Convicted cop killer says ‘overly racist’ stereotypes behind Wednesday execution
Luke Gentile
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The convicted killer of a Dallas police officer is trying to play the race card ahead of his Wednesday execution.
Wesley Ruiz is slated to be executed via lethal injection Wednesday evening for the 2007 slaying of Dallas Police Senior Corporal Mark Nix, according to a report.
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Ruiz, now 43, was engaged in a high-speed chase with police after his vehicle matched that of a murder suspect, the report noted.
When the chase ended, Nix attempted to break the passenger side window of the vehicle, and Ruiz fired one bullet at the officer and U.S. Navy veteran.
The bullet struck Nix’s badge, causing it to splinter, and fragments fatally severed an artery in the officer’s neck.
Nix, 33, had been a member of the Dallas police for close to seven years and was engaged at the time of his death, according to the report.
Ahead of Ruiz’s scheduled execution, his attorneys have asked the United States Supreme Court to intervene and halt the execution because jurors in the Ruiz case utilized “overly racist” and “blatant anti-Hispanic stereotypes.”
In order to sentence an individual to death in Texas, one must be deemed a future danger, and jurors relied on the “racist” stereotypes when they deemed him so, according to his legal team.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office filed their own documents with the Supreme Court Tuesday arguing that Ruiz’s claim of juror bias is without merit, according to the report.
The filing cited a review of the allegations by Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot, which found no such bias among the jurors, one of whom said, “I was not nor am bias[ed] to anyone or any race.”
Similar requests by Ruiz’s attorneys have been denied by the U.S. District Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the report noted, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied a request Monday to commute the death penalty to a lower sentence.
Ruiz maintains he acted in self-defense and that Nix had threatened to kill him.
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“I didn’t try to kill the officer,” Ruiz testified at his trial. “I just tried to stop him.”
He also argued that he was fleeing police because he had consumed illegal drugs, which were in his car, and that police had shot at him first, according to the report.