SAN ANTONIO — In a dramatic turn of events, Officer Jonathan Salinas invoked the Fifth Amendment in court today, refusing to answer questions that could potentially incriminate him. This development occurred before jurors entered the courtroom in the trial of three former San Antonio Police Department officers—Eleazar Alejandro, Alfred Flores, and Nathaniel Villalobos—charged with the 2023 shooting death of Melissa Perez.

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The legal teams engaged in a heated exchange over Salinas’ testimony. The defense is seeking details of Salinas’ previous statements to prosecutors, particularly his account of entering Perez’s home and claiming she was going to hit him with a hammer.

Jason Goss, a criminal defense attorney, argued about the state saying, “There are rights that he should have been killed, so she could protect her property with a hammer while he was making a felony arrest.”

Goss argued that the state’s position suggested Melissa Perez had the right to use a hammer to defend her property, even if it meant harming Officer Salinas, while he was attempting a felony arrest.

The defense accused the prosecution of failing to disclose this information, which they claim is a legal obligation. Goss stated, “So at this point, we believe that there’s been a violation in their duty to disclose. There’s been a violation of because clearly he’s been telling the prosecution this for years and nobody ever told us that.”

Prosecutor Daryl Harris denied any wrongdoing, asserting, “We did not know this statement, because we never asked him about it, until he said it yesterday. They’d gotten all their disclosures.”

The defense further alleged that the state did not disclose Salinas’ disagreement with the state’s theory, noting that Salinas did not believe he had the right to enter Perez’s home and drew his weapon out of reaction.

Later, Officer Andrew Chernak, a 32-year veteran of the force, testified about his observations, becoming a critical part of the case. Chernak recounted, “Once I was in place over at that window and I had a couple of other officers with me, I was waiting for someone to give me a signal to start drawing her back because we were in two different places and I wanted to make sure they were ready and we were ready so whatever happened we could deal with it.”

Officer Chernak added, “It seemed like we were only going to try to get her out of the apartment The plan that we had come up with involved a distraction to get her back into one of the back bedrooms to Confine her in a smaller space Everything that we talked about was non-lethal,”

Testimony is expected to resume on Monday.