Texas executes man convicted of killing veteran police officer

[August 13, 2015]  By Jon Herskovitz
 
 AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas executed on Wednesday a 27-year-old man who was convicted of killing a veteran police officer in 2009 and had waived his rights to appeal his death sentence.

Daniel Lopez was pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection at the state's death chamber in Huntsville, a prisons spokesman said. The execution was the 528th in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state.

Lopez was convicted of lethally striking Corpus Christi Police Lieutenant Stuart Alexander, 47, at high speed with a sports utility vehicle as he was fleeing from police. Alexander, on the force for 20 years, was laying spikes on the road to flatten tires when he was sent flying about 175 feet (53 meters) in the air, according to court documents.

Lopez, who police said rammed patrol cars and tried to run over other officers in a pursuit that started after he fled a traffic stop, was shot twice in the incident.
 

Lopez later said he tried to flee because he thought there was a warrant out for his arrest for parole violations. He has said he did not intend to kill the officer but felt that he deserved to die for the crime.

"I hope this execution helps my family and also the victim’s family. This was never meant to be, sure beyond my power. I can only walk the path before me and make the best of it," he was quoted as saying by prison officials in his last statement.

"I am sorry for putting y’all through this. I am sorry, I love you. I am ready. May we all go to Heaven," he said.

Lopez fought for years to speed up the date of his execution and drop appeals for a stay of execution.

Attorneys who said they were acting on his behalf filed papers seeking to halt the execution, arguing there were issues with his mental competency and saying he was using the state to commit suicide.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a motion filed on his behalf, allowing the execution to proceed.

(Editing by Eric Walsh and Sandra Maler)

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