ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – It’s been about a year since a St. Johns County Deputy died of a heart attack shortly after trying to arrest an 18-year-old migrant worker in St. Augustine.
Vergilio Aguilar-Mendez spent eight months in jail on what was initially a murder charge, then aggravated manslaughter.
The charges were dropped after a judge ruled Aguilar-Mendez was unfit to stand trial based on language barriers and cultural differences, and the deputy’s death did not rise to a homicide.
Only Sgt. Michael Kunovich knows why he tried to arrest Aguilar-Mendez.
Aguilar-Mendez’s attorneys said the incident should never have happened.
Rosemarie Peoples, his first attorney, said her priority in representing Aguilar-Mendez, was getting him out of jail. She took News4JAX to where Kunovich confronted Aguilar-Mendez in May 2023 and walked us through the scene based on Sgt. Kunovich’s body camera.
(The video may be disturbing for some viewers, so discretion is strongly advised. News4JAX is only publishing the first 2 minutes of the 9-minute video to be as transparent as possible, as well as respectful to the families. The video gives an unedited view of what happened leading up to the arrest.)
Peoples questioned why Kunovich called for assistance.
“[Aguilar-Mendez is] standing out here alone. Say that this was an investigatory stop. You have to have some sort of reasonable suspicion of some sort of criminal activity. Where is it?” Peoples said.
Kunovich questioned Aguilar-Mendez after he pulled up next to him outside the Super 8 motel near the St. Augustine Premium Outlets.
“When you saw me, you got up and walked away, why?” Kunovich asked Aguilar-Mendez.
Kunovich asked where Aguilar-Mendez was staying, and he indicated that he was staying at the motel.
“Well, why aren’t you eating inside?” Kunovich asked.
Peoples said deputies aren’t attorneys, and while she’s not blaming them, she argues the stop should have ended here.
“There’s no need for the stop. You know that he’s in this hotel. You know, he’s eating at this hotel. You know, he’s a tenant at this hotel. Right? So, he’s not trespassing,” said Peoples.
The 18-year-old told the sergeant repeatedly he doesn’t speak English.
His language barrier, cultural differences, and mental incompetency were listed as reasons the case was dismissed.
News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackey, who has more than 30 years of experience with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, said the charges being dropped doesn’t erase what happened or indicate Kunovich’s justification for stopping Aguilar-Mendez doesn’t exist.
News4JAX countered Hackney with how it also doesn’t erase the fact that when Aguilar-Mendez was being arrested, he didn’t understand English.
MORE: Video of arrest in St. Johns County highlights issues between police, Spanish-speaking residents
“They have a duty as a person in this country, not questioning their legality at all, just a person in this country, to follow the orders as best as they can,” Hackney said.
Hackney said it’s tough but if you are in America and you don’t speak English, somehow you need to try and understand what the police are asking of you.
“I don’t understand how that works,” News4JAX countered, but Hackney said, “What would you have the deputy do?”
News4JAX mentioned the 24/7, 365 translation services available for all St. Johns County deputies.
Hackney said in the moment it’s hard to know if this was a viable option for the deputy.
Kunovich continued to question Aguilar-Mendez and tried to search him for weapons.
News4JAX asked Peoples if this was a legal search, and if Kunovich could have been searching Aguilar-Mendez for his own safety.
“You’re going to find someone to argue yes, I am not that person,” she said. “What’s the crime that you’re searching for? At best we have you didn’t eat in your room.”
Eventually, things got physical between the two.
Deputy Kunovich yelled “Don’t pull away from me” while grabbing Aguilar-Mendez’s right arm.
Aguilar-Mendez also had a resisting with violence charge, and he was accused of trying to run away.
Peoples said what happened was not fleeing.
“It’s hard to say resisting when it’s clear he’s not understanding,” she said.
During the struggle, Aguilar-Mendez can be heard screaming “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no, no, no, hey family, family” while being Tased repeatedly and choked by another deputy who was demanding he put his hands behind his back.
“The amount of electricity that was coursing through this small body, and the answers that are coming out of his mouth is ‘I’m sorry.’ You’re seeing the state of mind here, he’s not trying to cause trouble. He’s just not understanding what’s happening,” said Peoples.
She said most of the physical struggle Aguilar-Mendez was in was with the other deputies, not Kunovich, who collapsed after the struggle.
The medical examiner said Kunovich’s cause of death was cardiac dysrhythmia and the circumstances did not fully meet the criteria for a homicide.
The report also showed Kunovich had several other health issues.
In December, News4JAX asked the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office if deputies have frequent medical checkups or physicals, and if so, how many a year. They said there were no responsive documents to our request.
“I don’t think you would find anybody from any law enforcement agency in Florida or anywhere else that would say that’s not a good idea. I think that is something that would truly be a huge benefit to that profession,” Hackney said.
News4JAX asked to sit down with the sheriff’s office and talk about how the department is moving forward in the wake of the incident and sent them these two questions:
“Have revelations about the condition of Sgt. Michael Kunovich led the department to review its protocols for health screenings of deputies? If so, in what way?”
“Has the department made any changes to protocol when it comes to interacting with subjects who speak a different language?”
News4JAX was told the department would get back to us.
“Based on the outcome, there are probably many things that related to this, that they want to go back and take a look at,” Hackney said. “Some of these procedural changes that we’ve talked about, maybe could prevent that in the future.”
Here’s a timeline to help keep track.
The incident happened on May 19, 2023. On May 25, Sheriff Robert Hardwick spoke about the case during a “violence against police” news conference.
It was the only time he spoke about it publicly.
“As the body camera footage will come out and show you, it was by the book, textbook, legal aspect, doing his job to the best of his abilities and duties. And all the suspects had to do was comply instead, the suspect chose to try and remove a knife from the left-hand pocket of his pants, and the struggle was on with Sergeant Michael,” Hardwick said.
On May 26, Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted “Kunovich was killed by an illegal immigrant who took advantage of our open border.”
When the case was dismissed in March 2024, Sheriff Hardwick also called Aguilar-Mendez an illegal, saying he stands by Kunovich’s actions.
“He was in immigration proceedings when this happened. He didn’t have an order of removal or anything. So, he was waiting for his immigration case to be processed,” said Dane Olsen, who was Aguilar-Mendez’s child advocate in April 2022 through the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. “Vergilio is definitely one that stood out as like, particularly just kind of calm and relaxed, and very humble, easy-going guy. Given what I knew about him, and the kind of person that he was, I was very shocked to see that he would have been, you know, wrapped up in anything like this.”
News4JAX asked Olsen about the headlines of people who are immigrants being criminalized, and he said that is not Aguilar-Mendez.
“I mean, I think there’s data that shows that, in fact, immigrants, on average, you know, commit less crime than anyone else in the country, especially undocumented immigrants,” said Olsen.
Imagine this case with no video. What if no one ever questioned what happened that night?
Some argue this case could have been dismissed from the beginning, and maybe Aguilar-Mendez didn’t have to spend eight months in jail.
“If you’re asking me if it took too long, yes,” Peoples said. “My issue is, we all saw the video. We all know, there’s no reason for that stop. We also know that he acted in no form violently. And at least the medical examiner was honest enough to say that he died of a heart attack and not blame it on this child or this young man.”
It’s a tragedy with no winners.
Kunovich was honored for National Police Week. His name was added to a memorial wall.
Aguilar-Mendez sent News4JAX this statement: “I am happy to be free, to be outside and to have the support of everyone who is helping me at the Maya Center and those who always supported me. Every day is a struggle, there are still difficult things that I try to overcome from the incident, but I feel happy to be free.”
The Arroyo Law Firm is representing Aguilar-Mendez in a federal civil rights lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act against St. Johns County, St. Johns County Sheriff Sgt. Jose Jimenez, and the personal representative of the estate of Sgt. Kunovich.
The lawsuit alleges it was clear to Kunovich that Aguilar-Mendez had limited English proficiency, they failed to give him an interpreter for the Mam language to allow him to understand his Miranda Rights before being interrogated, and that neither Kunovich nor Jimenez provided any interpretive aid including use of the 24/7 language line.