The San Antonio Express-News
SAN ANTONIO — An officer killed a man Thursday morning who police said was stabbing a woman to death inside a downtown hotel room.
The officers killed the man after the SWAT team was called in with a battering ram to break into the room at the Emily Morgan in the 700 block E. Houston as the woman told officers she was being stabbed.
They were called to the hotel after a security guard heard screams coming from the eighth-floor room.
Police Chief William McManus said an officer shot the man four times, as he stood over the woman stabbing her with a small knife. Her throat had been slashed.
“There’s a kind of a funnel at the doorway there and then the room turns to the left,” McManus said. “That’s where the officers turned that’s where they saw him over the top of her with a knife.”
It was the third shooting involving an officer in a week.
“Our actions are predicated on what we confirm. Sometimes the only recourse ... is to use deadly force,” McManus said.
The suspect was identified as Juan Ignacio Guiterrez, 49. He was one of many contract employees working on a construction project at another downtown hotel, Emily Morgan employees said.
The dead woman was identified as Elvira Hernandez, 45.
Some hotel guests interviewed this morning said they were unaware of the incident until they saw the morning news. Others, like Kansas businessman Greg Fox, learned of the grisly scene from reporters.
“That’s something you wouldn’t expect from this hotel or this neighborhood,” he said.
“This seems like a real nice hotel.”
On the eighth floor of the hotel, the only signs of the incident are indentations in Room 810, where police had to use a battering ram multiple times to ram in a door.
Copyright 2008 The San Antonio Express-News