17 April 2024, Texas, Steven Zimmerman – Let’s talk about Jonathan Rose Eddens, who died while in police custody on 14 April 2023.

El Paso Police officers were dispatched at about 3:15 to perform a welfare check on Eddens, who was walking in and out of traffic along Alameda.

Here’s what we do know…

Based on cellphone videos that KTSM, FitFam, and others have aired, here’s what we know about the incident.

The video shows four officers wrestling with Eddens on the sidewalk in front of an auto shop. As we have all seen from the video, additional officers arrived, and the struggle continued. During the struggle to get Eddens to the ground, officers deployed their tasers.

We also know that Eddens died in custody at the hospital. FMS is called, as is procedure, when a taser is deployed.

Police have yet to release any bodycam footage.

Here’s what we don’t know…

Even though Eddens has dozens of arrests, including convictions for drugs, theft, assault, assault on a public servant, and burglary, we don’t know his state of mind.

Even though we see, on the video, officers struggling with Eddens, we don’t know what caused the altercation or who is at fault.

Here’s what we need to do as a community…

You won’t like my advice on what we need to do as a community because of Edden’s death: We need to wait.

The Jerusalem Press has received a lot of messages from local readers that we need to cover Eddens death, allegedly at the hands of police. We cannot, in good conscience, condemn the department or the officers involved without performing due diligence.

When we react to video provided by non-law enforcement sources, we play armchair quarterback and can only guess what is happening.

Remember the video, years ago, of an officer drawing his sidearm at a group of children? Everyone was ready to condemn the officer until another video showed a clear and present danger to that officer. This is the same situation.

Others who have contacted us say that this is an ongoing problem with the department, that alleged suspects die in police custody. That is not true.

El Paso, Texas, has the lowest number of officer-related shootings, deaths, and the like.

Think about the Walmart shooter and the number of people mad that EPPD did not simply kill him.

Give the system time to do its job. Once their bodycam footage is released, showing the incident from beginning to end, we can begin our investigation.

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