A Tarrant County registered sex offender is headed back to prison after a jury found him guilty of assaulting two Weatherford police officers — biting one of them — while he was being arrested for possession of methamphetamine in October.
The Parker County jury sentenced Bryan K. Hernandez, 39, of Sansom Park on Wednesday to 20 years in prison and assessed a $5,000 fine on each assault case. Hernandez pleaded guilty to possession of less than a gram of methamphetamine, for which jurors sentenced him to two years in prison and assessed a $10,000 fine.
The sentences will be served concurrently.
Hernandez will be eligible for parole when he serves a quarter of his sentence, prosecutors said.
“People say, ‘We back the blue,’ all the time,” said Parker County Assistant District Attorney Jeff Swain, who prosecuted the case along with Assistant District Attorney Susan Pruett. “Rarely, however, do people get the opportunity to actually do anything about it, to show those who protect us that we will also protect them.”
Hernandez was pulled over in October at an Interstate 20 exit after police received reports of a vehicle speeding up and down and weaving shoulder to shoulder, according to trial testimony and police video.
After being stopped, Hernandez told the officers he was coming down from methamphetamine and kept falling asleep.
Hernandez passed a sobriety test but told officers there were marijuana and methamphetamine pipes in the vehicle. Officers found the pipes and a bag containing a small amount of methamphetamine in the vehicle.
Hernandez, described by prosecutors as a 300-pound powerlifter, threw officers to the ground when they tried to arrest him and bit one of them in the hand when they finally got him down, Swain said.
During the punishment phase of the trial, prosecutors told jurors that Hernandez had convictions and prison sentences for sexual assault of 15-year-old girl, indecency with a child and failure to register as a sex offender.
Domingo Ramirez Jr.: 817-390-7763, @mingoramirezjr
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