But now, they have found healing and have forgiven the officers.
And they don’t like what they consider to be the public condemnation of the Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Mo. policeman who shot and killed Michael Brown, 18.
A year after her brother was killed by Salt Lake City police, Lilian Newey found one of them on patrol.
“I could have walked up to him, but instead of talking to him, I just turned around and threw up,” she said.
Newey says her brother, who also died at age 18, turned to a life of crime and gangs after their family escaped an abusive father in Guatemala.
“He was so deep in the hole that there wasn’t anything else for him to do,” his mother, Lilian Hernandez-Lobos, recalled.
She adds that Edgar tried to get jobs and clear his warrants, but couldn’t escape those, either.
Newey recalled some of his chilling words days before he died.
“I’m marked. I’m never going to be able to get out of this. He says, 'I’m always going to be labeled as a criminal, or someone that doesn’t care.'”
On May 5, 2001, Hernandez got into a fight with Newey’s husband. Newey reached her limit, too.
“I’m the one that called police. I’m the one that reported the incident,” Newey said. “And for years, I felt guilty. I lived in the ‘what if.’ What if I had done something differently?”
The family was tormented, furious with police. But three years later, the forgiveness began when Newey met the first officer.
“I said, “You know, I’m just grateful that all of you went home. I’m grateful that my brother did not harm you, or any of your colleagues, in any way.”
Newey reached the second officer four years after that… and the third officer just last Friday. They burst into tears.
“If he would have hurt somebody,” Newey told them, “once he would have realized what had happened, he could not have lived with himself.”
To his mother and sister, Edgar’s death set him free.
And Newey is disgusted with the condemnation of the officer who pulled the trigger in Ferguson.
“They were literally to the point where they said, ‘Just take him out back and shoot him. They’re so racist.’”
Newey challenged those sentiments.
“OK, that could possibly be the case, but it could possibly be the other way.”
Hernandez-Lobos now carries a simple message.
“When you are angry at others, the only one affected is you. You can’t judge others, either,” she said.
Hernandez’s mother and sister call for patience until all of the answers are made available in Ferguson.
