3NEWS sat down with Corpus Christi Police Chief Mike Markle after an arrest affidavit revealed the suspect shot at the officers from the back of a police car. <\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Nearly a week after a shooting that left three Corpus Christi police officers injured<\/a>, newly released court documents<\/a> reveal that the suspect, Ricardo Rojas, allegedly opened fire from the back seat of a patrol vehicle after officers had already searched him for weapons.<\/p>\n According to the arrest affidavit, officers had detained Rojas as part of an investigation into a deadly shooting on the city\u2019s Westside. Police searched him before placing him in the back of a squad car, then stepped away to examine his van for evidence tied to the homicide case. When they returned, Rojas pulled a gun and shot at them through the cage of the patrol vehicle, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n One officer remains at the hospital in critical condition, though all three survived.<\/p>\n Corpus Christi Police Chief Mike Markle said his officers must make quick decisions with the information available at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cHow much information do I have? How far do I go with this stop as I investigate further?\u201d Markle said.<\/p>\n 3NEWS asked why Rojas had not been handcuffed before being placed in the patrol car.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t because that\u2019s a decision they made,\u201d Markle said. \u201cThat\u2019s a decision they made based on what they had at the time. So again, those are the things that are reviewed and discussed. And is there a change of policy needed? I don\u2019t think so. I think we train very well. But we\u2019ll reinforce training, reinforce the need to be very safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Rojas is charged with four counts of attempted capital murder, one count of murder and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. Chief Markle said the fourth attempted capital murder charge stems from body camera footage.<\/p>\n \u201cReview of some of the body cam footage shows that he did in fact point a gun, maybe even shot at another officer that was not struck,\u201d Markle said.<\/p>\n Markle confirmed that Rojas has a prior criminal history, including felony possession of a weapon, though officers were unaware of that background at the time of the encounter.<\/p>\n The Chief also shared an update on Officer Alexandria Castro-Cano, who suffered life-threatening injuries and remains hospitalized.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a catastrophic injury, so she\u2019s doing well. She\u2019s a very strong young lady. She has a great family and a great support system. So she\u2019s doing exceptionally well in my opinion,\u201d Markle said.<\/p>\n The investigation remains active. 3NEWS will continue to provide updates on Officer Castro-Cano\u2019s condition and the case as it develops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3NEWS sat down with Corpus Christi Police Chief Mike Markle after an arrest affidavit revealed the suspect shot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-143820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}