Nearly two years after he was shot to death, Justin Reffel’s loved ones finally found a sense of justice at the sentencing hearing of Erik Hernandez on Friday afternoon.
Hernandez, 36, a former LaSalle police officer convicted of manslaughter, will spend six years in prison for fatally shooting Reffel outside a Family Dollar in May 2023.
Hernandez appeared Friday in a packed courtroom for a sentencing hearing before Weld District Judge Marcelo Kopcow after pleading guilty to manslaughter in January.
The case dates back to May 3, 2023, when Hernandez and another officer were following up on a complaint about a suspicious vehicle. Hernandez, who was on his third day of the job, and the other officer encountered a vehicle that had been backed into a parking space beside the store.
The two officers parked their patrol vehicle in front of the suspicious vehicle to prevent the owner from driving away and went inside to look for the owner. While inside, they spotted Justin Reffel, who fled to the suspicious vehicle when he saw the police.
The police pursued him outside as he ran to the car in the parking lot. Reffel started the vehicle and put it in reverse to clear space between his car and the patrol car. Officers yelled at him to get out, but he put the car and drive and began to speed away.
While Reffel was driving away, Hernandez fired four shots into the driver’s side door, striking Reffel in the upper torso and killing him almost immediately.
On Friday, letters and speeches from Reffel’s family members dove into how Hernandez’s actions that day have impacted their lives.
At the time of the shooting, an unarmed Reffel was inside shopping with his wife and 15-year-old son, just like anyone else, Reffel’s mother wrote in a letter. His grandmother, who lost her firstborn grandson when he died, went on to highlight that Reffel didn’t break the law and drove off in fear with “bullets in his body.”
Yet the officers didn’t pursue his vehicle, so Reffel died alone without anyone performing lifesaving measures on him, his grandmother said. Instead, Hernandez turned his weapon toward Reffel’s wife, threatening to shoot her, too.
Although deeply impacted by the loss of Reffel, all three women in his life spent much of their testimony focused on Reffel’s son, who was 15 at the time. After officers informed his family that Reffel died, the boy has not left his room since, Reffel’s grandmother noted in her letter. He has spent 763 days in his room, shutting out the world, she said.
“He no longer interacts with the world because you took away his,” Reffel’s wife said Friday.
Weeping, she continued to share that the future she dreamed of having with Reffel was shattered into a million pieces by four gunshots in less than 10 minutes, all at the hands of Hernandez, who didn’t even know Justin’s name.
Probation vs. prison
Like Reffel’s loved ones, Deputy District Attorney Lacy Wells asked for Kopcow to impose the maximum sentence in this case: six years in the Department of Corrections with three years of mandatory probation.
“If you can’t give us peace, at least give us justice for Justin,” Reffel’s grandmother wrote.
According to Wells, Hernandez lacked probable cause and reasonable suspicion, and the unlawful death was “government overreach.” Even arresting Reffel that night would have been considered illegal, she argued.
Despite Hernandez bearing a badge and a uniform at the time, “No man is above the law and no man is under it,” Wells said. She argued the maximum ruling would deter reckless police officers from thinking they are above the law.
Hernandez could have faced time in Community Corrections, but he was rejected from this punishment. The defense had planned to seek a Community Corrections sentence but had to resort to probation with a two-year work release, according to defense attorney Havilah Louise Bruno Lilly.
During her request to Kopcow, she centered on how fear and post-traumatic stress disorder shaped Hernandez’s policing. Sharing an undisclosed story, these issues started when he was nearly struck by a car in the line of duty at the Hudson Police Department.
Upon hearing about Hernandez’s mental health issues, Kopcow read through the ethics expected of a police officer. It takes a special person to serve as a police officer because anyone fit for the role would never unjustifiably kill a citizen, he said.
“You had no business being a police officer,” Kopcow said firmly to Hernandez.
Hernandez had a moment to share a tearful statement before the court, expressing his remorse. He told Kopcow he wanted to take accountability rather than justify his actions.
Hernandez’s contradictory statements of being remorseful, yet continuing to justify his actions to ensure “the safety” of himself and the other officer caught Kopcow’s attention. He quickly called out Hernadez’s “deeply concerning statement” because the murder of Reffel was not a justifiable act. It was a preventable, criminal one, according to Kopcow.
“You committed a crime, and that’s why you are going to prison,” Kopcow said, followed by a sigh of relief from Reffel’s family and friends.
Hernandez initially pleaded guilty in February to the crimes after a grand jury indicted him on a second-degree murder charge in June 2023.
He went on trial Oct. 21, which lasted for eight days. Two days of jury deliberation ended with a mistrial due to the jury’s inability to reach a unanimous decision.
Hernandez was set to appear for a second trial in March, but he decided to plead guilty to manslaughter as part of a plea deal, lessening the charge from second-degree murder, back in January.
“I hope he knows his name now,” Reffel’s wife said about Hernandez. “I hope it’s in his memory like those gunshots are in ours.”
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