BEXAR COUNTY, Texas – The joint defense for three former San Antonio police officers charged in a 2023 murder put a state witness under a microscope on Thursday afternoon.
The defense attorneys, Ben Sifuentes and Mario Del Prado, openly questioned the credibility of Deanna Platt, an SAPD detective who reported to headquarters to take a statement from one of the officers currently on trial.
Ex-SAPD officers Eleazar Alejandro, Alfred Flores and Nathaniel Villalobos are on trial for the shooting death of 46-year-old Melissa Perez.
Sifuentes and Del Prado are co-defense attorneys for Alejandro.
Perez was shot and killed at her Southwest Side apartment in June 2023.
The department has since terminated Alejandro, Flores and Villalobos from the force.
Below is the full timeline of Thursday’s court proceedings.
10:18 a.m. - Jurors entered the courtroom.
Nico LaHood, a co-defense attorney for ex-SAPD officer Nathaniel Villalobos, began his cross-examination of SAPD crime scene investigator Carin Crain.
10:26 a.m. - Crain said she spoke to Alejandro and Villalobos, two of the now-former officers, and filed a report of their accounts of the shooting.
Typically, officers may have some GSR, or gunshot residue, after firing their weapon.
However, Villalobos told Crain he washed his hands because he was performing life-saving measures on Perez after he shot her.
10:28 a.m. - LaHood passed the witness to Ben Sifuentes, co-defense attorney for ex-SAPD officer Eleazar Alejandro.
10:40 a.m. - Sifuentes passed the witness. No one else had any questions for her, so Crain was excused from the stand.
10:42 a.m. - The prosecution called Holli Worden, a forensic science supervisor at the Bexar County Crime Lab, to the stand.
Ron Rangel, the presiding judge in this case, swore Worden in. Bexar County prosecutor David Lunan began his line of questioning.
Worden said she specializes in firearms and toolmarks.
10:55 a.m. - Worden began opening multiple packages she had previously inspected.
10:58 a.m. - One of the packages contained a magazine and 12 unfired rounds. Worden told the court that she tested two of them.
10:59 a.m. - Worden confirmed that three rounds were missing. The magazine and rounds were returned to the package.
11:17 a.m. - Based on her previous testing, Worden told jurors that ex-SAPD officer Nathaniel Villalobos fired his weapon four times.
11:29 a.m. - Worden opened a package that had a round inside. She confirmed that the bullet was fired from ex-SAPD Sgt. Alfred Flores’ firearm.
11:35 a.m. - Upon inspection, Worden told the court that 10 bullet fragments were found after they were fired by a weapon belonging to ex-SAPD officer Eleazar Alejandro.
11:37 a.m. - Lunan passed the witness. Rangel instituted a short break for jurors.
11:58 a.m. - Jurors reentered the courtroom. Jason Goss, a co-defense attorney for Villalobos, began cross-examining Worden.
12:16 p.m. - Goss asked Worden why the officers were arrested on June 23, 2023, “months” before the Bexar County Crime Lab completed its investigation.
“To be clear, the evidence did come into our lab on July 3, 2023,” Worden told Goss and the court.
12:19 p.m. - Goss passed the witness. Mario Del Prado, a co-defense attorney for Alejandro, began cross-examining Worden.
12:21 p.m. - Del Prado passed the witness to Christian Neumann. Neumann is the co-defense attorney for Flores.
12:24 p.m. - Worden told the court, specifically, that ”the cartridge cases and the three firearms (from the ex-officers)” first arrived at the crime lab on July 3, 2023.
12:30 p.m. - Neumann passed the witness. There were no other questions for Worden.
Rangel excused her from the stand.
12:31 p.m. - The defense and prosecution approached Rangel’s bench.
12:33 p.m. - Bexar County prosecutor Daryl Harris called SAPD detective Deanna Platt to the stand.
Rangel swore Platt in.
12:36 p.m. - Platt said she was one of the “additional detectives” who were asked to report to headquarters. She interviewed ex-SAPD Sgt. Alfred Flores after the Perez shooting.
12:45 p.m. - Harris asked Platt what brought him to the scene of Perez’s apartment on June 23, 2023. She also told the court that she did not “view any video in this case.”
12:46 p.m. - Platt began reading Flores’ statement. Sifuentes interrupted Platt and objected to the reading of Flores’ statement until it is introduced as evidence.
Rangel overruled Sifuentes’ objection and allowed for the defense to cross-examine Platt later on.
12:48 p.m. - According to Platt’s summarization, Flores said fellow SAPD officer Jonathan Salinas called him and told him about a “felony criminal mischief” that had occurred. Flores said he wanted to respond to the scene.
12:50 p.m. - Harris submitted Flores’ June 23, 2023, statement as evidence. There were no objections to the submission.
12:52 p.m. - Platt began reading Flores’ statement.
1:04 p.m. - Platt told the court that Flores, according to his statement, didn’t consider asking for the dispatch of mental health unit officers.
1:11 p.m. - Harris passed the witness. Rangel instituted a break for lunch. Jurors left the courtroom.
2:19 p.m. - Jurors reentered the courtroom.
2:20 p.m. - LaHood began cross-examining Platt.
2:22 p.m. - Platt told LaHood and the court that she didn’t view any video or footage connected to this case.
2:51 p.m. - LaHood passed the witness to Sifuentes.
2:58 p.m. - Platt told the court, for at least the third time on Thursday, that she did not view any body-worn camera video connected to the Perez case.
3:31 p.m. - Sifuentes requested to approach the bench. Rangel instituted a short break for jurors.
3:48 p.m. - A hearing began without the presence of jurors.
Sifuentes presented a document to Platt that outlined a suspension she previously served with SAPD.
It was originally a “contemplated indefinite suspension” — or termination — but it was later modified to a one-day suspension, according to Platt.
According to the suspension, Platt was accused of violating crash investigation protocols.
3:51 p.m. - Because of her previous suspension, Sifuentes called Platt’s credibility as a witness into question.
“What this document says is that she has been untruthful and has failed to do what is required by policy and has failed to properly investigate reports,” Sifuentes told the court, in part. “And she has put into issue her belief that she is not required to do a complete investigation.
“We think this is relevant to show that her answers were incomplete, inaccurate and untruthful,” Sifuentes concluded.
Harris announced his objection to Sifuentes’ assertion.
“I’ll note that incident is alleged to have occurred May 10th of 2015. We are now in the end of October of 2025,” Harris said. ”It is too remote. There is no testimony to support any attack on her credibility. It is a singular, specific instance of conduct, which is prohibited by the rules of evidence."
Del Prado stood up and responded to Harris.
“This witness went out of her way to say she didn’t watch any bodycams, that the only thing she knew about this case was what (ex-SAPD) Sgt. Flores had said in his statement,” Del Prado said. “And yet, when she’s being cross-examined by Mr. LaHood, just spontaneously says, ‘Oh, well, if there’s obstructions, you know, like a glass door with wooden planes. If there’s a wall, if there’s an obstructive window’ — ... We’re certainly entitled to go into her bias and motivation in this particular case with this evidence."
4:16 p.m. - After more than 25 minutes of spirited debate, Rangel decided that the suspension form will not be admitted as evidence, but the defense will be allowed to ask her questions about the suspension.
Watch the first of two Thursday afternoon hearings held without jurors below.
4:17 p.m. - The hearing ended.
4:18 p.m. - Jurors reentered the courtroom.
4:19 p.m. - Sifuentes resumed asking Platt questions. He began to ask her about her suspension.
4:20 p.m. - “The Chief of Police determined, based on the factual allegation, that you failed to investigate a collision properly and were untruthful on information you supplied, correct?” Sifuentes asked.
“Yes, and I can explain that case, if you want me to,” Platt answered.
Various body-worn camera videos from the scene at Perez’s apartment on June 23, 2023, were played for Platt and the court.
4:28 p.m. - Sifuentes passed the witness to Thom Nisbet, a co-defense attorney for ex-SAPD Sgt. Alfred Flores.
4:40 p.m. - Nisbet passed the witness back to the prosecution.
Harris asked Platt about Sifuentes’ line of questioning about her previous suspension.
“I just want to say, because he’s trying to make it look like I’m untruthful, and I’m a liar, basically. Which I’m not,” Platt told jurors.
At the time of the suspension, Platt said she had been with SAPD for two years.
“I was a patrolman called out to a typical crash on the highway,” Platt said to the court. “A crash report is a civil matter and, really, my opinion on that is police shouldn’t even respond to crash reports because that’s between the insurance, right? And the drivers.”
4:41 p.m. - While she said body-worn camera video was not available to officers at the time of her suspension 10 years ago, Platt said the incident was a three-vehicle crash that was recorded via audio.
“One of the allegations was me, as a patrol officer, I did not contact all the 911 callers,” Platt told the court. “We do not do that as patrolmen. That’s the follow-up investigators’ job. I don’t have the time, and we don’t do that. We’re only talking to the drivers on scene.”
4:42 p.m. - Platt again told jurors that her crash report’s audio was recorded.
“Why the IA (internal affairs) investigator did not listen to that, and instead took her (one of the drivers involved in the crash) word because she came into the (SAPD) sub(station) two weeks later to say I lied on the crash report, and I put the wrong vehicle at fault,” Platt recalled.
4:48 p.m. - The prosecution and defense meet at Rangel’s bench after the defense objected to Harris asking Platt to read a passage about “one’s own property.”
4:58 p.m. - Jurors left the courtroom. A second hearing began without their presence.
4:59 p.m. - On behalf of the joint defense, LaHood began speaking to the court.
“The state, in a very creative way — but it’s an inappropriate way — is turning this into: No. 1, the deceased as the defendant, which she’s not. ... She’s not in court sitting in one of these chairs,“ LaHood said, in part. ”No. 2, they’re turning this into a quasi-motion to suppress against the officers not justifying the injuries, so justifying deadly force against them. It’s odd.”
5:02 p.m. - Del Prado suggested that the prosecution’s expert disagreed with their theory about what Perez’s rights were on June 23, 2023.
“(The prosecution expert) once again told them that Melissa Perez was not allowed to use force against these officers. That’s what their own expert is telling them,” Del Prado said. “I don’t know how much more in bad faith prosecutors can operate when everybody is telling them what the law is.”
5:04 p.m. - Harris told the court that his intent is to lay out the “law.”
“It’s clear. To enter a residence, you must have consent, a warrant or recognized exigency,” Harris said, in part. ”My intent is to show the department’s policy, 5-0-2, compare it to the statutory, black-letter law. They are verbatim."
5:16 p.m. - Rangel said he will instruct the jury to “disregard” Harris’ most recent question regarding property.
5:18 p.m. - Jurors reentered the courtroom. Harris resumed cross-examining Platt.
5:33 p.m. - Harris passed the witness.
Rangel ended the court proceedings for the day. After a day off on Friday, the trial is expected to resume on Monday morning.
Background
On June 23, 2023, Melissa Perez, 46, experienced a mental health crisis inside her Southwest Side apartment, where SAPD body camera footage showed she was fatally shot by ex-SAPD officers Eleazar Alejandro, Alfred Flores and Nathaniel Villalobos.
The case drew widespread attention and sparked debate over police response protocols.
Alejandro, Flores and Villalobos each face charges in connection with Perez’s death.
All three charged will be tried together, which will make for a packed courtroom.
Former prosecutor-turned-defense attorney Meredith Chacon said the plan to try all three together means each defense team has agreed on some kind of joint strategy.
“It indicates a sharing of resources, and they’re all working together on this defense,” Chacon said.
Each defendant has their own team of lawyers:
- Alfred Flores is represented by Thom Nisbet, Christian Neumann and David Christian.
- Eleazar Alejandro is represented by Ben Sifuentes and Mario Del Prado, a former division chief in the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.
- Nathaniel Villalobos is represented by former Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood and his law partners Jay Norton, Jason Goss and Patrick Ballantyne.
As for the state, prosecutors include Felony Criminal Trial Division Chief David Lunan and Daryl Harris.
The trial is being presided over by Judge Ron Rangel of the 379th Criminal District Court.
Ahead of jury selection, a pretrial hearing became heated as attorneys sparred over key issues ahead of the trial. Defense attorneys argued with prosecutors over which evidence and legal arguments should be allowed during the proceedings.
Among the issues discussed was a federal judge’s recent decision to dismiss a civil lawsuit against the officers — a ruling the defense wants jurors to hear about. Prosecutors opposed that motion.
Defense attorneys also objected to any discussion of the Castle Doctrine, or “protection of property” laws, during the trial. They argued it is irrelevant to the facts of the case.
Rangel has yet to rule on those motions.
If convicted, Flores and Alejandro each face up to life in prison. Villalobos, who is facing an aggravated assault by a public servant charge, also faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
For a full look back at this case, watch the KSAT Open Court video below:
More coverage of this trial on KSAT: