Wichita Family Says Police ‘Executed’ 23-Year-Old John Paul Quintero

Jan 5, 2015
11:35 AM

This is what local Kansas media is reporting about the January 3 death of John Paul Quintero:

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Yesterday, the Quintero family shared a statement with the media:

My name is Alina Quintero. I am the cousin of John Paul Quintero and the spokesperson for our family.

At this time I’m going to read a statement prepared by our family and will not be taking any questions.

Last night, my cousin John Paul Quintero was executed in front of his father by Wichita Police. Our family is devastated at the senseless killing of our family member.

John Paul was a loving person, he was well liked by his friends and family and enjoyed spending time with his loved ones. He also enjoyed reading about the law in his spare time and felt that he needed know his rights.

We called the police for help during an incident that had involved knives in the home and had since been resolved. This call was placed by his father, my uncle and by his aunt, who was no present at the home, for the safety of her daughter and to further deescalate the situation so that everyone could make it home safely.

We believe that the police will try and say that there was a knife present at the scene. We would like to confirm that they confiscated knives from the home as well as a knife in the car. However the knife found in the truck was in the back and out of reach of John Paul. None of the knives from the home were outside of the home.

The police escalated a situation that could have been resolved and the officer that killed John Paul shot him with her service rifle all but eliminating his chances of survival, while he was both unarmed with his hands up and intoxicated, likely not having full capacity to follow officer commands.

To add insult to injury the police have only contacted us to place blame on John Paul, which we reject. We want justice for John Paul, who like others across the country who are gunned down, while unarmed, by police.

Right now our family has yet to make final arrangements as that his mother is in route from Texas. We plan to hold arrangements in San Antonio, TX. John Pauls hometown. In the meantime we have set up a Go Fund Page which can be found at http://www.gofundme.com/jo6t6o to help pay for arrangements and expenses for our family.

The GoFundMe link contains additional information:

On January 3, 2014, my beloved cousin John “Jp” Paul tragically lost his life after being executed in cold blood by the Wichita Police Department, in Wichita, Kansas.

On the night in question, my uncle summoned the police to my cousin’s residence to help resolve an unrelated family dispute. Upon the police’s arrival, both John and my uncle were asked to exit their SUV to be placed in handcuffs. Within five minutes JP, who was intoxicated and incapable to fully comply with police commands, would be pulled out of the SUV, tased and then fatally shot with a service rifle. He would later succumb to his injuries.

The officer who shot John would later claim to see him reach for his waistband, despite my uncle repeatedly telling her that John was unarmed and intoxicated. Why that officer chose to use lethal force is a question still left unanswered.

The Wichita Police addressed the media about the shooting as well:

Kansas.com has provided a rather detailed police account of the confrontation. The story also said this, “Police have not located any weapon that may have been used by Quintero.”