EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – A 48-year-old El Paso Police officer was arrested last month for assault and unlawful restraint for allegedly hitting and choking a woman after a night out while off-duty last year, according to court documents obtained by KTSM.
According to court documents, Manuel Flores Jr. was arrested in May and charged with assault and unlawful restraint but has since posted bail.
In November of last year, EPPD was advised of an incident that occurred at a Downtown El Paso hotel. The victim told police that while drinking at the bar of a hotel, Flores invited her back to his room at another hotel nearby, according to court documents.
According to court documents, when they arrived at Flores’ hotel room, he went into the bathroom, and after he exited, the victim went in to use it.
The victim said she exited the bathroom and observed Flores completely nude in bed using his phone. She said that she did not notice where he placed his phone after he used it, according to court documents.
According to court documents, they had “regular sexual intercourse,” and the victim told him that she was done and asked him if he was done, to which he replied, “I guess I am.”
Flores then lay down next to her and “laughed.” The victim said she was laying down on Flores’ left side. She also said Flores had his left arm around her with the back of her neck on top of his arm, and he was leaning up against her with his knee pressed up against her right lower thigh, right above the knee, according to court documents.
According to court documents, his knee was pushing down hard on her thigh to the point where she could not move. The victim said she told Flores to let her go and asked him what had happened to him, “he was so nice downstairs and now he changed.”
The victim said Flores told her to shut up and go to sleep. She said Flores used his body weight to hold her down to prevent her from getting up, according to court documents.
According to court documents, Flores, with an open right hand, struck her on the left side of the face three times. The victim said the first strike hit her on the left side of the mouth (lip area), and the second and third strikes hit her on the left cheek area near the ear.
The victim said the third strike was so hard that she felt pain and a weird sensation on the right side of her jaw, as if her jaw had popped out of place, according to court documents.
According to court documents, the victim said Flores then began choking her by placing his hands around her throat, then, after a few minutes, he let her go. She said she was trying to process what had occurred, and she began to cry.
Flores then got up, grabbed his phone, and began using it. He then placed his phone down on his nightstand with the screen facing up. The victim said she was sitting up and Flores had turned to face her and was also sitting on the bed, according to court documents.
According to court documents, Flores then asked the victim what was wrong with her and who had hurt her. The victim said she was taken aback by his demeanor due to him going from being “aggressive and angry to caring and nice.”
The victim said that as Flores was speaking, he leaned towards his phone and spoke into it, as if the phone was recording. The victim then asked Flores if he was recording, to which he replied, “I keep things for my records because of this,” according to court documents.
According to court documents, the victim said she became worried and upset and believed that Flores had possibly been recording them having sex. She also said that they exchanged words for several minutes with Flores telling her she could leave in a “dismissive manner.”
The victim said she got dressed and left the hotel room. She said that at no time did she give Flores consent to strike her on the face. She also said Flores restricted her movement and prevented her from leaving by putting his body weight and knees on top of her lower thigh. Flores also failed to move from his position even after the victim told him she wanted to leave, according to court documents.
Flores met with investigators and provided his own statement.
According to court documents, Flores said he met the victim and a group of her friends at a bar of a Downtown El Paso hotel where he socialized with them for a few hours. He told the victim that he had a room at the hotel and asked if she wanted to go. Flores said he had two room keys and gave one to the victim, and they both went up to the room together.
Flores said they got naked and started having sex. While having sex, Flores said that the victim told him to hit her. He stated that “it was not the first or the last time that a girl has told him to hit them,” so he did not think it was out of the “ordinary,” according to court documents.
According to court documents, Flores said that since he was on top of her face-to-face, he thought she meant to slap her. He said he proceeded to slap her on the face, but “since she was a girl, he did not want to slap her so hard and he had just met her so he slapped her twice on her face with minimal force.”
Flores said they continued having sex, and then he heard her whimpering. He said he pushed himself up, but since it was dark in the room, he could not see her face clearly, according to court documents.
According to court documents, Flores said he asked the victim what was wrong, and then she started crying. He then decided to get off her completely, and she got out of bed and started walking back and forth “frantically.”
Flores said he told her to “lay down with him and hold him,” to which he did. However, Flores said that not long after that, the victim got up from the bed again and started walking back and forth frantically and started saying, “you are all the same,” according to court documents.
According to court documents, Flores said that at that point, he decided to get his phone and start voice recording because it sounded like she was starting to accuse him. He then said he told her that she could leave the room if she wanted.
Flores played the audio recording to investigators, in which a conversation between him and the victim could be heard, according to court documents.
According to court documents, the investigators asked Flores why he recorded the conversation between himself and the victim, to which he said that it was because she started accusing that he hit her and wanted to document the incident to “protect himself.”
Flores said he didn’t record the sexual encounter and that what he had with the victim was “consensual and the two slaps he initiated on the victim were because of her request,” according to court documents.
We reached out to the El Paso Police Department, which provided the following statement:
“The incident was an off-duty incident that did not involve him acting in his capacity as a Police Officer. The incident was investigated by the El Paso Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit and presented to the District Attorney’s Office. At this time, he is on Administrative Duty pending the outcome of the Criminal Case and the Administrative Investigation by the Internal Affairs Division. At this time, there is no additional information we can provide.”
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