Texas: Man Who Fatally Struck Texas Officer Executed

A condemned cop killer who wanted to be executed was put to death Wednesday evening at the Huntsville “Walls” Unit.

Daniel Lee Lopez, 27, did not want to appeal his death sentence for the murder of Corpus Christi Police Lt. Stuart Alexander during a high-speed chase more than six years ago. Despite Lopez’s wishes, his attorneys filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, but the justices turned it down hours before Lopez’s lethal injection Wednesday.

The Associated Press reports that attorney David Dow, who represented Lopez, told the Supreme Court that his client was trying to use the legal system as a way to commit suicide because of his “obvious and severe mental illness.” Dow also did not believe this was a capital murder case because Lopez did not intend to kill Alexander.

When the warden asked Lopez on Wednesday if he would like to make a final statement, Lopez thanked him and said he was “sorry.”

“I hope this execution helps my family and also the victim’s family,” Lopez said as he stared into the victim’s witness room. “This was never meant to be, sure beyond my power. I can only walk the path before me and make the best of it. I am sorry for putting y’all through this. I am sorry. I love you.”

Lopez then told the warden he was ready. As the dose of pentobarbital began to take effect, Lopez lost consciousness.

One of Lopez’s personal witnesses sang “Amazing Grace” while waiting for the doctor to come into the room. Lopez was pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m., 15 minutes after the lethal dose was administered.

Lopez was sentenced to death in 2010 for running over Alexander, who was trying to lay down spike strips to stop Lopez’s sports utility vehicle during a chase in Corpus Christi on March 11, 2009.

According to the Texas Attorney General’s Office, a Corpus Christi police officer attempted to pull over Lopez after the officer witnessed Lopez run a stop sign while driving more than 60 mph through a neighborhood. Lopez eventually stopped at his residence and got into a physical altercation with the officer before speeding away from the scene in his vehicle.

Alexander, 47, was deploying a stop stick at a highway exit when Lopez swerved his vehicle toward the exit ramp, striking and killing Alexander. Lopez continued to flee and used his SUV to ram police cruisers in an attempt to escape. He finally stopped after he was shot multiple times in his arm, neck and chest.

As Lopez made his final statement Wednesday, members of the Thin Blue Line Motorcycle Club revved up their engines to drown out the voices of the handful of protestors who were outside the Huntsville Unit.

A group of about a dozen Corpus Christi and Huntsville police officers showed up in support and saluted and shook the hand of Alexander’s widow, Vicky Alexander, as she exited the prison following the execution.

Vicky Alexander said she felt like Lopez showed “a little bit of remorse” when he waited for her to acknowledge him when they made “eye contact” as he was strapped to the gurney.

“There is nothing in life that prepares you for something like this,” Alexander said during a press conference after the execution. “I want everyone out there to know this is not about revenge. It is about the law. When you break the law, there is punishment for what you do. He broke the ultimate law and he had to pay the ultimate price, like my husband.

“This has been a very torturous process to go through,” she continued. “This is by no means the easy way out to go through this and to see something like that. I’m a nurse of 25 years. I spent my life trying to save lives. This is totally against my grain to see something like this. But it is justice for my husband. It is part of the law and part of the system he believed in.”