Pleads not guilty to 2012 double murder

Hernandez is arraigned and pleads not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of armed assault with intent to murder and one count of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon in connection with the shooting deaths of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Boston on July 16, 2012.

During the arraignment, prosecutor Patrick Haggan explains claiming Hernandez became upset after de Abreu bumped into him and spilled Hernandez’s beverage at the Cure Lounge on Tremont Street in the Theater District in July 2012. Haggan says Hernandez told his friend that de Abreu deliberately bumped him and was “trying him.”  The friend convinced Hernandez to leave the nightclub. They eventually drove around in Hernandez’s SUV. At some point Hernandez opened the hood of the SUV and retrieved a loaded, .38 caliber revolver. When de Abreu and Furtado left the club a short time later, Haggan says Hernandez followed them in his SUV and then pulled up alongside them as their vehicle stopped at a red light.

The defendant leaned out of the driver’s side window of the SUV with a loaded revolver in his hand, extended out and stated, ‘Yo, what’s up now?’ and then a racial slur.  The defendant immediately fired at least five rounds from a .38 caliber revolver into the victim’s car.

Witnesses reported hearing the clicking noise as the defendant continued to pull the trigger of the gun after all of the loaded bullets had been fired. Haggan says Hernandez and the unnamed associate then drove off taking the Massachusetts Turnpike westbound to Hartford, Connecticut. During the ride that night, “the defendant stated to his friend ‘I think I got one in the head and one in the chest.’”

Hernandez’s attorney claims that the prosecution is attempting to poison the jury pool by releasing details at the arraignment about a possible motive.  The judge, however, notes that such speeches are customary and that the defense also has a right to make its own case at this time, if it wants to.  The next court date will be on June 24.