ST. CROIX — When Luz Fulgence called 911 last Thursday to once again request police assistance for her 48-year-old son as he experienced another crack-induced episode that left him shouting in the street in front of her house in LBJ Gardens, she said she expected officers to calm him down without violence like they had done in the past.
This time was different as two responding officers from the Special Operations Bureau encountered Alejandro “Alex” Torres III the next block over from his mother’s house, according to Assistant Territorial Public Defender Dwayne Henry, who represented Torres in Superior Court.
By the end of the day, Torres was dead — shot by an officer who Fulgence said never even knocked on her door even though she was the one who requested police assistance.
“I didn’t call police on the scene to go and kill my child,” Fulgence said while discussing the incident from her front porch. “I called police to come and help him because he’s on drugs. He’s sick. He had needed help. He didn’t need police to shoot him in his chest.”
After calling 911 at about 8 or 9 a.m., Fulgence recalled waiting all morning, but police never arrived at her house. When she called 911 again to ask what was taking so long, she said she was told police were already on the scene. About 30 minutes to an hour later, she said she got a call from one of the officers explaining he was looking for her address. Shortly after that, she said she heard her son screaming for help from the adjacent block.
“The last scream that Alex gave me was, ‘mommy, please come,’” Fulgence said. “That’s when I hear, ‘pow.’ When I hear that gunshot, God is my witness, the only thing I said was, ‘they killed my son.’”
At that point, Fulgence said she called 911 a third time to find out why officers never came to her residence as well as to report the gunshot. She said she was again told that police were already on the scene, so she decided to walk around the corner to see what was happening. She said she left her home sometime that afternoon.
“I walked back there — first thing I see was my son lying on the ground,” she said, describing the two police officers as being “very young.”
Fulgence, who noted her son’s kind heart and desire to help others, questioned why the officer shot him instead of using nonfatal tactics to control the situation like a taser or mace.
“Why did you put a gun at his chest and kill him?” she asked. “What was the reason for that? He didn’t have no gun.”
The Virgin Islands Police Department issued a statement that “responding officers made contact with the mother and son, however a struggle ensued with the son and both officers who responded.” At that time, police said one of the officers discharged his firearm, striking Torres once. The statement noted the officers responded to a 911 call around 4:42 p.m.
Fulgence disputed the 911 call timeline provided by police as well as the characterization of events leading up to the shooting.
“They never make contact with me,” she said. “They need to stop lying.”
Glen Dratte, VIPD communications director, said 911 only documents the first time a call comes in to report a specific incident.
Regardless of whether her calls to 911 were properly recorded, Fulgence questioned why police resorted to deadly force while responding to a call for assistance to help her agitated son.
Torres, a father and grandfather, was no stranger to trouble, but his mother pointed out he was on a path to recovery. He had cycled in and out of jail and rehab for years, battling addiction and its consequences. But by last October, he was turning his life around. He joined a narcotics support group, attended church, and got a job inspecting fishers’ catches for the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife. He accepted a global plea agreement in May for two criminal cases from 2023, with sentencing scheduled for July 30 on charges of possession of a stolen cellphone and third-degree assault by striking a victim in the head with a gun.
Henry, the public defender who had Torres as a client, will continue representing Torres in both criminal cases until they are formally dismissed. Henry, who spoke with WTJX personally and not on behalf of his office, said the plea agreement was designed to support Torres in addressing his addiction. He said Torres had remained clean until recently relapsing.
“We don’t know what happened there, but we could have snatched him back from the jaws,” he said while sitting with Fulgence on her front porch. “We were confident we could have done it.”
Henry said Torres’ death raises alarms about police procedures related to the use of force, de-escalation training, and transparency. He questioned why two officers from a highly specialized unit like the Special Operations Bureau responded to what was essentially a mental health-related call for help. He also noted the VIPD remains under a consent decree requiring reforms to prevent police brutality.
“There’s a lot of holes,” he said. “Dots are not being connected, and we want to know what really happened.”
Henry said VIPD is obligated to conduct an internal investigation to determine whether the officer used excessive force. He said the findings must be shared with Torres’ family so they can understand what happened and pursue appropriate action if necessary.
The VIPD said in its statement that both officers have been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation. The names of the officers were not disclosed.
As Fulgence prepares for her son’s viewing from 3 to 5 p.m. on July 31 at James Memorial Funeral Home, and his funeral at 9 a.m. August 1 at Sunny Acres Seventh-day Adventist Church, she continues to seek closure. For her, that begins with knowing why her son was killed.
“That’s all I want,” she said.
Henry is committed to helping her get that answer.
“She can’t get closure until she knows what happened,” he said. “So, the more transparent — and the quicker that transparency comes from the Virgin Islands Police Department — the better it will be for everybody involved.”
