A Houston, Texas, officer has been fired after being involved in the strangulation death of John Hernandez.
The Texas deputy officer who was indicted for her involvement in the chokehold death of a Hispanic man at Denny’s has been fired, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office announced.
According to a press release, Chauna Thompson lost her job based on the results of an internal investigation into the death of John Hernandez and her role in the altercation. On May 28, Terry Thompson, the officer’s husband, put Hernandez in a chokehold after confronting him about allegedly urinating outside a Houston, Texas, Denny’s restaurant.
Chauna Thompson, who was off duty at the time, called the sheriff’s office and EMS before helping her husband hold the victim down until he was rendered unconscious, police said at the time of the incident.
Bystanders said they pleaded with the couple to release him, while his wife and children looked on. Hernandez died three days later at the hospital.
“The man was turning purple,” Denny’s worker Melissa Trammell told the Houston Chronicle. “We begged him to get off the man and he wouldn’t.”
Hernandez’s family held a news conference on July 21, according to the Houston Press, thanking the sheriffs office for it’s decision to fire the officer, calling it a “step in the right direction”
The couple face life in prison for murder.
Hernandez’s death prompted marches around Houston of more than 150 protesters, who demanded “Justice for Johnny” and declared “Brown Lives Matter.”
