Mugshot of Daniel Hernandez. By. THE VIRGIN ISLANDS POLICE DEPARTMENT
ST. CROIX — A man is facing felony charges after allegedly discharging a firearm during a dispute with another man over the affections of a woman.
According to court documents, just before 10:30 p.m. on April 13, a man called 911 to say that someone had shot up his Frederiksted home and taken his girlfriend with them. He told responding officers that he was in his yard when his girlfriend’s husband Daniel Hernandez showed up at the Estate Carlton residence. Mr. Hernandez reportedly confronted the man, and a physical struggle ensued.
The man said that he was able to run inside his house with his girlfriend, but Hernandez allegedly fired a single shot through the glass door before pushing his hand through the hole to unlock the door. Hernandez then reportedly ordered his wife to leave with him, otherwise he would kill the man who claimed to be her boyfriend.
The boyfriend said husband and wife drove off in Hernandez’s vehicle, and the woman called 911 about two hours after the initial emergency call to say that she was with her spouse at a nearby hotel. Police traveled to the property and found Hernandez and his wife, and took him into custody. He reportedly gave consent for his car to be searched, during which police found 8 .30 caliber rounds of ammunition in the vehicle.
Under questioning, the woman told police that her husband had picked her up from work a little before 5 p.m. that day, and they had dinner at a restaurant on the boardwalk. After dinner, she said they went to the hotel to make reservations to stay until Monday, before going to the apartment where she was staying with a friend.
The woman also told police that she actually does not want to be with the man who calls her girlfriend. She told them that she lied to him about where she would be, and left the mobile phone he gave her at her friend’s place while she was out with her husband. She decided to return to the apartment to call him so that he would not get agitated, but when she arrived her boyfriend showed up while her husband waited for her in the parking lot. To avoid a showdown between the two men, the woman said she decided to go to her boyfriend’s house, and texted her husband as she left.
The woman told police that she was shocked when her husband turned up at the residence in Estate Carlton later that night. She described the fight, saying that the other man kept trying to prevent her from leaving with her husband. When she eventually did leave with Hernandez, the other man vowed to call 911. As the married couple was driving back to the hotel they had booked, the woman said that she noticed some missed calls and realized it was the 911 Emergency Call Center, and so made a return call to let them know that she was alright.
Documents submitted to court do not make any mention of the wife speaking to police about her husband firing a gun while at the other man’s house. That man, said the woman, harasses her constantly, up to and including physical assault.
For his part, Hernandez denied firing a weapon at any point during the altercation, and said that he did not have a gun while he was at the other man’s house. He said he neither owned a gun nor possessed a license for a gun in the Virgin Islands.
However, after officers saw the hole in the front door glass with a bullet hole in the curtain behind the door, and after they observed the injuries to all three parties – laceration to the other man’s head and palm, cuts below Hernandez’s eye and on his hand, and scratches on his wife’s hand and arm — officers arrested Hernandez and charged him with home invasion, first-degree burglary, possession of a firearm, third-degree assault, destruction of property and disturbance of the peace.
He was remanded into custody, and appeared in court on Monday, before Magistrate Yolan Brow Ross. The judge found probable cause to uphold the charges against Hernandez, but according to the record of proceeding, “the people motioned to strike and amend the PC facts sheet with the charge of simple assault and battery, the defense had no objection, and it was so granted.”
Bail was set at $100,000, $600 of which was paid in cash, with the balance signed as an unsecured bond.
Hernandez is next scheduled to appear in court on May 1.
