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Thread: Nelson Sigfredo Hernandez Mena Sentenced to Life in 2017 FL Slaying of Juan Cruz

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    Nelson Sigfredo Hernandez Mena Sentenced to Life in 2017 FL Slaying of Juan Cruz


    Juan Javier Cruz


    Nelson Hernandez Mena


    Suspect arrested after deadly Lake Worth shooting; witnesses say he made anti-gay statements

    By Michelle Quesada and Andrew Ruiz
    WPTV News

    LAKE WORTH, Fla. - The words spoken before a deadly shooting in Lake Worth could reveal the suspected shooter's motive.

    The arrest report for Nelson Hernandez Mena, 48, states witnesses heard Hernandez angrily utter anti-gay statements just before one man was killed and a second person was injured.

    The mother of the 22-year-old man who was shot and killed said her son was gunned down while he was trying to protect his cousin who was being targeted for being gay.

    Juan Cruz, 22, and his friends and cousin were at Las Flores Restaurant on Lake Avenue across from Lake Worth City Hall on Saturday night. The police report said that a witness saw Hernandez Mena looking over at Cruz's group angrily. When the restaurant closed and everyone went outside, a witness said Hernandez Mena said: "If we were in my country, I'd kill all of you like rats."

    The report also said a witness heard Hernandez Mena say: "I hate you damned gays, I'm going to kill you all here," before he allegedly pulled a gun from his waistband.

    "He did it out of vengeance," said Amanda Cruz in Spanish, Juan's mother. "He needs to pay for what he did so he won't be racist, because it does not matter if someone is gay, lesbian, whatever; we are all humans and we need to respect the decisions of others."

    She said her son was not gay, but his cousin is and he was trying to protect him.

    "He is traumatized, he can't sleep," added Amanda about her nephew.

    Hernandez Mena told investigators he drank 15 to 20 beers that night. He said once he left the restaurant a group of guys was attacking him and threatening him. He said he remembered pulling out the gun and pulling the trigger but that Cruz was not his intended target. He said he did not mean to hurt anyone and does not know what he did with the gun afterward.

    Amanda is heartbroken knowing she will never see her baby boy again.

    "When he used to come visit me, he would massage me and say I love you mom," she said in tears. "I miss him, he's my son, it hurts."

    Hernandez Mena is charged with first-degree murder with a firearm, attempted first-degree murder with a firearm and aggravated assault with a firearm.

    He appeared in court Monday morning. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said it would be up to the State Attorney's office to decide to add a hate crime charge.

    http://www.wptv.com/news/region-c-pa...-in-lake-worth
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Trial begins in 2017 Lake Worth Beach fatal shooting

    By Hannah Winston
    Palm Beach Post

    WEST PALM BEACH -- Pedro Cruz said it’s hard for him to remember everything that happened after the gunshots on Aug. 6, 2017. He saw one of his friends run one way, shot in the foot. Then he saw his cousin, Juan Javier Cruz, turn to him with blood down the side of his face.

    Pausing to wipe away tears in court Wednesday afternoon, he said, through the help of a Spanish interpreter, he watched the 22-year-old fall to the ground that night.

    Seconds before, Pedro Cruz said the alleged gunman, Nelson Hernandez Mena, told the group of friends that in his country they killed gay men such as them like they were rats.

    Before his cousin, Juan, was fatally shot, he told Mena that’s not how it was in this country.

    The first-degree murder trial of Mena began Wednesday with opening statements and testimony from several witnesses before Circuit Judge Caroline Shepherd. Mena’s attorneys say the shooting was self-defense, but prosecutors and witnesses said the attack was deliberate.

    Mena is accused of killing Juan Cruz, who was in a group with several men including his cousin, Pedro Cruz, and Quevin Armando Jimenez Tepeque, outside of Restaurante y Pupuseria Las Flores near the intersection of Lake Avenue and Dixie Highway in 2017.

    Tepeque, 25, said they were all at the bar having a good time dancing, drinking and talking. He said he noticed one man watching him and he eventually got his phone number as they spoke closely over the loud music. That man was sitting in a group with Mena and several others.

    As they left the bar late that night, Tepeque said he heard one man say something along the lines of wanting to “repeat the massacre in Orlando,” referencing the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in 2016.

    He said he, the cousins and others continued in their way to their car but then were “startled” by the loud voice of Mena.

    “He paralyzed all of us with his strong voice when he said in my country we kill the gays like rats,” Tepeque said through a Spanish interpreter.

    He said the gun went off, striking him in the foot and he fled believing if he didn’t he would be killed. He said as he ran, he bled and eventually lost strength but two men near a bus stop were able to help him.

    During opening statements, Assistant Public Defender Harris Printz told the jury of seven men and seven women, his client was outnumbered and he was defending himself when he fired his weapon.

    “This is not a case about homosexuality. His own friend was gay, and you can see it with your own eyes in the videos,” he said, referencing surveillance videos from the restaurant showing one of the men sitting with Mena that night had given his phone number to Tepeque. “Despite the tragic results, this is a case of self-defense.”

    Assistant State Attorney Danielle Kushel told the jury the videos will show Mena getting angry as the group of men including Tepeque and Cruz enjoying their night, but minding their own business. She said video shows him “getting his firearm into a ready position before anyone in either party even gets up to leave.”

    Printz argued in his to the jury Mena was merely fixing the gun that had slid out of his waistband because he didn’t have it holstered.

    Kushel disagreed.

    “The evidence will show Mena, who perhaps thought it was acceptable in his country, growing exasperated with disgust with these men and their homosexuality, knew exactly what he was going to do from inside Las Flores,” she said.

    https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/2...fatal-shooting
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Jury finds man guilty in 2017 fatal Lake Worth Beach shooting

    By Hannah Winston
    Palm Beach Post

    WEST PALM BEACH -- After a little less than three hours of deliberations Friday, a 12-person jury found Nelson Hernandez Mena guilty of first-degree murder and the lesser charge of attempted second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Juan Javier Cruz on Aug. 6, 2017, in Lake Worth Beach.

    Investigators say Mena killed Cruz, who was in a group with several men, among them Quevin Armando Jimenez Tepeque, outside Restaurante y Pupuseria Las Flores near Lake Avenue and Dixie Highway. Tepeque was shot in the foot, detectives said.

    Prosecutors argued that the shooting was motivated by Mena’s alleged disgust with the group of men because they were gay. Witnesses who testified this week recalled Mena shouting at them that in his home country of Honduras, they kill gay men like rats.

    Mena’s attorneys argued the shooting was self-defense because the group, including Cruz and Tepeque, followed him out of the bar with beer bottles in their hands and called Mena names as he made his way back to his car.

    After the verdict was read and the jurors were released, Circuit Judge Caroline Shepherd scheduled a sentencing hearing for March 9.

    Though the jury found Mena guilty of first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder, they did not find he shot Tepeque out of prejudice due to his sexual orientation. The hate-crime enhancement could have increased the penalty during sentencing.

    Because first-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence in Florida, there could be no hate-crime enhancement in the fatal shooting of Cruz.

    In her closing arguments Friday, Assistant State Attorney Danielle Kushel told the jury that as Mena sat in the bar that night, he grew angrier as he watched the men enjoy their time together. She said he “reflected on it as he pounded back beer after beer.”

    Kushel argued Mena solidified his decision on what he planned to do when he got his gun ready, as she said can be seen in the surveillance-camera video from the bar.

    “It’s not a case of self-defense. It’s self-offense,” she said.

    During the course of the trial, which began with testimony Wednesday, jurors watched several black-and-white surveillance videos from the late hours of Aug. 5 and the early hours of Aug. 6 from both inside and outside the bar. Those videos showed men, including Tepeque, dancing, talking and drinking.

    Also seen in videos, attorneys said: Mena not interacting with the other group, Mena handling a gun and Mena with his arm around another man at one point.

    Assistant Public Defender Harris Printz told the jurors the case was not about homophobia, as prosecutors purported.

    Instead, he said, the case was about a man who went for drinks with friends. A man who, when he left the bar that night, was surrounded by a group of shouting men, several of whom had beer bottles in their hands.

    “It’s unfortunate that a young man lost his life. It’s unfortunate that another young man received a bullet wound to his foot,” Printz said Friday. “But just because the consequence of the actions were unfortunate doesn’t mean it’s criminal.”

    As for the gun, Printz said Mena was not readying the weapon as prosecutors asserted, but instead was adjusting it because it fell down his pant leg.

    He said the numerous videos from inside and outside the restaurant do not show his client either interacting with or intimidating the group of men, including Tepeque and Cruz.

    When Mena testified Thursday, he said that when he went outside, he was surrounded and scared, so he pulled out his gun in self-defense.

    “I fired so they’d get away from me and leave me alone because I didn’t want any problems,” he said.

    https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/2...beach-shooting
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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