DAY 22: NO ANSWERS IN COP SHOOTING OF UNARMED MAN

By Juan Montoya
It's been 22 days since that fateful Friday July 17 when Maria del Carmen Treviño's 24-year-old son Jose Ramon Rodriguez was gunned down by a Brownsville Police Department officer, between the 2300 and 2500 block of University Boulevard.
He was unarmed.
All Treviño knows is that her son died and it wasn't until three days later when she and her family and supporters protested outside the P.D. that her son's body was released to her the next Tuesday.
Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz issued a statement shortly after the killing that an on-duty Brownsville police officer had shot and killed someone earlier in the day.

Authorities said the officer involved in the shooting was unharmed.

However, their first statements that the officer had “shot and killed an aggravated robbery suspect between 1 and 2 a.m.” were not confirmed at a press conference held later that day.
Saenz said that under an agreement between the DA's Office an the police, investigation of any killing involving local police would be performed by an outside agency, this time the Texas Rangers.
But until now, Treviño said, the authorities had not told been told the reason why her son was shot, the justification for his death, or why no one has been charged in his killing.
"The day after we protested in front of the police department on Jackson, the Texas Rangers gave us his body and we buried him a few days later," she said. "Up until now we don't know why he was shot or if the officer who shot him is still working and on the street."
What she does know now, she said, is that when her son was delivered to the funeral home, there were two gunshot entry wounds, one in his left arm, and another on his upper left side.
"It looked like he had been shot when he had his arm raised" she said. "My son never owned or carried a gun."
 Since then, neither the police nor the Texas Rangers have said how many shots were fired and how many times the man was struck.

Investigators from the Texas Department of Public Safety said Rodriguez died at the hospital as a result of the shooting.

Another man, 22-year-old Jaime Gomez, was arrested by Brownsville police and was charged with evading arrest on foot in connection with shooting, investigators said at the time.
Gomez is currently being held in custody at the Rucker-Carrizales Detention Center on charges of aggravated robbery and theft.
 Treviño said that one of his relatives had come up to her during her son's funeral to tell her he was "scared."
"He didn't tell me why he was scared, but I told the Texas Rangers that they should go talk to him to find out what really had happened," she said.
And despite the early statements by Saenz and police department officials at the pres conference held after the shooting, Rodriguez has never been implicated in the aggravated robbery. 

"He was only 24 and they ended his life without giving his family an explanation," said his uncle. "We want answers on why he had to be killed
when he wasn't involved in the robbery wasn't armed."