In November 2024 the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) decided to settle a $700,000 lawsuit with the family of Ruben Galindo, 29. Cops shot and killed Ruben at the Hunters Pointe Apartments on Prospect Drive in Charlotte, NC.
Ruben was killed in September 2017. A 911 call had been made at the apartments regarding a disturbance. Cops arrived to find Ruben holding a gun with his hands up outside of an apartment unit. Follow Charlotte Alerts on Instagram.
Cops yelled for Ruben to show his hands and drop the gun. But Ruben kept his hands up with the gun in hand. Ruben was having some sort of mental health emergency.
Officer David Guerra then shot and killed Ruben. Officer Guerra is a military veteran, and he may of had a mental health problem himself from his military service, perhaps flashbacks from people firing guns.
Ruben went down from being shot, and he died at the scene. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department then cleared Officer Guerra of any wrong doing during an internal affairs investigation, saying Guerra acted within the law.
Also District Attorney Spencer Merriweather declined to arrest officer Guerra, saying he didn’t do anything wrong, the district attorney has a tendency to not prosecute cops when they kill people in Charlotte.
Ruben’s family saved up some money and hired an attorney 2 years later, they filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department.
A right ring republican federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying Officer Guerra acted reasonably when killing Ruben. But the attorney for Ruben’s family appealed, and an appeals court ruled that the officer should not of shot Ruben, the appeals court then reissued the lawsuit case.
Attorneys for CMPD then ruthlessly went to the state supreme court and tried to get the case dismissed again, but the supreme court refused to hear the case and put the case back in the appeals court’s hands.
Days before the civil trial in 2024, CMPD decided to settle the lawsuit with Ruben’s family for $700,000.
Officer Guerra has been employed with the CMPD since April 29, 2013.
