A tiny town, a huge killing

The police officer from Elmendorf, Texas, was shot and fell by this utility pole at East Ninth Street and South First Avenue just before noon on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014. The police officer from Elmendorf, Texas, was shot and fell by this utility pole at East Ninth Street and South First Avenue just before noon on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014. Photo: Billy Calzada, San Antonio Express-News Photo: Billy Calzada, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close A tiny town, a huge killing 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

SAN ANTONIO — There were few answers Sunday to the many questions left when the police chief of tiny Elmendorf was gunned down on a quiet rural street late Saturday morning.

What, exactly, happened in the lead up to Chief Michael Pimentel's slaying? What of the reports the prime suspect, 24-year old Joshua Lopez, suffered from mental illness? What role could a warrant for Lopez on a misdemeanor graffiti charge have played in the shooting?

The Bexar County Sheriff's Office, which is leading the investigation, declined to offer any new details Sunday. Meanwhile, Lopez sits in Bexar County Jail facing a capital murder charge and, if convicted, possibly the death penalty.

A shooting like this is the kind of thing unlikely to happen in Elmendorf, a small South Texas town 17 miles southeast of San Antonio. Its population does not even reach 1,500, making it smaller than many high schools' student bodies.

That smallness extended to the scene of the shooting. Lopez grew up and lived about a block from where Pimentel was killed, and the event and its aftermath was witnessed by people who had known him his whole life.

Beyond expressing shock about the shooting, those neighbors Sunday offered a series of reactions that ranged from astonishment to an almost unnerving expectation about Lopez's purported involvement.

No one answered the door at the address listed as Lopez's residence — according to Bexar County Jail records — when an Express-News reporter knocked, though there were two cars parked in the front and four dogs in the yard.

“He was just a very nice, quiet guy,” said Lillia Zancketti, who lives across the street from Lopez and described him as “very friendly” and “very polite,” the kind of guy who would say hello at the store.

She said she had just brought her husband back from his dialysis treatment and was inside when the shooting occurred.

Pete Zavala, 67, lives in a mobile home directly across from the shooting. He said he was inside working on a puzzle when he heard two loud bangs followed by two quieter bangs.

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Elmendorf police chief killed

Two of his granddaughters, though, were outside at the time and one of them saw the shooting, he said, adding that one them told him that Lopez looked over after the shooting and “kind of pointed the gun at them, and they just ran in the house.”

Zavala described Lopez as odd.

“Even in summer time, he would always walk down the road there with a black-top coat with his collar up,” Zavala said. “It could be 100 degrees, and he was still wearing that overcoat.”

Another neighbor, Conception Garcia, 59, who lives two doors down from Lopez, confirmed he would wear a dark overcoat even in the heat of summer. She described him as someone “very off to himself.”

But she added that “he never gave anybody any problems.”

She said she believed he lived in a small trailer behind the home listed as his residence, where he tended a small garden. By the time she got outside Saturday to see what was going on, the police were already there, she said.

“The chief was well-liked. He was a good man,” she said, recounting how he would greet folks as if they were old friends. “That was the kind of chief he was.”

nhicks@express-news.net

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