SAN BENITO — Police are investigating a case in which the father of City Commissioner Carol Lynn Sanchez’s children is accused of shooting at her father.

David Lee Hernandez, 33, is charged with aggravated assault in connection with the July 7 incident in which he fired a shot that apparently narrowly missed the face of Sanchez’s father just hours after the city’s ResacaFest concert.

Hernandez, who was booked on the second-degree felony on July 9, was released from the Cameron County Jail on July 11.

Municipal Judge Benjamin Yudesis had set bail at $50,000 during Hernandez’s arraignment hearing.

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Yesterday, Sanchez described the police department’s report as “BS.”

“I cannot believe they would take it this far,” Sanchez stated. “I will be filing a formal complaint against the department.”

Early July 7, Sanchez’s father, whose name was not released in the report, told Detective Manuel Alvarez that Hernandez was drunk when he fired his pistol at him after he refused to let his grandchildren’s father drive his car.

“When (Sanchez’s father) refused to allow him to leave in the vehicle, David pulled a pistol from his waist area and readied the pistol by pulling back the slide and loading a bullet,” Detective Manuel Alvarez wrote in an affidavit. “He then pointed the pistol at him and fired the pistol.”

According to Alvarez, Hernandez came close to shooting Sanchez’s father in the face.

“(Sanchez’s father) told me that he could feel the hot air of the burning gases pushing against his face as the bullet passed by his face,” Alvarez wrote. “He could feel the gunpowder hit his face.”

Sanchez was standing near Hernandez when he fired at her father.

When he heard police sirens, Hernandez ran toward the back of the house in the 300 block of Palo Rosa.

Argument breaks

Hernandez apparently got drunk at ResacaFest, the annual city event commemorating America’s independence.

“The victim informed me that earlier in the evening his family, including his son-in-law David, had been at ResacaFest,” Alvarez wrote. “There, David consumed an unknown quantity of alcoholic beverages and (the victim) described him as being drunk.”

Soon, Hernandez became aggressive, Alvarez wrote.

“When the family arrived home after the event, David became belligerent and wanted to drive away in the victim’s vehicle,” Alvarez wrote.

Police, who could not find Hernandez, recovered a loaded pistol and a spare loaded magazine behind a concrete block used to support the house.

On July 9, Hernandez was apparently arrested on a warrant.

Two days earlier at the family’s home, Sanchez declined to describe the shooting incident because she did not want to be listed in the report, Alvarez wrote.

“I asked Carol Lynn to tell me what happened as I was told she was there,” Alvarez wrote. “She told me she did not want to be in the report, but she would substantiate what her parents told me.”

Yesterday, Sanchez denied commenting to police.

“I did not make any such statements nor was I involved,” she stated after reading the report.

Brushes with law

Hernandez has been in trouble with the law before, booked on charges ranging from assault, theft and scrawling graffiti.

Distancing suspect

Yesterday, Sanchez, an attorney elected in May 2017, described Hernandez as the father of her children.

“We haven’t been together for quite a while — we announced it publically months ago,” Sanchez stated. “He is the father of my children and that’s it.”

Sanchez described the incident’s reporting as a “political attack.”

‘Political attack’

“These political attacks and lies are exactly what caused so many problems between us,” she stated. “We are on very good terms for our children, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“No one is in the public eye but me,” she stated. “I’ve lost so much to this political position already. I also refuse to be thrown into issues that have nothing to do with me just to get some headline. I’m not a victim; I’m not a perpetrator. I’m not involved and I’m tired of people trying to wrap me into drama.”

“I am completely disgusted at the fact anyone would go to such lengths as to try to spin a negative story just to use it politically. I was always told politics were dirty, but I never knew it was this bad. Now they’re going to the extent of attacking anyone around me.”

City in headlines

The case marks at least the second time this summer local elected officials’ families have brushed with the law.

Last month, Mayor Ben Gomez’s wife was cleared of a domestic violence charge.

A jury found Rosa Maria Gomez, 49, not guilty of one count of assault causing bodily injury-family violence, a Class A misdemeanor, after a trial before Cameron County Court at Law No. 5 Judge Estela Chavez Vasquez.

“We wanted a not-guilty verdict and that’s what we got,” the mayor said late last month.

The case stemmed from an incident that occurred at about 4:54 p.m. July 15, 2018, at the family’s home on CSM Ruben Vela Street in San Benito.

Police apparently arrested Rosa Maria Gomez.

However, a copy of a police report lists Rosa Maria Gomez as the “reporting person” while the mayor is listed as a “suspect.”

After Rosa Maria Gomez’s arrest, police declined to confirm the incident leading to her charge had even occurred.