As the one-year anniversary of Melissa Perez's fatal shooting by San Antonio police officers passes, her family gathers to remember a life tragically cut short, seeking justice amidst their mourning; the city is reminded once again of the volatile intersections between law enforcement and mental health crises. Perez, 46, was killed on June 23, 2023, amid what her family describes as a schizophrenic episode—believing the FBI was surveilling her through her apartment's fire alarm system—leading to an encounter with police that ended with her death, detailed in a report by KENS 5.

Following the incident, which saw Perez barricade herself and then shot by officers through her patio window, Perez's daughter, Alexis Tovar, has been enfolding her own child in embraces she wishes she could still share with her mother, her grief intermingled with the pursuit of justice. "I have a daughter now so like having my daughter and hugging my daughter just makes me like emotional because I wish I could hug my mom," Tovar recounted in a statement obtained by KENS 5. The officers involved, Eleazar Alejandro, Nathaniel Villalobos, and Alfred Flores were charged and are out on bond, their next hearing scheduled for Thursday. Family members of the deceased have turned to therapy to cope with the traumatic aftermath.

Bodycam footage of the June 2023 incident revealed a tense standoff, showing Perez with a hammer just before shots were fired through her apartment's glass barrier, according to KSAT. Police Chief William McManus has previously criticized the officers’ actions as unreasonable use of deadly force. In addition to grief, Perez's death stirs a simmering debate over the SAPD's handling of incidents involving mental health struggles, as the department confirmed that their mental health unit was not deployed before the fatal shooting.

"It’s not right, it’s infuriating and heartbreaking and I’m in therapy weekly, my brother is in therapy weekly because of that trauma," Tovar told KENS 5, exposing not only her own wounds but the scars inflicted on the collective body of a family, a community, a city that continues to grapple with the consequences of that night. In pursuit of change, the family's attorney Dan Packard has emphasized the need for a systemic overhaul, asserting "Until the cultural and systemic problems of not disciplining officers, not giving them the training that they need, not intervening when somebody is losing their head, all of those things are needed in order to prevent this from happening in the future," according to a KSAT interview.