Vergilio Aguilar Mendez, 19, is from a small indigenous community in Guatemala. He speaks the ancient indigenous language Mam and is not fluent in English and Spanish, according to his lawyer Phillip Arroyo.
In 2022, Aguilar illegally entered the United States via the international border separating Mexico and the U.S. He stayed at a Motel 8 in St. Augustine, St. Johns County, USA and worked on farms in the city.
On the evening of May 19, 2023, Aguilar was on the phone with his mother outside the building when he was approached by St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office sergeant Michael Kunovich. When the sergeant called the dispatcher, he described the teenager as a “suspicious Hispanic male” without specifying why the teenager was suspicious.
When Kunovich asked Aguilar if he had any weapons on him, the teenager tried to walk away. The teenager had a folding pocket knife, which he retrieved from his short pockets.
More officers responded to scene and asked Aguilar to drop the knife. He told them he needed the knife to cut up watermelon.
Aguilar was thrown to the ground, held in a chokehold, repeatedly tased and pinned down. Around 5 minutes after he was handcuffed and put into the patrol car, Kunovich had a heart attack.
Since that evening, Aguilar has been in jail without bond. He was charged with murder for Kunovich’s death, which was later reduced to aggravated homicide of a police officer.
Kunovich suffered cardiac dysrhythmia and died of natural causes. It may have been a result of a prior heart attack, heart and lung deterioration due to smoking or the severe heart disease he was noted to have, according to the autopsy report.
On January 3, 2024, The Guatemalan-Maya Center‘s Mariana Blanco started a petition on Change.org, calling for the release of Aguilar. As of January 12, 2024, the petition had garnered more than 470,000 signatures.
CONAN Daily 