Newly-released police body camera footage shows the moments police took down the brother of late football star and convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez amid suspicions that he was planning mass shootings at two universities.
Daniel “DJ” Hernandez, 37, was arrested on July 19 in Bristol, Connecticut, after people who knew him warned police that he was acting erratically and possibly planning to attack the campuses of Brown University and the University of Connecticut.
A police incident report says that after officers tracked Hernandez to a home in Bristol, he walked out of the residence after telling officers that he was “armed” and that if police approached, “he would kill us all.” According to the report, he began to advance on police, his “hands outstretched to his side.”
“Will I kill? Absolutely,” Hernandez wrote on social media on July 19, according to the report. “I’ve warned my enemies so pay up front.”
Police body camera footage does show Hernandez walking toward at least four police officers, two of whom can be heard yelling at him to stop and get down on the ground.
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“I’m not armed,” Hernandez can be heard saying as he walks toward the officers, his arms out to his side. He doesn’t stop. At least one officer deploys a stun gun, and he is later seen lying on the ground. He can be heard moaning as at least seven officers approach him.
It’s the fourth time Hernandez has been arrested this year. He was first arrested in May after leading police on a pursuit, and then for a second time days later when he threw a bag with a brick and handwritten note at the ESPN campus in Bristol. He was arrested after missing a court date in that case — presumably to go to the UConn and Brown campuses, per the affidavit.
Dennis Hernandez is the brother of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who was convicted of the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd. He was acquitted in 2017 of the murders of Safiro Furtado and Daniel de Abreu, who died in a drive-by shooting. The football player died by suicide while serving a life sentence for murder, and as Law&Crime previously reported, his conviction was vacated because he died while his case was being appealed.
You can read the Bristol Police incident report about Dennis Hernandez’s arrest, below.
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